A salute to the Martin & Angus signwriters
The Royal Easter Show is set in that beautiful time of the year in Sydney.
For any regular show-goer, you know the mid-afternoon will signal the onset decrease in ambient temperature, followed by the expectation of a beautiful sunset and the need to make your way to the parade ring for the evening showtime entertainment.
One of the greatest memories I retain was the thrill of entering the giant concrete Martin & Angus Stand at the old Moore Park site. I’m talking about the 1960s and 1970s when, as a family, we would routinely attend the Show on the Thursday before Good Friday, having spent the afternoon wandering the exhibits and having the choice of two or three rides in sideshow alley.
I clearly remember having to separate from my parents, enter and pay through the “Children’s” turnstile before re-joining them and struggling up the multiple flight of steps with showbags in hand and juggling a bucket of hot chips just obtained from The Tasmanian Potato Marketing Board kiosk. The final seating position always took some time to determine but regardless of choice, the three-slatted, green painted seating was basic.
We were obviously in the stand as a family to watch the evening’s entertainment. We could expect in any given year to watch tent pegging, a game of polo, the camp draft or rodeo. Invariably there would be one of the Service’s bands giving the crowd a rousing rendition of well know marching music, followed by The National Anthem which of course, in those days, was God Save the Queen. Everyone would stand respectfully and you could hear a pin drop. Then there would be two or three main draw-cards. For many years it was Bill Moyes “The Australian Birdman” and his pioneering kite flight being launched after a couple of circuits by his popular dune buggy and a free-flight back to ground with resultant crowd cheer. If there was a high-wire across ground, you knew The Flying Lotahs were to perform. Sometimes it was a chariot race. It may have been Dale Buggins and his dare-devil motorbike stunts. The Holden Precision Driving Team started in this era. On horesback, it could be The Flying Gollans and there were sometimes international artists that would balance and sway on poles mounted well-up in the very stand in which we were sitting. There was even a NASA jet-pack flight one year. In any event, the crowd just wanted to be entertained, culminating in the fireworks finale always presented by Howard Brothers.
And so to the point of this article. For a young boy in these times, one of the biggest eye-openers was the fact that from a swinging-stage on the big screen at the top of the Martin & Angus Stand, several highly-skilled signwriters would be beavering away. From memory, they would do a first run applying a copious amount of black paint over already completed late-morning and early-afternoon schedule of events, only to immediately return to the top. With precision, speed and accuracy they set about the task. Firstly, they would chalk the lines and letters, followed by the brushwork. Using only white, pink, sky-blue and beige on the black background, they would set out the time and corresponding event in varying font sizes, right through to the fireworks and close of evening entertainment.
I was fascinated as a child by what was going on “up there” and this alone was part of my Sydney Royal experience. From our family seating position you could smell the paint and you could hear the chatter of the signwriters. It’s something that has well and truly been surpassed by ever increasingly sophisticated electronic scoreboards and digital imagery. We will never witness the skill of real-time, hand-applied information as was undertaken by these signwriters.
Put simply, if you told the grand-kids about this practice they wouldn’t believe you! I salute these signwriters. Their skills were and always will be appreciated by those who witnessed this craft.
PHILIP LOVE
For any regular show-goer, you know the mid-afternoon will signal the onset decrease in ambient temperature, followed by the expectation of a beautiful sunset and the need to make your way to the parade ring for the evening showtime entertainment.
One of the greatest memories I retain was the thrill of entering the giant concrete Martin & Angus Stand at the old Moore Park site. I’m talking about the 1960s and 1970s when, as a family, we would routinely attend the Show on the Thursday before Good Friday, having spent the afternoon wandering the exhibits and having the choice of two or three rides in sideshow alley.
I clearly remember having to separate from my parents, enter and pay through the “Children’s” turnstile before re-joining them and struggling up the multiple flight of steps with showbags in hand and juggling a bucket of hot chips just obtained from The Tasmanian Potato Marketing Board kiosk. The final seating position always took some time to determine but regardless of choice, the three-slatted, green painted seating was basic.
We were obviously in the stand as a family to watch the evening’s entertainment. We could expect in any given year to watch tent pegging, a game of polo, the camp draft or rodeo. Invariably there would be one of the Service’s bands giving the crowd a rousing rendition of well know marching music, followed by The National Anthem which of course, in those days, was God Save the Queen. Everyone would stand respectfully and you could hear a pin drop. Then there would be two or three main draw-cards. For many years it was Bill Moyes “The Australian Birdman” and his pioneering kite flight being launched after a couple of circuits by his popular dune buggy and a free-flight back to ground with resultant crowd cheer. If there was a high-wire across ground, you knew The Flying Lotahs were to perform. Sometimes it was a chariot race. It may have been Dale Buggins and his dare-devil motorbike stunts. The Holden Precision Driving Team started in this era. On horesback, it could be The Flying Gollans and there were sometimes international artists that would balance and sway on poles mounted well-up in the very stand in which we were sitting. There was even a NASA jet-pack flight one year. In any event, the crowd just wanted to be entertained, culminating in the fireworks finale always presented by Howard Brothers.
And so to the point of this article. For a young boy in these times, one of the biggest eye-openers was the fact that from a swinging-stage on the big screen at the top of the Martin & Angus Stand, several highly-skilled signwriters would be beavering away. From memory, they would do a first run applying a copious amount of black paint over already completed late-morning and early-afternoon schedule of events, only to immediately return to the top. With precision, speed and accuracy they set about the task. Firstly, they would chalk the lines and letters, followed by the brushwork. Using only white, pink, sky-blue and beige on the black background, they would set out the time and corresponding event in varying font sizes, right through to the fireworks and close of evening entertainment.
I was fascinated as a child by what was going on “up there” and this alone was part of my Sydney Royal experience. From our family seating position you could smell the paint and you could hear the chatter of the signwriters. It’s something that has well and truly been surpassed by ever increasingly sophisticated electronic scoreboards and digital imagery. We will never witness the skill of real-time, hand-applied information as was undertaken by these signwriters.
Put simply, if you told the grand-kids about this practice they wouldn’t believe you! I salute these signwriters. Their skills were and always will be appreciated by those who witnessed this craft.
PHILIP LOVE
