You had to write 'Why is this
person important?'
This nomination is really the story of all those people that ran the country cinemas,
from the travelling picture show men to the regular Saturday night
screenings in those small halls. They gave those towns, and the people who
would travel in from miles around, a glimpse of the world outside, a
social focus and a dark corner to hold hands with a new girlfriend. The
projectionist made it happen, he was the showman. From the opening of the
curtain to the hand drawn slides of local businesses at interval. There
were always the serials, the cartoons and two features. Along with the pleasure
they gave
to all those patrons, always striving for the best showbiz presentation,
this particular picture show man passed the love of movies and the technology behind
it to his eldest son.
That's me.
Text from the Peoplescape website- annotated.
What contribution has this person made?
As a young twenty year old, Fred Harden (he never used his first name Herbert, hating the abbreviation 'Bert') gave up the idea of being a farmer when the travelling picture show came through Gippsland and noticing his mechanical ability when he helped fix a problem generator, asked if he'd like to work as an assistant projectionist. For the next few years they moved through most of the country towns in South East Victoria.
His job was also unpacking the generator and setting up the equipment each night, in the town or church halls while his boss sold the tickets. Local girls would get to be usherettes for free entry, and more than a few would eye this tall young man working in the flickering light. During WWII he was an Australian Army radio operator in New Guinea, but still worked as one of the projectionists on the regular outdoor screenings they held amid the mud and mosquitos. The army trained him as an electrical engineer which he continued after the war.
Returning from New Guinea (with malaria and white hair), he married a girl who was one of the usherettes in one of those high country sawmill towns (Powelltown, Vic.), and started a family. They moved to the town of Walwa, on the Murray river, up past Albury were he took the job of changing the Walwa Butter Factory from steam machinery to electric generators. Of course he soon started the local picture shows there with a friend, Alan Wilson. At first they projected from the horse stalls at the back of the Walwa bakery, with the patrons in the open air sitting in deckchairs. Then from a real bio-box he helped design when the town's Returned Services Hall was built.
As his family grew and the Butter Factory closed, he moved them to Corryong, then to Melbourne, always working at nights as a projectionist, and then as a cinema equipment installer for Hoyt's in the first of those new fads, the Drive-In.
His old travelling picture show boss sold him the lease on his own theatre in Traralgon. Fred and his wife Betty ran the local picture theatre there for years, becoming involved in the town, running shows three nights a week with a kids matinee on Saturday. When TV killed of the theatre trade, he wasn't bitter, closed the theatre and since he'd learned how to repair TVs moved into servicing.
They moved back to Melbourne, travelled around Australia, and as his health and eyesight slowly failed settled near my sister in Diamond Creek outside Melbourne. He was blind for the last years of his life but I like to think there were enough images in his head from those years of movies to last him till the end.