Old Canberran’s Old Photos - Part 3 - 2CA and the Canberra Theatre

old canberran: There’s a plaque up with the same basic facts at that location in Kingston.

No, afraid not. I can’t remember the name of the manager when my partner first started working there in 1981. He used to get X’s name wrong all the time! It was quite funny, like when Endora does it on Bewitched.

He also tried to discourage X from having pipe-dreams of becoming an announcer, so he would not be disappointed. Fortunately, X is not easily discouraged. The reality didn’t live up to the dream when he got there, and he took a cut in pay to work in the newsroom and move into journalism.

I knew some of the announcers and office staff better than others, of course.

Richard Perno gave us a TV when he heard that we didn’t have one. It was an old, battered up thing that died a horrible death when the little girl next door poured some water down the back to fix it. It sure was better than nothing, though!

Granny, you would probably remember Peter Carrodus then. Not sure if he was still there in the Jolimont centre.

Memories. Did anyone else go in the sunflower-growing competition? You had to go into 2CA and pick up your special packet of 2CA sunflower seeds, register your details and then after a time they judged the winners. We had sunflowers growing in that spot for years afterwards.

Which reminds me: I STILL have that fracking 2CA album because ‘Ms Jill’ of many a 2CA topic last year vanished into thin air after a few threads.

2CA was a funny old station. They became so complacent that a friend once complained that he’d be singing along with a Top 40 song and really getting into it, when suddenly they would cut in with the races ….

: P

When 2CC came along they ate them up for breakfast and spat them out … and 2CA paid the ultimate price, becoming an overnight sensation of iconic dagginess.

Yet I still have fond memories of them.

They were the first place to employ my teen husband. The friends he made there gave him a leg up into a career in radio and journalism, which shouldn’t have been possible in a medium market such as Canberra in that era.

I will also never forget the program director dedicating a song to our newborn daughter shortly before he died. That song still moves me to this day.

They were located at Northbourne Ave and the Jolimont Centre when I used to call in there.

Great old photos, can’t wait for the next lot!

Great photos. I love that lettering style too.

ahh….the hotel civic…….i used to love that old bloodhouse…..

It’s amazing what you can find on Wikipedia. Mort Street was not 2CA’s original studio……

Established by Albert John (Jack) Ryan, an AIF veteran and former signaller during the first World War, Canberra’s first commercial radio station – 2CA – began broadcasting with just a small 50 watt transmitter from the back of Jack’s electrical repair shop in the Canberra suburb of Kingston on the 14th of November, 1931. By 1933 the station had increased it’s transmitter to 500 watts and moved to a small purpose built studio on a low hill close to the Queanbeyan – Canberra road. The hill quickly became known as “Radio Hill”. By the late 1930s the 2CA studios were moved from Radio Hill to a new building in Mort Street, Civic, next to the Civic theatre. The transmitter power was increased again from 500 watts to 2,000 watts and moved to outlying Belconnen.[1] Over the years the 2CA studios would be housed in numerous buildings in Civic.

I can assure you that 2CA was at 4 Mort Street when I took that photo in 1948. The only building in the vicinity of 64 Northbourne Ave was the Hotel Civic and it took up the whole block. I doubt whether Pioneer coaches even existed in 1948 and the original Jolimont building across the road used to be the cop shop.