Stockton Beach revisited

Back in 2008, I carried a post, New England Story - Stockton Beach, telling a little of the story of Stockton Beach.

Photo: Cabins threatened following erosion at Stockton Beach near Newcastle. Photo Save Stockton Beach

I was reminded of this by an ABC story Newcastle beachside cabins in danger of toppling into sea after wild weather. There have been erosion problems for some time.

I was glad to have been reminded of my original post for its quite a good yarn. Some of my points were challenged in comments and especially the existence or otherwise of Tin City. I haven't resolved this. However, Tin City remains a recognised shooting location for some of the scenes in the first Mad Max movie.

Could Newcastle trams have come back?

Nice piece by Mike Scanlon in the Newcastle Herald on the ending of Newcastle trams and the possibility but, for just one vote, they may have been returned.

At this point I am just recording the story for later reference.

Hard Yards: Story of the Newcastle Knights Rugby League team

I see from a story in the Newcastle Herald that a full history of the Newcastle Knights Rugby League team has been released

I have a soft spot for the Knights having been following them since their   first entry to the competition in 1988.

It's been a sometimes turbulent time with some highs and a fair few lows that in some ways reflects the history of Newcastle itself.

Written by award-winning Newcastle Herald journalist Robert Dillon, Hard Yards: The Story of the Newcastle Knights tells  the complete history of the much loved team. It covers every player, every game, every triumph, every loss and every controversy.

How to purchase

Books can be ordered now for $39.95* (plus postage and handling) through the Newcastle Herald online shop by clicking here.

You can also buy the book from the front office of the Newcastle Herald at 28 Honeysuckle Drive, Newcastle; Maitland Mercury, Level 1, Suite 2/12 Elgin Street, Maitland; The Advertiser, 155 Vincent Street, Cessnock; Singleton Argus, 6-8 Campbell Street, Singleton; and Muswellbrook Chronicle, 1-2/6 Commercial Centre Market Lane, Muswellbrook.

Available too at nextra Group Newsagencies: Westfield Kotara, Cessnock, Warners Bay Plaza, Stockland Glendale, Marketown, Raymond Terrace, Mount Hutton, Mayfield and Hamilton.

$1 from each book sold will be donated to the Mark Hughes Foundation.

Japan's Nihon University may establish campus in Newcastle

According to the Newcastle Morning Herald, Japan's Nihon University has chosen Newcastle as its first bricks and mortar university in Australia.

If you read the tone of the editorial, you will see that the paper is playing it's role as Newcastle's booster. I have no complaints with that, and indeed it is a sign of Newcastle's progressive maturation.

Newcastle has always had its own character, but for too long its been under the shadow of Sydney, a lesser city often ignored and indeed subsumed into a strange entity called Greater Sydney. It's been interesting watching the changes in the city over the last few years, including the growing role of the University of Newcastle in supporting change.

As the editorial notes, Nihon will add to Newcastle's depth without distracting from Newcastle Uni.

Newcastle news - Knight's sponsorship, Muswellbrook coal mine extension universally approved, Pacific National job losses

Health fund nib is to be the Newcastle Knight's major sponsor for the next three years in a deal worth around $1 million a year.

Meantime, it is not clear just how the sale process for the club is going. After the financial collapse of Nathan Tinkler, the club was taken over by the National Rugby League (NRL).

The NRL launched the sale process two months ago, appointing Tony Garrett, the head of mergers and acquisitions at Deloitte Australia, to broker a transaction they hope will be completed by Christmas. Since then, all parties have been bound by confidentiality agreements, so whatever progress has been made behind closed doors appears a closely guarded secret.

In another Newcastle Herald story, it appears that Muswellbrook Shire Council has given the shire’s oldest mine a green light to finish what it started more than a century ago.At an extra ordinary meeting on Wednesday evening, councillors unanimously approved a Muswellbrook Coal Company development application to continue mining until mid-2022. Muswellbrook Coal senior operations manager Grant Clouten said there was three years of resource remaining at the site, and the company was doing the right thing by the community to continue its work. The motion was supported by CFMEU Northern Mining and NSW Energy District vice president Jeff Drayton who addressed council, and a full public gallery, presenting reasons why the expansion should be approved.

On a less positive note, Pacific National is reported as cutting another 121 jobs. Union organiser Steve Wright said 32 drivers’ positions were going from Port Waratah, with eight from Greta, 12 from Gunnedah, nine from Narrabri and 23 from Port Kembla. The company was also moving all of its “live run” planning and rostering positions to North Sydney, costing another 24 jobs at Port Waratah, nine at Greta and five in the Illawarra. Coal has always been a cyclical industry, so the losses are not surprising.  .

Newcastle eLearning company launches online platform to help teachers build their own courses

New product launch that I found interesting. The story draws from the press release, but I'm interested in both prmoting New England businesses and in the application of new technology in education. 

Newcastle based edtech company Futura Group, today launched eCoach BETA, a cloud-based platform providing high school teachers with simple tools to build and design their own engaging online courses.

The eCoach allows teachers to transform their own materials into online courses attractive to students. 

According to Jude Novak (eCoach Product Manager), “courses made with the eCoach can be used to promote discovery, problem solving, and decision making in a fun and engaging way. The builder includes over 20 easy to use drag-and-drop eLearning templates to ensure that students have a great educational experience online”.

The company argues that with escalating professional demands such as reporting, compliance and benchmarking, teachers are increasingly time-poor; to stay ahead of the technology curve and deliver tech-savvy students with interactive course content would normally mean developing design skills or learning complex authoring software.

“Some teachers simply don’t have the time or design knowledge to create high-quality eLearning. The eCoach gives them everything they need to build interactive resources, without the headache of learning how to use complicated software”.

The eCoach is a cloud-based solution and courses are smartphone compatible and BYOD ready, meaning that students will be able to access courses at home, ‘on the go’, or in the classroom. This ‘build once and use anywhere’ approach means that the eCoach can be easily paired with popular tools like Google Classroom to transform teaching and learning in high schools.  

Google’s Education tools are widely used by teachers (both here and abroad) to foster collaboration and creativity. “Using the eCoach in tandem with such tools will help students have fun while they discover information and interact with new ideas”.    

“It looks great!” said Rachel McCann, PDHPE Teacher at Mudgee High School. “It’s not only highly engaging, but it provides a kind of consistent shape and form to lesson resources. I also love the fact that I can easily share courses I’ve made with my students using Google Classroom for safe and secure access.”

There are currently 175 teachers registered for eCoach BETA. Anyone interested in the eCoach can request access via the website: http://ecoach.com.au

Two Newcastle MPs go, is the Mayor next?

The ICAC (Independent Commission against Corruption) Inquiry has now claimed the resignations of two Liberal Party MPs, Charlestown MP Andrew Cornwell (photo right) and Newcastle MP Tim Owen.

I haven’t commented to this point, but its really quite amazing, Having broken back into the traditionally Labor dominated Newcastle and the Lower Hunter, the Liberal Party has effectively imploded on the techniques used to gain election.

This piece from the Newcastle Herald provides a reasonably good introduction to the issues. Its hard to see how Newcastle Lord Mayor Jeff McCloy can possibly survive all this given his role in the whole affair. 

The final Newcastle wool sale

This photo shows wool industry representatives gathered for the final Newcastle wool sale in February 2013.

In my History Revisited column in the Armidale Express I looked at the history of wool sales in Newcastle. The posts are:

• History revisited – the shears stop in Newcastle
• History Revisited – NENCO, Newcastle & wool sales part 2

The sale marked the end of an era. Wool selling began at Newcastle because Northern growers demanded it and fought for it. It stopped in the end because the combination of technology with the decline of wool and wool growing made it unviable.

Still, sad,

Newcastle revitalisation

One of these days, I have to find the time to spend a weekend in Newcastle with camera and map, just walking the streets. I make this point because the collapse of the GPT deal that would, in theory at least, have revitalised the Newcastle CBD  has led to some very conflicting comments.

The impact of change and especially the continued growth of large shopping centres on central town areas within New England has been quite profound, from the Newcastle CBD to the Armidale mall to Lismore. At a personal level, I find the shopping malls quite useful, but I really don't like them. They transform variety into a standardised pap that is the same wherever you go.

I suppose that I have become something of a passionate supporter of Newcastle revitalisation. I have never lived in the city, just visited over a long period. Yet it has been important enough to me during that time to want to see it emerge from the shadows that have so often surrounded it as a distinct entity in its own right.

Now someone from Newcastle might say, rightly, that of course it's a distinct entity. I would fully accept that criticism. My point is that nobody outside Newcastle really knows that it is!

When I look at the comments on the Newcastle CBD revitalisation, I am struck by just how inward looking they are. To be fair, I have applied the same criticism to other New England centres such as Maitland or Armidale. We all suffer from border myopia.

Accepting that I do not have the detailed knowledge of Newcastle that I should and that I am writing as a sympathetic outsider, I would make just three points about Newcastle CBD revitalisation.  

First, Newcastle is, or is not, a a centre in its own right. To my mind it is, a place with a distinct history and culture. I know this because I research and write about it. If it is, then there needs to be an overall Newcastle strategy that builds upon Newcastle's special features. This then provides a context for CBD revitalisation.

Secondly, if people won't immediately come as visitors to the CBD, then you need to bring them as residents. My feeling is that central Newcastle potentially provides a rather wonderful urban living environment. If I'm right, you don't necessarily need a grand plan for urban revitalisation, simply a planning environment that encourages inner city living. Get people, and vibrancy follows.

Thirdly, while there is nothing necessarily wrong with grand plans such as that put forward by GPT, a lot of the best development comes from organic, incremental, growth. Start small, and let the flowers bloom.

Here I noticed the way in which light vs heavy rail became a show stopper. Now my personal view is that Newcastle should be cautious about getting rid of heavy rail because once it's gone, you can't get it back. I am also influenced by what I see as a fact, that once people from Sydney or other places have to change trains, you lose people.

In my vision of Newcastle CBD, I see loaded trains unloading people in the city centre so that they can enjoy the essential city. I don't see people doing this when they have to drag their luggage from one station to another, then try to fit their luggage into light rail designed for city computers.

Maybe I'm wrong. I am an outsider. What do you think?    

Newcastle, Niagara and the Greeks in Australia

Note to readers: A week since my last post! This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday 18 November 2009. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here.

I have been re-reading William Claridge’s The Pommy Town Years: Memories of Mayfield and Other Tales of the Twenties.

I bought the book on a trip north through Newcastle to Armidale with my then young daughters. I wanted to buy a local history and it was the only Newcastle specific book I could find.

Before I go on, a few questions that someone may be able to answer.

I was trying to remember the Greek cafes in Armidale during the 1950s. I know that the Rologas’s had Nicks on the south eastern side of Beardy Street. A little way up on the other side of the road was, I think, the Niagara, although I cannot remember the name of the family that owned it.

In the next block on the southern side near the Richardson end was the Cominos’s IXL. In the following block across the road from the Capitol Theatre was another. I am not sure of the name (the Capri?), nor can I remember who owned it.

Can you help me with the details?

Now this may seem a long way from the opening paragraphs of this column, but there is a connection.

To write a history of the broader New England as I am presently trying to do, I need to understand the history of Newcastle, the North’s great industrial city. Always part of the North yet also separated from it by its own clannish working class culture, Newcastle was neither fish nor fowl.

Proudly trade union and Labor, yet Newcastle did not and does not quite fit in with the dominant Labor tradition and power structures. English, Anglican and Protestant, not Irish or Roman Catholic, Newcastle’s roots lie in the industrial culture of Northern England. This is the world my Belshaw grandparents came from.

In reading William Claridge’s memoirs, I am trying to understand a little more of the complicated threads in Newcastle’s history.

William Claridge was born in Bristol in 1909. He came to Australia in 1920 when his father emigrated as part of a group of John Lysaght Bristol workers recruited to set up a new Lysaght plant in Newcastle making galvanized iron. A second group of workers came from Lysaght’s Welsh plant at Newport.

By the time the Lysaght group arrived in Newcastle, that city had moved a long way from its original migrant roots. There was in fact considerable distrust among the generally local born and very clannish Newcastle workers for these new Pommy arrivals.

The attachment of the name Pommy Town to the new estate Lysaght built for its workers was quite derogatory at first. At school, young William was involved in constant playground fights. It took time for the new arrivals to be accepted.

William Claridge’s book is interesting not just as a story, but because it focuses on the detail of local and industrial life. This is where the Greek connection comes in.

I knew from Geoffrey Blainey’s Black Kettle and Full Moon that the Greeks had really introduced fine dining to Australia. It would be hard, I suspect, for modern Australians to get their minds round the fact that the heyday of Australian café society with its huge Greek eating establishments was probably the period between 1890 and 1910, a flowering that was then largely snuffed out by war.

The Greek influence was not limited to Sydney or Melbourne.

I now know from the notes to Mr Claridge’s book that the first ever Niagara café was opened in Newcastle in 1898.

Angelo Burgess (Bourzos) came to Australia from Greece via the US. There he had been impressed by two things: American novelties such as hamburgers, milkshakes and ice-creams and the Niagara Falls. The first provided the menu, the second the name.
In 1911 the Karanges brothers, one of whom was Angelo’s godson, emigrated to Newcastle. When Angelo Burgess died, Theo Karanges took over the business, while brother Michael opened his own Niagara café a few kilometres away.

Theo and Michael were followed by many more in a chain migration from their original village.

By the 1920s, the period Mr Claridge focuses on in his book, Newcastle had no less than 25 Greek owned cafes!

Newcastle's Heritage Problems

It is now several years since my last proper visit to Newcastle. I have been there twice in the last few years, but I was running workshops and just went from the airport to the venue. This means that I am not in a position to properly comment on a story by Debra Jopson in today's Sydney Morning Herald.

For those who do not know Newcastle, the old central city has always been Newcastle's jewel. This is an area of historic buildings, including buildings dating from the City's past as a penal settlement. Now it appears that this is under threat.

The photo shows the historic, now vacant and apparently vandalised, Newcastle post office.   

According to the story, Newcastle's centuries-old inner city has about 150 empty buildings. Hunter Street, the main street, presents a parade of boarded shopfronts and vandalised buildings once considered architectural gems. Nearby, the city's shopping mall is in deep decline.

I said that I could not comment properly, but if true the story suggests an unfolding tragedy.

The last time I spent a few full days in Newcastle, I was struck by the apartments along the river, blocking out the water. I was also struck by the decline in the CBD. Things seem to have got worse.

Poor Newcastle. In 1967 we lost the New England New State plebiscite on your vote when you obeyed the directives of the then Sydney ALP Government and voted no. I understand the deep tribal and class loyalties within Newcastle, the reasons why you followed orders even though it was against your own economic interests.

I take absolutely no pleasure in your problems. Newcastle is New England's big city, one of the keys to the history of Northern New South Wales. I was very young when I first visited Newcastle, and I loved it. It was so different.

Since then I have watched Newcastle's growing emasculation.

It's not all bad. In pure life-style terms, Newcastle still offers one of, if not the greatest, combinations in the country. Dare I say it?, possibly even better than Armidale! I stand to be corrected, South Australians might challenge me, but to my mind there is no other place in Australia that offers such a combination of city and country. Newcastle also has a vibrant cultural life.

So, as I said, its not all bad. Still, if Debra Jopson's story is in any way correct, there is a fair bit of work involved in re-building central Newcastle.

Newcastle harbour c1900

This is a scan of a postcard from an album containing photograph and postcards of Newcastle, NSW. 1900-1945. The album is from the records of the Newcastle and Hunter District Historical Society which are held in the Archives of the University of Newcastle.

I have been looking around trying to find photos of Newcastle in the first years of the twentieth century.

This is the period before the first steel works, construction of which began in 1913.

From my viewpoint, I am fascinated by the differences across New England, as well as the similarities and linkages. Newcastle and the lower Hunter were always different from other parts of the North because of the area's industrial base. The sometimes troubled relationship between Newcastle and other parts of New England is one element in New England's history.

For a summary history of the Newcastle steel plant see here.

Newcastle's busy airport

Recently I have flown in and out of Newcastle a number of times. I have been meaning for a little while to record my impression of Newcastle's airport. In simple terms, I was amazed at just how busy it has become.

I have always felt that Newcastle should become more of a hub. Truncated at it is from its natural New England heartland, it is still a natural rival to Sydney.

Well, based on my recent experience it seems to be getting there. Obviously Kingsford Smith dwarfs Newcastle and how. But the place is still growing!

Newcastle's Vibrant Cultural Life - entry page

Photo: Central Newcastle viewed from Stockton across the Hunter River.

Newcastle, New England's biggest city with a population of 289,000, lies towards the southern edge of New England, 153k (2 hours) north of Sydney, 394k (4 hours 50 minutes) south of Armidale.

Newcastle is often seen just as an industrial city - Australia's original steel city - and increasingly as simply an outer part of the ever expanding Greater Sydney metro conglomeration.

Newcastle is indeed an industrial city. This is an integral part of its culture, one that distinguishes the city from other parts of New England. But part of Sydney it is not. Newcastle always has been and remains its own very distinct entity.

It is hard for those living in Sydney to see and recognise Newcastle's distinguishing features.

Sydney and Newcastle have little in common in terms of history or culture. The Sydney media carries few Newcastle stories. Few in Sydney think of Newcastle as having a distinct cultural life of its own. Yet the city does, one arguably different from any other part of Australia.

I say this with a degree of frustration because, living in Sydney as I now do as part of the New England diaspora, I find it difficult to keep across Newcastle activities.

To fully understand a place like Newcastle you need to live there, or at least visit regularly. I do not and presently cannot. Still, accepting that I will make errors, I am establishing this page to provide an entry point for future posts about Newcastle cultural life.

Hunter Valley Walks

Photo: Sundara Rajagopalanm, Tranquil setting. Photo from ABC Newcastle Radio breakfast.

I found by accident a rather nice if still incomplete story on ABC Newcastle on Hunter Valley walks, especially around Newcastle. I must try some of them on my next visit.

At a dinner party in Sydney recently I was arguing to friends that Newcastle must now be one of the most civilised places to live in Australia. I was pleased to find that a number agreed with me. Even with those who did not, I think that I have actually encouraged some to visit.

Media Hunter - a new blog

In my browsing I was pleased to discover Media Hunter, a new blog started by Craig Wilson from Sticky Advertising.

I mention this because the blog already contains some interesting material about the Australian media with a particular focus on Newcastle and the Hunter.