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bones, a snake skin and another dead rabbit. With the aid of a torch I could make out
the shape of the Powers head against the far wall, so I kept crawling along under the
furniture, then a rat ran out in front of me, a bit scary, but it did make me feel like a real
cinema archaeologist. About an hour later we stopped crawling around in the dirt.

Finally we were able to extract the Powers head, it had been modified to rear shutter,
the sound head (Defoy) was made for a Simplex, but it seemed to fit awkwardly, a
motor drive and chain linkages to sprockets. It also had one round C&W lower spool
box and a Powers top spool box. The top spool box, although in poor condition, had all
the fittings and no broken glasses. So now I had a complete top spool box, including the
fire rollers.

It was at about this time I made a firm commitment to rebuild the projector to working
condition as a talkie machine, using as many of the modifications as possible. Only one
problem. I had no stand or Powers lamp house. But I remembered about 40 years ago
seeing a Powers projector stored in the shed in the back of an old theatre in the north
east of Victoria. I made inquiries, and the owner Old Charlie told me he would think
about it, may be he would sell it to me.

I rang back in about two weeks only to be told he had had a “barney” with his son about
selling it, not wanting to come between father and son, I had to let it go.

Time went on, six months to be exact. I decided to contact Charlie again. “Gary I was
going to give you a call, do you still want the projector?” “You bet your boot I do, but
what about your son?” “Bugger him”
said Charlie. The next day was Anzac
Day 2023 so before he changed his
mind, I made the long drive to the north
east of Victoria in my trusty old 1937
Ford V8 coupe ute.
I never got home till late that night, but
I did have my Powers stand complete
with the E type lamp house and a
Harrington’s Imperial vertical arc. You
beauty! now everything was set for the
rebuild. The only thing missing was the
Raycophone flywheel, but one was
kindly given to me by Kev Franzi.

Most people were sympathetic to my
cause and helped me out where they
could. But a lot of mechanical
engineering was required to get things
right and my lathe came in handy.

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