The Captains Flat Branch railway which runs from the outskirts of Bungendore to the former mining town is best remembered for two controversial events.
One of these occurred during construction of the line and the other in 1969, about a year after it was officially closed.
The first was the botched bombing of a bridge during construction in 1939 which was to carry the line across the Molonglo River near Foxlow Station. As detailed in this column in 2022, using gelignite, unknown perpetrators in the middle of the night unsuccessfully attempted to blow up one of the pylons. It remains a mystery as to why.
The second dramatic event occurred on August 18, 1969 during filming of one of the final scenes of Tony Richardson's Ned Kelly film starring Mick Jagger.
Some film critics argue the entire production was jinxed because even before production began in Braidwood, Bungendore and surrounds, some of Kelly's descendants loudly voiced their disapproval over Jagger's controversial casting. "How could an Englishman play the role of a fearful Irishman?" they claimed. Jagger's slight build was brought into contention - this despite the fact Kelly was a good 5cm shorter than Jagger. Further, the Rolling Stones frontman reportedly couldn't even ride a horse, an essential mode of transport for any self-respecting 19th-century bushranger.
Then, once filming in the anticipated blockbuster began, Jagger's girlfriend Marianne Faithfull, chosen to play Kelly's sister, overdosed on sleeping tablets when Jagger suggested they split up.
Throw in a mystery virus that swept through the crew, and boxes of costumes that went up in smoke in a baffling fire and you can understand the genesis of the so-called "jinx".
However, potentially the biggest setback for the movie occurred while filming in a railway cutting near Captains Flat, when a prop pistol loaded with blanks backfired, injuring Jagger's right hand.
Never-before-published photographs taken by Keith Pardy, squirreled away in the collection of his grandson Nicholas, show the extent of Jagger's injury.
"I became a custodian of his vast collection of slides after his wife, my grandmother, passed away a few years ago. It just so happened that the day Keith, who at the time was working with Army Audio visual team, travelled to Captains Flat to view the set, was the same day that Jagger sustained his injury," reveals Nicholas.
After the extent of the injury was realised, Jagger was rushed to Queanbeyan hospital.
Sean Burke, now of Bermagui, remembers the afternoon well. Just 15 years old at the time, he was at Queanbeyan hospital recovering from an operation on his own hand.
"There was another young fellow who also had his hand bandaged up and we both wore red dressing gowns and were known as The Two Musketeers," recalls Sean. "One of the nurses came rushing in saying she'd found a third musketeer so we hurried down to Emergency to see who it was ... it was Mick Jagger and he was going off his head demanding the best doctor in Australia. He left soon afterwards and headed to Canberra hospital."
Andrew Zarb reports his grandfather was the radiographer who took x-rays of Jagger's hand at Canberra hospital.
"Initially, he had no idea who he was, but he was quickly educated from the nurses," say Andrew, adding "apparently there was a flurry of activity as word got around."
I recently caught up with one of those nurses, who wishes to remain anonymous.
"Trish, one of the nurses in my group, had the honour of caring for Jagger in the recovery room," reports my informant who was a second-year student nurse at the time.
"The hospital and more specifically Sylvia Curley House (residential digs for nurses) was abuzz with having a pop sensation as a patient and those who didn't see or care for Mick were insanely jealous," she reveals.
Despite the Canberra surgeon who removed a chunk of metal from Jagger's hand warning the infamous rocker he my never play guitar again, Jagger eventually recovered.
Which is more than can be said for the film.
Jagger disowned the film before its premier, claiming he only accepted the role "because he had nothing else to do", reportedly dismissing the film "as a load of shit".
Not surprisingly, the film tanked at the box office.
Brown sugar: In the weeks following his injury, during filming breaks Jagger strummed his guitar in such a way as to avoid further injury to his hand. According to rock lore, this led to him writing Brown Sugar, the next Rolling Stones hit. "I wrote that song in Australia in the middle of a field. They were really odd circumstances. I was doing this movie, Ned Kelly, and my hand had got really damaged in this action sequence. So stupid. I was trying to rehabilitate my hand and had this new kind of electric guitar, and I was playing in the middle of the outback and wrote this tune," he told Rolling Stone magazine in 1995. Heck, I've heard of Captains Flat called many things. But the outback?!
Bullet find: After the 1969 shoot wound up, Neal Gowen of Kaleen reports that his father, Jim, picked up some artefacts left lying around town. "These included the movie pub sign (which was subsequently donated to the Queanbeyan Museum) and a handful of old bullet casings (blanks of course) from the Captains Flat railway line where the train ambush scene was filmed".
The man behind the lens
Drawing on skills he'd acquired during years of hobby photography, in 1969 Keith Pardy was lured to Canberra as a film editor for the army.
Keith had a deep understanding of emerging photography technology. In fact, in 1978, he told a Canberra Times reporter that "during the war [World War II], a mate and I built our own 35mm camera, when you just couldn't buy them".
After his short career in the army, which included audio-visual and training-film work, and of course his visit to the filming of Ned Kelly (see article on facing page), in 1974 Keith joined the National Library of Australia where he carved out a niche for himself restoring early movie film. In his role as first preservation officer for the National Film and Sound Archive (then part of the library's film division) he developed key components of a ground-breaking preservation and standard system.
Through this work Keith provided us all with an opportunity to view part of our cinema heritage which might otherwise have been lost forever. One of the biggest challenges he faced was to learn the styles of other filmmakers so their films could be reconstructed as they intended them to appear.
Keith restored several iconic early Australian silent features, including Silks and Saddles (1919) and Robbery Under Arms (1920) and was working on the 1927 film For the Term of His Natural Life at the time of his death in 1980.
Despite his pioneering work in restoring Australia's film heritage, Keith always remained a keen photographer at heart.
"I've always been a photographer and I still do photography for relaxation," he confessed in the 1978 article.
And lucky he did, otherwise he may not have taken those dramatic photographs just moments after one of the biggest names in show business was injured on the set of Ned Kelly.
WHERE IN CANBERRA?
Rating: Medium
Clue: Gruner
How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to tym@iinet.net.au. The first correct email sent after 10am, Saturday June 1 wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.
Last week: As an indication of just how quickly it has been forgotten, not a single reader correctly identified last week's photo as the recently abandoned bowling green at Yowani Bowling Club in Lyneham.
THE INSIDE STORY
Several eagle-eyed readers including Tom Hughes of Curtin and James Lee of Holder, took a double-take when they recently noticed a photo in this column captioned as "the interior of The Capitol Theatre 1973".
"The Capitol was a traditional theatre with stalls downstairs and a dress circle upstairs. I took my younger cousins there to see Star Wars in 1977 and we sat upstairs," reveals Tom who believes the photo is of The Boulevard (later Electric Shadows) in Civic.
James agrees. "The Boulevard opened on December 6, 1973 and the sloping/ramping floor had bright lights running down the sides just as in the incorrectly captioned photo," reports James.
Both Tom and James are spot-on and as pointed out by Ken Roe, contributor to the cinmeatreasures.org website, "seating at The Capitol was provided in orchestra and balcony levels" and was designed to allow stage productions as well as films".
My apologies - the photo had been mislabelled in The Canberra Times archive.
- CONTACT TIM: Email: tym@iinet.net.au or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, GPO Box 606, Civic, ACT, 2601
