All in a Day's Work

Hard news

"Ghoul!" came the invective laden accusation as I sought to film the life and death struggle of a road accident. Death is one of the defining characteristics of a news story. Events involving a death are bound to be covered and road accidents provide a painful succession of such events. Stephen Bungard's young life was extinguished in the grotesque sculpture created when cars collide. His passing guaranteed the story prominence in the evening bulletin. 

Ironically his father was an interstate truckie. His elder brother Wayne and I went to school together. A younger brother of another school colleague was to suffer a similar tragic demise the darkness of the night a muted veil over the missing part of his head that was obscenely colouring the highway.

Motorbike accidents were the worst of all to cover largely because so little remained to acknowledge the drama and tragedy of such events. At the northern entrance to Port Macquarie I filmed a motorbike accident whose images I can still recall thirty years on. I was actually on holidays heading north to Byron Bay for the 1977 NSW Hang Gliding Titles and by chance happened upon the accident. The motorcyclist had T-boned the car, rammed it through the middle, Smoke was still rising from the collision when I arrived, a funeral pyre for the rider. His pillion passenger astonishingly survived. I hate the noise my son's motorbike makes as he heads off for a day's riding but it's music to my ears when he returns, those Port Macquarie images haunting recollections in his absence.

It was a local shortcut, that gravel road and causeway between Teralba and Barnsley on Lake Macquarie's western shore. It proved to be a dead end for an elderly couple and their passenger some decades ago when the car in which they were travelling was swept off the causeway and into the creek's muddy waters. Assigned to cover the story there was little to film as all the action happened underwater as police divers searched for the bodies. Despite their fruitless efforts after a day's search, death's contribution to the story ensured its priority in the evening bulletin. Early the following morning I filmed the divers entering the water to ensure continuity in our coverage. School children were among the curious who had gathered to watch proceedings. In front of their eyes the three bodies were recovered and placed under tarpaulins to await transport to the morgue. A mother approached me and asked what they looked like. The word "dead" doesn't convey a lot unless placed within some comparable context. It was a context that I didn't want to share with this woman so I simply shrugged my shoulders and walked away. School kids are brought along to view death yet somehow or other I am a ghoul?

Despite the tragic circumstances that created them, dead bodies could never be used to illustrate the story. The advent of the Vietnam War ushered in a guarded permissiveness that gave approval to footage showing dead soldiers as long as they weren't ours or those of our allies. Although we were encouraged to film everything we saw at a fatality we knew that decapitated bodies and charred corpses were never going to make it air. I can still recall the furore created when we aired a shot of a body being loaded into an ambulance with the feet still showing. The challenge then was to capture the drama and tragedy without resorting to highly explicit images. There is an element of soft core pornography in this approach where the suggested reality lies in the imagination of the viewer.

By showing road fatalities others might be encouraged to slow down and consequently save lives. So ran the logic in defence of covering such events. In the absence of any empirical evidence it was an emotive argument at best. If the footage was to influence driver behaviour the first person who should be influenced would be the cameraman who shot it. In my case it had no effect. The necessity and sometimes the urgency required to capture the footage and get it back nullified any implied message in what I had shot.

Death is the last great mystery. We largely know what is above us and beneath us but beyond death's threshold we can only speculate. It is this curiosity that I think attracts spectators to road accidents coupled with an unspoken desire for a little macabre titillation, shock and horror. For fourteen years I had the 'privilege' of a front row seat to some of the carnage that we clinically record as the road toll. It was neither enlightening nor titillating, only a fertile field for cynicism. According to one source some 650 crashes occurred, an average of better than one per week, over the ten years before the Bulahdelah bypass was built. Obviously none of those involved in the 650 crashes saw any of our bulletins.

I supported the 'public good' argument in filming fatalities despite my own flawed responses to the footage. In one of our occasional philosophical discussions it was Mal Leyland who challenged me on this argument articulating the case for the friends and relatives of the deceased and how graphic footage of their loved ones tragic demise would only add to their burden of grief with no measurable impact on driver behaviour. The validity of his comments is confirmed by the fact that even now they still capture the daily dilemma of what is and what is not news. It's an endless debate that I'll not enter into except to note that Mal's comments struck a chord in me which had previously had little attention.

Not all fatalities I filmed were attributable to road accidents. Aircraft crashes, fires, murder, suicide .... a kaleidoscope of life ending options that twisted and turned in front of my lens. Lake Macquarie glistens and sparkles in the morning sun but thirty feet below that enticing sheen the view is far less salubrious particularly when you are trying to film the recovery of a pilot's body from a crashed aircraft. How I learnt to scuba dive is another story but it was my instructor Frank West, a volunteer with the Westpac Rescue Helicopter crew who grabbed me to assist in the recovery and while I was at it to bring along my camera.

Although I was no longer working at Channel 3 the opportunity to secure some unique footage was irresistible. Being involved with extracting the pilot reduced my filming opportunities. I had crossed the line and become involved with the action but no longer being directly engaged in news work my priorities had shifted and supporting my friend's recovery efforts was my first concern. Manhandling a dead body even under water took me across an unspoken and eerie threshold.

My underwater housing was simply a primitive Perspex box so composition and exposure were largely guesswork. Consequently very little of what I shot was usable, the murky water compounding my difficulties. It was a frustrating outcome to what I had seen as an opportunity to exploit and learn new skills. Where they would have had further application is a moot point.

Callous I am not or at least I think I'm not but in the emotion-charged environment that surrounds some news events my dispassionate and objective approach would be seen as callous. A blue water paradise Nelson Bay certainly is but in 1989 for three very young children, their parents and friends it was to become a paradise lost as the boat on which they were cruising sank taking the toddlers to a watery grave. It was a gut wrenching tragedy, a sense of shock infecting the morbid spectators who had gathered to watch the recovery efforts. Having filmed the first of the three pitiful corpses being brought ashore and loaded into the ambulance I was approached by a high profile Newcastle car dealer, Peter Bennett, for whom I had shot commercial footage in years past. Peter was a big man with a love of big cars and big boats and an element of the playboy about him. "You're not going to film this Barry? You don't have to do this?" he challenged me with an unexpected pain in his voice.

I simply shrugged my shoulders and said "Don't ask Pete. It's my job" He wandered off bewildered perhaps even angry, the big man was hurting. I continued to record the procession of bodies remaining detached and ignoring the fact that I had three young sons of my own.

Funerals follow deaths as surely as night does day. I hated covering funerals. Despite my external objectivity in covering the tragedies that begat funerals when it came to the funeral I had always to suppress a feeling that I was intruding. It was a matter of being professional. But I always felt that funerals were intensely private affairs and should not be subject to the scrutiny of my lens. The one exception I had was high profile community figures, military and service personnel whose efforts deserved recognition even in death, beyond chapel walls. But with funerals for victims of crime and trauma I felt an intruder, a feeling that attacked my veneer of detachment and troubled my emotions. On those occasions the camera was a welcome mask.

Bushfire smoke permeates everything with which it comes into contact including the camera. Days after I'd covered a bushfire I could still smell the smoke on the camera. After returning to the newsroom having filmed a bushfire the accumulated smoke in your clothing would inevitability and despite the air-conditioning fill the room, much to the disgust of other colleagues. It was almost but not quite a badge of honour for capturing dramatic footage meant mixing it with the firemen. It created an incongruous situation; firemen with hats, boots and thick woollen clothing and me beside them in cotton shirt and pants. This was gung-ho stuff but on more than one occasion I was forced to retreat as the intensity of the heat became too strong to bear. Singed hair however was a common souvenir. With hindsight it was irresponsible but Tim Clucas and I headed down a gravel road in search of some fire fighting action while covering a blaze in the Nelson Bay area. We were forced to beat a strategic retreat as the fire advanced on both sides of the road creating a flaming gully with us as its centrepiece. We filmed our report from inside the car as we drove to safer territory. It was worth the risk.

Filming cars being consumed by a bushfire again at Nelson Bay from a chopper was an exercise in frustration. Unable to warn the cars owners who had unsuspectingly parked them in the bush while they went to the beach, all I could do was simply film their consumption by the fire from a detached aerial perspective. Without the human interaction all drama was lost.

Bushfires carry an obvious risk yet it was a less obvious risk that was to ultimately injure me on such assignments. Perhaps it was the price of complacency or arrogance. With my right eye to the viewfinder and my left eye open to track the fireman in front of me a vagrant piece of lantana danced across my open eye inflicting a painful wound. I managed to complete the assignment without further incident and suffered no long term damage although the discomfort and constraints of working with only one eye proved difficult and trying. As a cameraman I had long acknowledged my eyes as crucial to my profession but it had never occurred to me that I might actually damage them on the job. Off the job I've twice managed to injure them; once in the garden in an episode reminiscent of the lantana incident and once while beach fishing. Reeling in I gave the rod an almighty heave, the darkness hiding the fact that the rig was well and truly clear of the water. The sinker landed straight in my right eye. For a moment I thought I was blinded but gradually I was able to open my eye and persevere with my fishing in spite of the pain. A nice bream was to be my reward but having to spend the next week with a patch over my eye diminished the value of the reward somewhat and made driving an anxious experience.

My propensity to rush into the action once brought me unstuck with the emphasis on the word 'stuck'. A fire in Koppers tar plant on Kooragang Island had caused extensive damage and in typical style I wandered around with the firemen filming the damage. In one darkened building it was impossible to distinguish between the water and the melted tar making progress a 'sticky' undertaking. By the time I had my film the soles of my shoes had dissolved under the corrosive influence of what I had been nonchalantly wandering through. 

Fires consume all in their path leaving little evidence of any ambiguity. In comparison, floods are not as total in their destructive behaviour as their trail of devastation can generally be rebuilt although at a price. Floods also are generally less visually spectacular than bushfires, more a creeping menace than a towering inferno. They inundate vast areas yet without aerial coverage provide little opportunity to capture the scope of their impact.

The 1955 Maitland floods were an extraordinary exception. My uncle Oliver had a boot shop in High Street in Maitland and he showed me how close the water came to reaching the second floor of his building. Some 16 years later accompanied by journalist Mary Byrnes I stood on the levee bank of the Hunter River in Maitland, built following the '55 flood, filming SES (State Emergency Services) personnel urgently filling sandbags to prevent the swollen river again inundating the town, Over two days we had followed the flood's peak down the valley from Singleton. Flood mitigation work that had been undertaken as a result of the '55 flood minimised the impact of this flood, the first of such capacity since 1955 and the first real test of the mitigation work. The bizarre dimension was getting sunburnt while filming inestimable volumes of water relentlessly pursuing the freedom of the open sea. It was February, the same month that the '55 flood washed the town into history's tragic pages.

Baker and Crump

As a "Steel Magnolia" Kaye Duffy has been appropriately honoured for her volunteer work at the Mater hospice and similar volunteer charitable contributions. But back in November 1973 her steely resolve was being forged in the passenger seat of a Minivan I was enthusiastically piloting (Kaye would say recklessly) through the twisting outskirts of Maitland in pursuit of a police manhunt. It was a story that would grow in magnitude as events unfolded. From a stolen car two men had fired on police wounding one of the officers. During the ensuing pursuit they bogged their vehicle and desperate to avoid capture fled on foot towards the Hunter River near the Woodville bridge which is where we caught up with the fray. At this stage little was known about the two men or why they were so keen to avoid capture that they used guns.

Armed police were everywhere scouring the undergrowth in hope of flushing out the two men. The earlier gunfight added further tension with police marksmen now staking out strategic positions. This was my kind of news story. I'd long held the ridiculous belief that while ever I had my camera I was if not immortal certainly immune or impervious to danger.

Here was an arena in which to test that belief. The arrogance of youth! So intent were the police that they took no notice of my activities. Driven by frustration at not seeing enough of the action because I hade been hunkered down with some police behind a grassy bank I made my way to the top of the bank and filmed a panoramic shot of the scene. The drama was by now reaching its climax out of sight in the distant bush that lined the riverbank. But my raised profile sparked a sharp rebuke from some officer on the bridge threatening to shoot me if I didn't get back down behind the bank. This wasn't quite the way I wanted to end my test. Not only that but I was almost certain to miss the story if he made good with his threat. Discretion being the better part of valour I complied.

I was rewarded with definitive footage of the two fugitives being dragged from the bush to face handcuffs and later incarceration. Dishevelled and dripping ooze they were a disconsolate pair but they were no ordinary criminals as we were later to learn. Confronting me was Allan Baker and Kevin Crump, two of Australia's most sadistic killers wanted for the brutal rape and murder of Virginia Morse in Queensland and the murder of another man in Narrabri. I had long considered such criminals as ogres but the two former fugitives who passed in front of my lens Looked uncomfortably ordinary, indistinguishable in life's passing parade.

We'd secured a national story that was to resonate over the years. At their trial the judge described Baker and Crump as "obscene animals" who should spend the rest of their lives in gaol and die there. Truth in sentencing legislation was born of such convictions for both have continued to appeal their sentences. When the first of these appeals became news Channel 7 sought my assistance in securing a copy of the footage to provide some background for the appeal trial. Although no longer working at Channel 3, I was given access to their files as the footage couldn't be found. The film had fallen victim to a less than meticulous filing system that didn't ensure the return of stories to the original broadcast bulletin. As one of the perpetrators of such transgressions I knew that the film had been filed in a separate box with some magazine items, defying any structured system to recover it. Finding it then was relatively straight forward for me and it ran in Channel 7's bulletin that evening. The film gets a fresh airing each time either Baker or Crump seeks an appeal. 

Darcy Dugan

Even though now only a tourist attraction Maitland Gaol still generates a sense of foreboding. Perhaps it is the impenetrable concrete walls spiked by guard towers. Or the razor wire. Or the fact that it once housed many of Australia's most notorious criminals. My work once took me inside that monolithic battlement filling me with a feeling of great uncertainty. Sure there were guards on the wall and prison officers patrolling the courtyard but they were hopelessly outnumbered should the prisoners launch a mass revolt. It wasn't without precedent. That potential was cause for a great sigh of relief when I returned to the free world outside the gates.

It's probably a different feeling to that experienced by Darcy Dugan on his release in 1979. Dugan had spent over forty years in gaols for armed robbery and escapes. It was a chilly morning as I recall. Then again the entrance to the gaol faced west so it was always going to be cool at that time of day. Not that it would have worried Dugan. After years in and out of incarceration temperature would have been one of his least concerns.

His release was to be a dispiriting encounter with the Sydney media more commonly referred to as a circus or a scrum. It was to be a fairly raw lesson in values. Being the only television station in Newcastle gave us a comparatively sheltered existence. Our only competition for coverage most likely only ever involved one or two photographers from the Herald or News Limited and on the rare occasion a radio journo. It was a friendly rivalry unlike the media warfare that tends to erupt on Sydney streets. Although it did have its moments such as when in my early days while covering the finish of a cycle race I inadvertently blocked News photographer Ron Bell's picture of the event, an action that he let me know in unambiguous terms was intolerable. Ron was never backward in expressing his opinions but his professional ability was unquestionable and he was to later capture the defining still photograph of the Star riot which won him a swag of awards and the chagrin of the Herald which missed the burning vehicles. The cycle incident spoke to a more innocent time and place largely untouched by the rapacious, competitive practices of the Sydney media. Dugan's release changed all that for me.

In contrast to its imposing walls and gates the door through which Dugan was to gain his freedom from Maitland Gaol was diminutive even by general standards. Most of us gathered on its 'free' side would have had to stoop to pass through it. The exit was a confined space which was hardly going to effectively accommodate the bristling media. Common sense framed the discussion about how we could all capture suitable vision of his entry into the free world without obstructing each other and losing the moment in the inevitable jostling. We agreed to stand back at a suitable distance until he had made his exit then it was to be every man for himself. How naïve was I to ever accept such a decision?

The door had only just started to swing open when the Sydney media bolted like greyhounds out of the boxes leaving me holding the worthless remnants of what I took to be a professional pact. Belatedly I joined the fray and captured the predictable bump and grind vision that has come to characterise prime time news. I don't recall any interviews being done with the man most likely he had been silenced by some network's chequebook. The experience convinced me that I would never work in the Sydney media. If their daily routine necessitated such scrimmages for footage I did not want to be a part of it. That such behaviour is now considered an essential element of hype in our celebrity-drenched culture makes me grateful that I am no longer involved in it. 

Star Hotel Riot

"What a great shot!" exclaimed Reg Davis as he directed the news bulletin on this particular evening some time back in the black and white era - pre 1975. The story was one of the many protest rallies that we covered in the early '70's. The "shot" started as a close-up on a champagne advertisement on the side of a bus that urged people to 'uncork a riot'. From that close-up I zoomed out to reveal the protest march. While it was a flattering comment at the time neither Reg nor I would have seen the prophecy in it.

The Star Hotel riot was unquestionably the high point of my time in news. Riots don't come around all that often (fortunately) certainly not with the intensity that characterised the Star riot and certainly not in Newcastle. The region's large industrial base has long ensured robust negotiations, the Rothbury riot in 1930 a brutal and tragic reminder of how horribly things can go wrong, the role of the police in both riots a controversial issue even to-day. Industrial disputation however did not provoke the Star riot. Alcohol played a part but it has generally been agreed that it was a fundamental clash of interests; the patrons wanting the hotel to remain open, the police and authorities wanting it closed.

The Star had earned a deserved reputation as a 'colourful' venue. It attracted an eclectic clientele some  of whom wore their diversity as a badge of honour. Disagreements were resolved in a time honoured manner though Not necessarily under Marquess of Queensbury rules. It was a hard rock venue when such a descriptor covered more than the music. Cold Chisel were magnets but they never played at the Star on that night, local band 'Heroes' were to be the requiem band. And the ABC's '2JJ' (as Triple J was then known) had an outside broadcast van parked outside the King Street entrance, recording the gig inside.

I was never a Star patron although in the company of a few mates from the hang-gliding club I spent a night jumping off what was known as the 'Back Bar'. We were not drunk although that might have helped, but simply learning how to land and roll at the end of a parachute jump. We completed our first parachute jump the following morning but that's another story.

I should never have been at the Star on that Wednesday night in September but fate changed the roster and propelled me into a date with destiny. On the previous Wednesday afternoon along with reporter Neil Bowes I had filmed an interview with the Star's publican Don Graham, about the impending closure. That night we were the night crew and I said to Neil "Thank Christ I'm not working night shift next week. Poor bastards will probably have to cover that and I couldn't stand having to go in there with all the beer and mess that's going to be floating around."

And I didn't have to go in there. Robyn Wade and I never made it to the front door. A changed roster put me back on night shift and on the Wednesday night I had to confront the dread which I thought I had fortunately avoided. Covering the closure of the Star was but one of several assignments on our schedule for that night. It didn't have a particular priority. It was some time after 9 pm when we arrived back at the station with our other stories and while Robyn commenced typing introductions and checking 'rounds' (phone calls to the police, fire and ambulance services) I took the raw footage to Steve Jones our young film processor then proceeded to reload the camera and car for the Star assignment.

It was nearly 10 pm, closing time for the hotel, before Robyn and I reluctantly left the comfort of the newsroom for the unpredictable but assumedly rowdy and boisterous environment of the Star. We opted for the King Street entrance assuming we would never get through the main door in Hunter Street. Fortunately we secured a parking spot just over the road so I mounted the light on the camera, threw its battery around my neck, shouldered the camera and crossed the road to commence filming.

I had only grabbed a couple of incidental shots when the police car and paddy wagon arrived, much to the displeasure of the patrons who were starting to congregate on the footpath. The police actions were seen as provocative and they consequently became the focus of the crowd's vehemence. I cannot recall a detailed chronology of events the film is more reliable than my memory. I do know that some incidents I recorded never made it to air in order to keep the story to a reasonable length and maintain its impact.

Weathering a shower of beer cans was a unique and unforgettable experience. Weathering several such showers enabled me to capture unprecedented scenes in Newcastle. Unknown to me at the time my night shift colleague from the previous week Neil Bowes, enjoying a night off, was standing behind me trying to deflect some of the missiles. I could have thought of better things to do with a night off.

Stereotypically, chefs are generally largish men. When they turn violent they become formidable opponents as several police were to learn to their pain. The chef from the Williamtown RAAF base made known his objection to police handling in a slugfest of rugby league proportions. With an accompanying shower of cans and beer and the odd spectator this struggle became one of the night's defining moments. I just kept the camera rolling wondering where and how it would end with a sense that the police had lost this one. Was I to be a target for the crowd? I think I was too busy keeping in touch with the action to allow such a thought to enter my head. The chef was subsequently dealt with by the RAAF police although others were subsequently charged with various offences. On replay I now look at the faces in the crowd trying to see if I can distinguish how much of the behaviour was serious intent, how much alcohol inspired and how much was just youthful exuberance. It is indistinguishable.

Somewhere in the melee I lost touch with Robyn but Steve materialised and I gave him some of the film to take back and start processing. It was going to be a long night for all of us. To-day's electronic news gathering cameras don't suffer this processing delay (or risk) and they have three times the recording capacity we had with film cameras. After ten minutes of filming one had to change a magazine. Fortunately there was a degree of ebb and flow with the conflict which enabled me to change magazines without missing any action.

It was after such an ebb that the crowd's attention focussed on the two vacant police vehicles parked at the kerb. As they seized the police sedan and started rocking it I commenced filming assuming this was a further display of rambunctious behaviour. It was more than that with the vehicle being inverted under the exertions of the enthusiastic crowd. Hastily I grabbed a prescient shot of the fuel leaking from the petrol cap then turned my attention back to the crowd which now flushed with success, was attempting to do the same thing to the paddy wagon. Who threw the match? The police were never able to find out but some people do know him. Through the lens I watched almost transfixed as a consequent wall of flame erupted from the fuel-laden gutter, engulfed the police car and despatched the rioters to less torrid environs accompanied by almost hysterical whooping and yelling. It was a chilling and definitive repertoire reaching a crescendo as the adjacent paddy wagon succumbed to the hungry flames.

The camera is now endlessly rolling my right eye absorbing the view through the lens, my left eye scanning for further developments. Concerned that an explosion might rob me of all that I had captured I sought to put a little distance between me and the conflagration. But then out of my left eye I spied three policemen running towards the now fiercely burning paddy wagon. My retreat was short lived as I ran to catch up with them discarding my earlier concerns about an explosion. Maybe it's something to do with safety in numbers. The police were responding to an assertion that there were people in the van, an assertion that fortunately turned out to be incorrect.

But it was over. The fire brigade's hoses that quickly doused the flames also encouraged the few remaining stalwarts that it was time to move on. Now it was water not beer cans that I had to avoid. And the occasional policeman. With blood streaming down his face he expressed his displeasure at my recording it with a smack at me as he passed by. No explanation for that one and it is one of the incidents that never went to air. It had been a long day's journey into night and we still had a long way to go. Robyn managed to secure an interview with the police inspector then we headed back to the newsroom to have the balance of the film processed before commencing the task of editing it all into a coherent report.

After processing I was horrified to discover that there was no sound on the interview with the police inspector. The water that had doused the event had also interfered with some of the camera's electronics. As one of the key actors on the night his views were crucial to our report. He had to account for an event of unprecedented social disruption in the city which his troops had struggled to control and who were being blamed for the event. His reluctance to again be publicly questioned on the event was an additional challenge for Robyn to overcome but to her credit she did and using another camera we shot the interview in Channel 3's car park.

It was well past the bewitching hour and my wife showing her hallmark concern for my well-being finally managed to get through to me on the telephone asking when I would be home. In a piece of textbook understatement I simply said that there had been some trouble in town and I wasn't quite sure when I would get there. I never made it home that night and it fell to her work colleagues to complete the jigsaw the following morning. She was always the last to know.

Among the first people to view the footage once it was processed were some of the police involved in the fracas. They pored over it trying to identify some of the participants and to my surprise managed to do so. I felt sure that with such compelling evidence as the film provided those identified would eventually be called to account. However such is the abstruse nature of law that the film was ultimately largely dismissed as evidence even though the police had gone to the trouble of putting me on the stand to validate the imagery.

Because there was a surfeit of strong material condensing it to the length of our normal news stories was going to be a major challenge to my editorial objectivity, a perennial dilemma when a cameraman is asked to edit his own footage but magnified even further in this situation, It took several attempts before Robyn and I were satisfied with the content, structure and pace of the story. It was one of those rare occurrences where the pictures spoke for themselves and needed little narrative. Even so the story was still more than twice as long in duration as one of our more customary stories and for a breakfast news presentation probably over three times longer. But it was spectacular imagery that commanded additional attention.

From the perspective of local news it was probably the most startling footage Channel 3 had up until that morning ever broadcast to its breakfast television audience. Although the radio stations were already carrying the story the impact of the televised visuals would swamp any advantage radio might have enjoyed by being the first to break the news. As the bulletin ended I found myself sitting on a desk in the newsroom, a cup of coffee in one hand, a beer that Neil had given me in the other uncertain as to which I should be drinking while struggling to comprehend the events of the previous night. Surreal is a word that comes to mind. By now Robyn was fielding calls from the networks seeking access to the footage.

A busy night was not going to be ended by the start of a fresh day.

Fin (Murray Finlay) arrived a little off the pace courtesy of a couple of glasses of red the previous evening which had kept him oblivious to the tumultuous events. The cobwebs were soon replaced with pride as international agencies sought the footage. For Robyn and I sleep was becoming something of a priority as we still had to return to work at 3 pm that afternoon and the clock was approaching 11 am.

The Mike Walsh Show on the Nine network gave the footage its first national airing at noon with all the networks including the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) subsequently opening their prime time bulletins with it. By now however Robyn and I were trying to complete our final night shift for the week with the adrenalin and euphoria of the previous twenty four hours replaced by the unavoidable reality of securing material for tomorrow morning's breakfast bulletin. Always the next bulletin... such is news.

In my career the riot was a time without parallel and an unsurpassed experience. Being able to deliver the goods in such a volatile and unpredictable environment a source of quiet pride. The Logie consummated the experience if ever I needed such confirmation. But I felt my regional roots at the awards function mixing with the glitz and glamour of the industry elites. These were not my people. Fortunately Robyn and I shared our table with two of our Channel 3 colleagues, Phil Lomas and Ian Hill who were to receive a Logie for a series I coincidentally shot called "Beating Around the Bush". The only other guest I can recall was Terry Willessee, possibly because of shared professional interests. He was to receive two Logies on the night one of which he unfortunately dropped and broke, a casualty of too much celebration.

I was never confident that we would win the Logie. I'm basically negative when it comes to such issues. While Robyn's acceptance speech as you would expect was big picture promoting the role of regional television, mine was basic, simply acknowledging Robyn and our colleagues in Newcastle who were sharing in the celebration in Studio A. I was just the cameraman. 

I had only a brief look in on the post award parties and quickly decided that these were not my people, choosing instead to retire to the preferred solitude of my hotel room. It was to be a couple of days before finally I returned to Newcastle, staying on in Melbourne to do some filming for Motorscope with Jim.

By coincidence Holden were doing a press release for one of their new cars commencing on the Sunday night so by delaying my return I was able to capture some bonus footage. Arriving back in Swansea on the Monday night I was greeted on the footpath outside home by neighbours and friends who had in cahoots with my wife, arranged a surprise welcome home party for me. They were more than anxious to share in the Logie success with our soon to be born first son already dubbed the Logie baby. Now I was comfortable and could finally relax and savour a little of what had transpired over the past six months. And Daniel arrived just over two weeks after the Logies.

Although high in profile the Logie was not the only award I was to win for the coverage of the riot. The Australian Cinematographers Society awarded me their Golden Tripod for news coverage while I received my second Thorn Award, this time being congratulated by none other than the Prime Minister at the time, Malcolm Fraser. 'Did you receive a bonus for your efforts?' is a question I was frequently asked about the coverage. Well no, apart from the overtime. Such efforts to me have always just been an integral and expected part of the job. Money cannot buy the sort of satisfaction and acknowledgement that comes with a job well done. 'Did the riot and winning the Logie change your life?' was another occasional question I had to field. Well yes and no. Our lives are being constantly changed by different factors not all of which we are aware of or have control over.

Certainly the events could be seen as a catalyst for change. I realised at the time that I would probably never again get such an opportunity as that presented by the riot, in which case continuing in news was always going to be a long denouement, a somewhat boring prospect. So while the riot didn't change me it did mark the beginning of the end of my time as a news cameraman. There was a general perception that my successes typified by the Star would have been advantageous in my own business. They weren't as for most of my clients such a background was largely irrelevant, colourful perhaps but irrelevant. 

He's been bitten by a monkey, dodged beer cans, ducked punches, captured celebrities on the move and filmed a baby being born - that's the working life in a nutshell for NBN cameraman Barry Nancarrow, whose graphic filming of the bloody Star Hotel riot in King St shocked Newcastle, rocked Australia, and surprised the world. The report won Barry and reporter Robyn Wade a Logie - but in the process of getting the news there is little glory. It's mainly hard work.