Our Movie Reviewer - Richard Jones (62/63)

I HAVE been a journalist for more than four decades, involved with both the print and electronic media.

Starting off as a ‘stringer’ or correspondent back in the 60s with the twice-weekly South Pacific Post in Port Moresby, I finished 25 years full-time service with central Victoria’s Bendigo Advertiser in the early Noughties.

My old boss from Moresby days --- the redoubtable Douglas Lockwood –-- had been posted to Bendigo, via Melbourne, following his days as managing editor of PNG’s only daily: the Post-Courier.

When we called into Bendigo on a 1977 driving holiday Doug asked me what I was up to. Two sentences later he inquired what would be a suitable start date for me at the Addy.

“I need a sports writer and you fill the bill,” he said.

So we established ourselves in Bendigo and have been here ever since. Sadly Doug passed away in 1980, the victim of overwork and a heart attack.

I served 17 years as the sports editor, and then five as business/finance editor, after starting life in Bendigo as a council and politics roundsman.

In the late 1970s-early 1980s being called ‘sports editor’ was a mis-nomer. Jack of all trades would have been a fairer assessment.

Australian footy on Saturdays, and occasionally Sundays. Harness racing on Friday nights. Gallops meeting mid-week and greyhound racing on Monday nights.

Athletics and cycling carnivals all summer, interspersed with swimming and diving meets. And then it was time for the footy to start again. Not a very family-friendly occupation.

When a community radio station started up down near Castlemaine I was asked to help with Saturday morning footy preview shows and within the year to assist with live matchday calls.

As I’d done a lot of radio work in PNG (live boxing and rugby league broadcasts, as well as studio anchoring) I was pleased to help out.

Later on in the 90s the National Indigenous Radio Network, with its headquarters in Brisbane, became the Brisbane Lions’ dedicated radio outfit.

A Bendigo radio colleague was the commentating co-ordinator and our ex-station manager had been appointed manager of the NIRS, based in Queensland.

So the NIRS AFL calls which expanded from one or two broadcasts a weekend to Friday nights, Saturdays, Saturday nights and Sundays, had a distinctly central Victorian flavour. Until 2002 I was involved for three seasons, but only from Melbourne’s Docklands Stadium or the MCG.

I left the interstate gigs to other colleagues. It was getting very tiring, up and down to Melbourne every second weekend, so by mutual consent I called it a day in 2002.

My local footy calling continued on, though, until mid-2007.

Nowadays I write a Bendigo Football League match report for Monday’s winter and spring newspapers and submit my weekly tips for publication on Fridays.

There’s also the Look Back In History segment for the weekly Bendigo Football League guide to compile.

And on a separate community FM station, I’m involved with a Wednesday morning sports review and preview programme.

So, how did the involvement with writing film reviews come about? Well, my wife and I have always loved live theatre and classical music performances with a special fondness for the cinema.

We see up to 30 films a year. Not on DVD. Live, at cinemas where there’s proper surround sound.

When our former State Premier Jeff Kennett amalgamated a whole heap of local government authorities 15 years ago quite a few civic buildings weren’t needed any more.

The Eaglehawk Borough Town Hall was one of those structures. An enterprising lady took it over to run a community cinema there, complete with a projection room and box office.

When she relinquished the business a community group, of which we’re members, decided to run the cinema. Volunteers staff the box office and the projection room.

Paying patrons sit on plush velvet couches, sipping beer or wine, to watch the movies.

Other volunteers were needed to pen reviews for the Bendigo Advertiser’s Saturday Weekend magazine --- and I was asked to write one, sometimes two, every second week.

So, some three or four years down the track I’m still writing regular film reviews.

From time to time, some of these will appear on the Asopa Blog.

--- RICHARD JONES