The rugged lives of the film pioneers behind old Hunter cinemas

Well, all the buildings would simply not exist if it wasn't for the movie-going public's continuing love of motion pictures from the pioneer travelling picture-show men once showing silent black-and-white "flickers" on hand-cranked projectors in country halls.

These screen gypsies eventually settled down to run films (later "talkies") at permanent venues in big cities and towns throughout NSW and the nation. And although the last movie credits ran at our three local theatres years ago, what they also have in common is that they are all being revived and kept, in one form or another.

The heritage-listed "new" Victoria Theatre in Perkins Street, for example, is now being revived for live entertainment. It's the oldest theatre still standing in NSW and one of the oldest in Australia. Closed to live shows in 1966 to become a clothing store, the NSW Government has provided $4.1 million towards its restoration with its latest owner (since 2016), Next Century Trust, matching the contribution to revive it to its former splendour.

A true cultural asset, it's Newcastle's first purpose-built theatre, replacing a makeshift one from 1852 at the rear of a Watt Street hotel.

The "new" Victoria Theatre (from 1876) was then rebuilt on the same Perkins Street site in 1890-91 with a classical facade. Some moving pictures probably began being shown here around 1900 between live shows and vaudeville acts.

And the other two theatres? The Tower Cinemas, in King Street opposite Crown Street, opened in 1976 to replace the Strand Theatre in the Hunter Street Mall. The Tower closed in December 2018 but is now being refurbished.

The final member of the theatre trio is the former Lyrique/Showcase in Wolfe Street. It originally opened as a Masonic Hall in 1910, then became The Lyric movie house in 1915. It probably closed in the 1990s, then being run by Margaret and Theo Goumas. Most of the structure was demolished recently for new apartments. Today the front facade and rear wall with its virtually intact ornamental brickwork have been retained and incorporated into the giant new residential project.

By 1905, travelling silent picture-show men were becoming more regular visitors to Newcastle. The most well-known individual (at least today) was Lawrence "Pop" Penn because of a biography of the old-time showman later penned by his son Lyle, of Booral, near Stroud. The manuscript became the basis for the classic 1977 Australian film, The Picture Show Man, starring John Meillon (as Pop) and Rod Taylor.

According to Lyle, itinerant showman Pop had an offer from a Newcastle firm called Dix and Baker to run a full-time picture show for them (possibly at the Victoria Theatre). Lyle believed "It may well have been the first (permanent) picture show in Newcastle". Lyle also provides us with a rare, evocative portrait of busy, early maritime Newcastle.

"In 1909 Newcastle was a city of steam trains, steam trams, steamships and more or less adjacent coal mines, all depositing their smoke, smell, soot and grit over everything you saw, smelled, breathed or touched," he wrote.

"The long lines of wharves ... were lined with ships (many in those days still under sail, with tall masts towering above the buildings) and they in turn added the odour of tar, rope and exotic cargo to the blended smell which was typical of the city.

"The one main street (Hunter Street) was crowded with drays, carts, sulkies and drunken sailors - shanghaiing (abducting) sailors was still a major industry. But the place had a real personality, and at night, especially on a wet night, with lights reflected on the wet streets and steam trams bustling around. It was lively and likeable. We stayed in Newcastle for about a year and enjoyed every moment of it."

Then came the call of the bush and "Penn's Pictures On Tour" hit country roads again. In pre-World War 1, the Penns (father and son) hitched up a one-horse van with the then potentially lethal limelight equipment to take the celluloid wonders of Hollywood to community halls and open-air theatres in outback NSW towns. It was a hard life - fording flooded rivers, crossing soggy black soil plains, poor food and sleeping rough - then screening highly inflammable nitrate film on open spools.

"Pop" Penn, or "Pop" Pym on screen, became briefly famous from the 1977 movie when it played for a record 26 weeks in Newcastle as a nostalgic tribute to bygone days.

But, of course, there were many more showmen from the 1920s and 1930s now forgotten. Like Cec Clark, from Carcoar, who once remembered visiting 23 towns in two weeks to screen films in the Depression years in rented halls and who had to camp out, often in the snow.

Closer to home, it's a sobering thought the Lower Hunter once had cinemas aplenty from Tarro to Toronto and from West Wallsend to Wyee. Even our magnificent, long restored Civic Theatre started life as a picture palace (in 1929).

And finally, here's a yarn about another Hunter film pioneer. His name was John S. "Daddy" Phelan (1852-1936). This innovative but cautious travelling picture-show man who spoke in pig Latin came from a farm in Bendigo, Victoria. He eventually settled in Wallsend in 1908.

Author Cath Chegwidden researched him for her 2022 book Mighty Mayfield. His son Edward was something of an electrical genius, attributed with making the first talking picture machine which he assembled from instructions in a book in 1930s Newcastle.

The taciturn Phelan Snr also had the biggest portable movie screen in Newcastle and was a crack shot to deter potential larrikins intent on stealing his night's film takings. He was also reportedly a tough disciplinarian. If one of the lads cranking the movie projector for him was going either too slow or too fast and the patrons became restless, "Phelan stood behind him and hit him with a riding whip". It suggests past movie men all had to be rugged individuals to survive. They were the "reel" thing.