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FINCH HATTON PROGRESS ASSOCIATION INC.
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Down Memory Lane...

17/3/2021

7 Comments

 
As time moves through the 21st century, it is easy to lose the stories and recollections of eras long gone. In a little time capsule of its own, we bring you these recollections from Graeme Ware, one of our long-time locals, who has captured some pieces of our history. We hope you enjoy the read!
(Antique picture postcard from internet search)

Picture
By Graeme Ware
​

The Cedar Hotel and Cedar Theatre
were built in 1911 entirely from Red Cedar, and were located down near the Ambulance station, approximately where the navvies’ shed is now.

The first Licence was issued to George Warburton on the 5th July, 1911. The School of Arts building was close by, where the Rural Fire shed currently stands. The last licensee was Fred Shaw and the hotel itself was owned in partnership by Fred Shaw and fellow local, Jim Barklay.

Because the hotel was situated out of the main part of town and there were two other pubs in Hatton, its business slowly declined until it became unprofitable and was shut down. My mother Grace Ware (nee Shaw) and her siblings were distraught at their father shutting the Cedar down as it had been their home for most of their lives. The one big attraction to the Shaw kids was that the Cedar had an attic, a great place for them to play.

After the Cedar Hotel closed down, Freddy took over the licence of the Royal Hotel which was on the western side of the General Store in Hatton. It was built by Dave Waters in 1904 and was called The Cattle Creek Hotel originally. The Royal had a hall beside it as well, with a projection room for showing pictures. It also had a balcony inside the hall. There was a general store on the eastern side of the hall.

The whole complex was destroyed by fire on the 25th October 1962, the same day Cattle Creek Mill caught on fire. It was lucky the Mackay fire brigade was out attending the mill fire and was able to go to the Royal fire; if it hadn’t been in Hatton at the time, the whole of the street would have been burnt out. At the time, the creek was running right in against the bank where you go through the flood wall onto the old Gorge road (Zarb’s Crossing), so the fire engine was able to pump directly from the creek to the fire.

After the Cedar closed down in 1938, the hotel was bought by Mrs Pomeroy in 1940 and moved into Mackay opposite the old railway station in Boddington Street. It was set up as a boarding house and was still in use into the ‘70s. The Cedar Theatre was moved from where it was built down near the Hot Water Gully , as we used to call it, up onto the corner going around to the old Post Office. It then underwent a bit of a revamp. The middle section of the verandah was removed and a brick projection room and entrance were added. The open verandah on either side was then closed in to make two rooms. The eastern room was used as a store room, kiosk and ticket office, while the western room was used for accommodation. Beverly Moule, widow of the late Duffy Moule, and their children, lived in the front room after Duffy was killed on River Hill near Broken River whilst clearing the power line to Crediton with Noel Patello in 1960. Pat and Pam Moule also lived in that room when they were first married. I fondly remember going to Junior Farmers’ concerts run by Peggy Shaw and Heather Langdon, with skits such as ‘Tie me Kangaroo Down, Sport’, ‘A strapping young stockman lay dying’, ‘The only man on the Island’, the Rick and Thel show, Enrico the hypnotist and of course, the pictures in the Cedar Theatre. Mattie O’Neill told me that they had a big ball in the Cedar in 1963 in honour of Tricia Reschke who was the current Miss Australia; it was the first time a Miss Australia had visited Mirani Shire. This was one of the rare occasions where the theatre was transformed into a ballroom, with the pictures cancelled for the occasion.

The Cedar was like all the old picture shows in the district, as we called them, with three rows of canvas seats and a stage up front under the screen. Pictures were screened Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Picture night usually started off with ‘God Save the Queen’ for which we all stood and sang, then the newsreel which started with a DC3 aeroplane looking as if it was going to fly out of the screen (which reminds me of the open-air theatre in Broome where the planes fly right over the top of the screen when taking off from the aerodrome).  There would normally be a cartoon, then a picture, and half time where you could buy refreshments from the theatre itself or walk across the road to the café. Most of the men used to slip over to either one of the pubs for a quick beer, then conveniently forget to come back. In those days, a lot of farmers and people who lived out of town used to do their shopping at one of the shops before the pictures started, on Saturday night, that is.

Quite often around election time, the local politicians would be up on the verandah of the Criterion Hotel in front of Roy Jarman’s barber shop or the hall pushing their point. The QATB would also have their spinning wheel set up on the verandah, running raffles. Many a romance started in the old canvas seats of the Cedar Theatre and possibly a life or two as well.

After half time there would be another cartoon, then the main picture.

Vic also used to patrol the aisles in the theatre, keeping an eye on all us young fellas…. and our girls. Pat Moule also attended to anyone who was making a noise throughout the film.

In my early childhood, a lot of people didn’t have motor cars so they used to come to the pictures in their trucks with the cane bodies on the back that were built very low with steel hoops over the back wheels. This made it easier to load the cane by hand. So, the main street would be filled with trucks backed into the gutter of a Saturday night. It was also compulsory to drive up to the old Chestnut tree at the end of town and do a U turn then head back east and reverse park. Vic Abraham, the local Sergeant, was very strict in enforcing this rule; I still do that to this day … mostly.

We usually walked to the pictures because we didn’t own a car. If it was raining, we’d sometimes go in the Dodge truck Dad and Grandad had to cart cane with. One night when Dad, Mum, Gary and myself were walking to the pictures, I stepped over a taipan lying on the road at the Hot Water Gully. I don’t remember this happening but my brother Gary reminded me of it a couple of years ago when there was a big one dead in the same place; it’d been run over by a car.  

When Gary went off to boarding school, Mrs Kate Ringuet was the ticket seller, and wouldn’t let Gary in for kids’ price anymore, so Mum told us that if she tried to charge him full price we weren’t allowed to go to the pictures. We went home, two unhappy boys that night.

Another night I walked to the pictures on my own and the film, ‘The Black Scorpion’ was the feature; anyway, it was pretty scary and on my way home under the mango trees in front of the railway station in the pitch dark (no street lights then), Frank Hutchinson, the plumber at the mill, staggered up behind me as full as a boot, put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘How you going mate?’ We lived down in the second house coming into Hatton on the left-hand side and I reckon I took two steps and I was home in bed. (I wasn’t going; I was gone!)

The Moule family owned the Cedar Theatre and the Coronation Theatre in Gargett. They then built the Gargett Drive- In Theatre, closed the Gargett Theatre down, shifted the projectors from Gargett to Hatton and took the projectors from Hatton and installed them in the Drive In.

The reason for this was that the Cedar projectors were particularly good and showed nice and bright on the screen, whereas the Gargett projectors were a lot duller as we all found out when we went to the pictures after the swap.

During the crushing, you quite often had to dodge the steam trains and cane wagons bringing the stick cane down from Netherdale out the front of the Cedar, or they could be shunting railway wagons loaded with logs or sawn timber enroute from Netherdale to Mackay. We also had the sugar train to contend with every night, taking the raw sugar from the mill to the harbour. If it was now, with the crazy world we live in, the whole bloody place would have to be cordoned off. In those days we were all born with common sense and knew that if we stepped in front of the train, we would surely die…. and it would be our own fault, nobody else’s. On one occasion, the timber trucks got away from the Netherdale railway station and raced through Hatton. They hit a steam loco crossing the main line in front of the mill, tipping the loco over and tearing the wheels out from under the wagons. They pulled up between the line and the road in front of the Ambulance Station. I think this was shortly after everyone had gone home from the pictures; it would have been a real tragedy if the pictures were just coming out. The wagons would have come out of the darkness like a bullet and ploughed through the crowd.
​
Unfortunately, the Cedar Theatre burned to the ground one night after the pictures in 1969.

The Moule family owned it at the time. Glen and Marge Cameron owned the butcher shop and the house beside the picture show; they were very lucky not to have lost their house as well. Dad, Grandad and I were camped at Annandale Station west of Nebo building a dam, and Grandad heard on the early morning ABC news that the picture show had burned down the night before, a Saturday night. He told us when we came back to the camp for breakfast. Anyway, Mum and my fiancée, Robyn, brought tucker up to us that day and when they got out of the car they said, “Guess what happened last night?” and we said, “the Cedar burned down”. They weren’t impressed that we already knew. Mum and Rob heard the fire engine screaming past home and raced outside; they could see the glow in the sky so jumped in the car in their PJ’s and raced up to see the last of it disappear in flames.

​It was the end of an era for Mum and the people of Finch Hatton and district. A lot of people had a lot of good times at the Cedar, including this little black duck.

I’ve written this article from memory as most of the information I had got burned when I was burnt out, so I stand to be corrected if I have names, dates and events wrong. I hope you have enjoyed this trip down memory lane. 
 

7 Comments
judith rowe
8/1/2022 05:15:18 pm

Hi, i would like to add to your story, that my parents Herbert and Mavis Bird were the licences of The Royal Hotel when it burnt down in 1962. They had moved to the hotel, with my elder brother Roy and younger brother Terry, following the devastating flood in 1958 when they lost everything. we were living in a tent on the bank of the river at the time. My brother Roy Bird would have more detail than I can recall. I recall the name Mattie ONeal being mentioned many time. Judith Nee Bird

Reply
Graeme Ware
28/2/2022 10:21:33 am

How are you today Judith. A friend of mine just showed me my story and your reply. I don't remember you or your younger brother Judith, however I do remember your family living down the creek and being washed away in 58 and finding a lot of your possessions strewn along the creek bed when the water went down. Your Dads trucks or what was left of them were parked across the street from the police station for a long time, I think you lived in the house there. I took my mum to Mareeba for her 90th birthday to catch up with her cousin who was 90 the same year, that would have been 2009 and while we were there I tracked Roy and his wife whose name avoids me at the moment down for a yarn. I made a DVD up some years ago called the Late 50's early 60's and gave a copy to Roy. He rang me the next day to ask if he could copy it and send it to your dad because he was sure it was your mother with Frank Langford beside his plane up at the Hatton Airstrip. Did you get to see the DVD at all Judith, there was footage of the Royal burning down and of the creek being straightend up right where your camp used to be. I was told just recently that Roy was down in Pinnacle not to long ago.
I hope this note finds you well Judith.
Take care.
Kind regards,
Graeme Ware 🇦🇺

Reply
judith rowe nee bird
28/2/2022 12:27:42 pm

Hello Graeme, thank you for all that information. I do not recall seeing the DVD, but would love to if at all possible. Roy is still in Mareeba, and I am sure if you head that way again, he would welcome contact. I will also pass on this email to him. Roy has just complied a short book on our history around our parents.
Yes I am well, hope you are the same and would like to contribute to the Memory Lane when possible.

Cheers Jude
Please stay in touch.

Peter Moule
25/4/2022 05:28:39 pm

To Graeme Ware,
Graeme,
As you can see from my surname, I was intrigued to find a Jim Moule Street in Gargett. I live in Sydney NSW ( although born in the UK) and was driving to Finch Hatton a couple of weeks ago when I saw the street sign - I stopped by the CWA hall where a group of ladies told me the Moule family owned the theatre & drive in at Gargett - I then googled and found your article about Duffy & Beverley Moule, and a reference to Pat & Pam Moule. Do you have any more information about the Moule clan? Are there any left? and where did they come from originally? Thanks - Peter Moule

Reply
judith rowe
26/4/2022 02:10:49 pm

Hi Graeme, sorry I am unable to provide you with any details regarding this family. My brother Roy who is older than I am, has a great memory. I can check with him, or you could contact him direct.

Jude

Reply
Graeme Ware
20/7/2022 09:39:30 pm

I'm sorry, Peter, but your enquiry was only just brought to my attention. There are still Moules in the district, and Pam Moule (nee Ware) who is married to Pat Moule, is my second cousin. I am friends with Pam and her daughter on Facebook. Perhaps you could look me up on Fb and I could ask Pam if she would like to contact you. I don't know much about the Moule's origin but do know they came to the Gargett area over 60 years ago. Pat Moule is Duffy's brother and I think they are Jim's nephews. You'd need to confirm this with the family though.
Kind regards
Graeme

Reply
Allan Henderson
25/11/2022 08:50:42 am

Hello Grahame, Loved reading about Finch Hatton, my Grandfather Bob Henderson was the Station Master at Gargett & then Finch Hatton in the fifties & i lived with them fron 54 to 58 at Finch Hatton. Bill Likidis owned the pictures, Sam Jenkins the shop opposite the Post Office, Jim Barty the shop near the top pub & 99percent sure the Barclays the Criterion Hotel.
When i was there a timber wagon got away from Netherdale ,went through the town ,never hit anything, but Highams hill stopped it & came back towards town, & only when the rail motor left Finch Hatton it came across it.Caused qutie a stir. Was a great town in that era. regards

Reply



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  • HOME
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