For more than 60 years Tony Gaw has enthusiastically explored and shared the developing world of audio/visual technology and the multifarious possibilities it has opened.  “The Bradford Museum — that tells my history!”

 

It began when the schoolboy Tony helped stage film shows, using a 16mm projector brought into school by a fireman.

 

This enthusiasm led him to seize his first career opportunity at the age of 13.  Catching the bus to school, he spotted the owner of a company which built local cinemas and theatres, backing his car out of his drive.  Young Gaw knocked on the window — and asked for a job. He was asked to attend for an interview that afternoon.  “The next day I was working for him”.

 

It was a first step along the way but this success was tempered by one regret.  His new employers Thompsons had an agreement that they and the Odeon would never take each other’s staff — and Tony already nursed the ambition to work for the top cinema chain.  But in the short term he enjoyed the challenge of getting good quality pictures using a mirror, because the building was not long enough to project a sufficiently large picture.

 

A pattern developed of being offered chances out of the blue, but then using each role to create new opportunities.  Soon after World War II, Tony went into the services to learn a trade, and trained to be a flight engineer.  However the RAF base at Dishforth had an old cinema large enough for an audience of 400 and a 35mm projector.  Needless to say, a request to go to work there followed.  This meant Tony was working with the same equipment as the Odeon and he also earned £3 a week — a lot of money!  Best of all he had to miss the Saturday morning Commanding Officer Parade — he started a Saturday Club for RAF children.

 

When military service finished, he had no idea what the future would bring.  “I went home on Friday, and on Monday there was a letter from the Rank organisation offering an interview for the role of Chief Engineer”.  Three days later, aged 22, he had the job.

 

It meant he was the relief chief projector for their cinemas across the whole North East region.  The dream of working in the Odeon had arrived — many times over. 

 

The Odeon in Newcastle did stage shows including performances by Glenn Miller.  It was well-known for other spectaculars —such as the stage being flooded for ice shows — though that ended before Tony's time.

 

But best of all was his work at the Odeon in Scarborough where he developed the prototype of what he regarded as “the finest projector in the world” — a Super BTH.  He oversaw a pressurised process by which the projector was tested then adjusted overnight, being refitted the next morning.  "You're talking about taking a quarter of a turn off the motor that drove the sound drum —they were aiming to get a perfect sound drum."

 

Tony got involved with the new regional RTS Centre at the time when Tyne Tees was changing from black and white to colour.  The inaugural meeting was on April 7th 1975, and a grant from the London HQ of £50 set the ball rolling.

 

 

It was to be 15 years later that he took on the Treasurer role.  “I was talked into it! — the previous Treasurer Bob Herrick was a great pal”.  Although Tony was not an accountant, by then he was managing a budget of more than £1m.  Also his father had been an accountant and his grandfather a bank manager (whose evidence was crucial in the jailing of the Kray brothers).

 

But that is to leap ahead.  Tony’s interest in helping found the new RTS Centre was partly because he had just changed jobs again and moved into academia; a role which started with language laboratories, photography and just one 16mm projector — and eventually grew to that of the Head of Media Services for Teesside University.  Tony experimented and had the gift of persuading others to fund his zest for development.  He created a broadcast standard TV studio, the first university in the UK to introduce videotape.  How?  “Luckily I read a lot, and had a very helpful Vice Principal.”  But he had equal energy in learning the inner secrets of photocopying — and gleefully challenged the suppliers by understanding their equipment more than they did.  Responsibility for the printing department was duly added to his growing empire. 

 

While at Teesside University, his RTS contacts led him to realise that there was no North East home for archive films.  “John Frost (BBC) told me he had four tea chests of film and was worried they might have to be destroyed”.  Tony offered to help — only to discover it was 32 chests!

 

Undaunted, he set about creating such a home, a contribution recognised by the RTS in an award in 1995.  Three Youth Enterprise Scheme youngsters helped set it up and all got jobs later on.  The archive is now protected in a £1m air-conditioned purpose-built facility at the University. 

 

As ever, the content interested him as much as the technicalities.  He recalls that one rescued report was the first time a walking piece to camera had been recorded, as Luke Casey recounted an incident over a distance of nearly 200 yards, with a microphone cable stretched along as he walked.

 

Tony has left many legacies with the RTS.  Fittingly, for someone who was thankful for the great opportunity he was given in his early teens, one of his favourite initiatives has benefited thousands of young people over the last 25 years.

 

The Young People’s Media Showcase was founded thanks to the energy of several people, primarily the inspirational David Williams.  “I did the technical end — I was very keen on it, probably because I started so young”.  It parallels his other voluntary work to support young people — he was a Director of Middlesbrough’s Little Theatre and has chaired the governing bodies of several schools. 

 

But one great tradition of the Centre got underway despite his initial reservations.  “When John Frost suggested starting awards, we had a tremendous argument.  I asked could we afford it? — and I gave in.”

 

Despite that initial caution, his support for the risks and additional workload has been a factor in a superb success story, allowing the region to stage the largest awards outside London, showcasing its best work and also its comradeship.  And Tony once more made a crucial intervention.  He invited Michael Saville, the owner of the York-based audio visual company, to be involved in both the Young People’s Showcase screenings and the Awards in the first year.  It’s a partnership which has lasted to this day — Saville Audio Visual are now a regional patron of the RTS.

 

The RTS has changed with the evolution of the TV industry.

 

“In the past we used to charge for every lecture.  These were mostly in the Tyne Tees clubroom, with very lavish buffets!”  Musing through the accounts books, he spots an event in December 1978 when 90 people attended the annual get together.  It prompts memories of impromptu cabaret acts.  Membership was cheaper then for those who lived more than forty miles from a Centre. 

 

 

A glimpse into his other lives is afforded by the cover of a DVD set “Wild about Liszt”.  It says that it was recorded because “thankfully a good friend of Lord Londonderry’s, Mr Tony Gaw, was savvy enough to offer his services to personally videotape the three Liszt concerts”. 

 

And whilst at Teesside University he developed a partnership with the local police force which resulted in video pilot schemes covering crowd control and scene-of-crimes filming.

 

Tony’s sense of public service runs far wider than the RTS and has won deserved recognition.  Perhaps one of the most prestigious is his Paul Harris Fellowship for Rotary International. 

 

 

The schoolboy who left school at 13 with no qualifications to his name has made his mark and helped many others have the opportunities to learn and enjoy.  Tony attributes his lifetime of enthusiasm to the joy of having opportunities to be involved in activities which matched his personal interests.  “All the things I developed in the university were like my hobbies.  I never regretted a single day.” 

 

OLWYN HOCKING