Townsville cameraman Paul Lyons awarded for rescuing historical film archive
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A Townsville cameraman who saved decades of north Queensland media history from the bin, has been recognised with the State Library of Queensland's John Oxley Library Award.
Key points:
- Paul Lyons would hide archived tapes from QTV to save them from being discarded
- A station manager once threatened to have him charged with trespass when he was collecting the tapes
- His efforts in saving decades of footage has seen him recognised with an award from the State Library of Queensland
Paul Lyons was working as a videotape operator for QTV television station in 1992 when he discovered the station's tape and film archive.
"If I got all my work finished I would grab an old reel, lace it up and sit down and watch the history," Mr Lyons said.
As management and broadcast media changed, Mr Lyons said the archive was no longer valued and management started to dispose of (or record over) old footage.
Mr Lyons said would hide tapes away in quiet corners of the building to try to preserve them.
"I would get early morning phone calls from my spies — 'They are trying to throw out the archive again'," Mr Lyons said.
"I would scream into the station and secretly pull the items out of the mini skip bins and throw in some empty cardboard boxes on top to look as though the archive was in there."
Irreplaceable footage destined for the dump
The archive comprised more than 5,000 video tapes and more than 250,000 feet (76,000 metres) of 16mm film.
The thousands of hours of footage include the city's first television broadcast of 1962, Queen Elizabeth's visit in 1970 and the devastation of Cyclone Althea in 1971.
Mr Lyons finished working at the station in 1999 but was smuggled back in by staff when archive clean outs were imminent.
"It was traumatic," Mr Lyons recalled.
"I was trying to fill my car to the roof, trying to save at least some of it, not sure how much had already made it to the dump," he said.
Mr Lyons said on one occasion, the station manager threatened to charge him with trespass but a phone call to Jack Gleeson (known the father of north Queensland television) secured the safety of the archive.
The Gleeson family stored the archive at the Queen's Hotel building for 15 years, allowing Mr Lyons and other locals to access it to continue their archiving.
Looking for a way to further preserve the collection, Mr Lyons reconnected with Annette Burns from Townsville City Libraries and the Gleeson family signed over the collection to the library's Local History Collection.
About 10 per cent of the collection has been digitised and the material will be made public through a special portal.
The collection includes material from other networks and individuals who have donated old footage to the project.
Anyone can research history
The John Oxley Library Award is presented by the State Library of Queensland and recognises excellence in the field of Queensland's history or heritage.
The library's Gavin Bannerman said Mr Lyons stood out from the field of nominees this year, for his perseverance and advocacy regarding the historical significance of the material.
"There would be lots of examples of where people have salvaged materials from the jaws of the rubbish truck," Mr Bannerman said.
"But what he has done is he has actually worked with local government to find a solution to store and preserve that material for long-term access."
Mr Bannerman said through the awards, the library aimed to encourage more people to value the work of the volunteer or individual in helping preserve history.
"It can be a pretty solitary exercise for some of these people," Mr Bannerman said.
"There is a bit of an inferiority complex sometimes where people don't know where to get started or how to do it and they think that it is something that you have to be an expert to do or you need to be at a university … to be able to collect, share, research, tell history and tell stories."
Mr Lyons said without the support of the Gleeson family and community members who housed hundreds of reels of tape at their private homes, the collection might have been lost.
"You just can't destroy history, Mr Lyons said.
"Luckily the Townsville City Council has acknowledged the historical importance of this collection to the city and the region, retaining the stories of the past."
Topics: history, media, awards-and-prizes, townsville-4810
