Airdate: Perth – Our Life and Times

Nine Perth will screen a locally documentary, Perth – Our Life and Times produced, directed, filmed and edited by postgraduate broadcast students from Edith Cowan University.

Step back in time and travel to Katanning, where the crumbling, 127-year-old Katanning Flour Mill is now a multi-million-dollar refurbishment which offers unique accommodation for visitors to the Great Southern region.

At the time of the flour mill sale it was seen as the best dollar ever spent in the protection of WA’s architectural and industrial heritage. But that is not quite how owner Nigel Oakley, chief executive of the Dome café group, saw it. “I bought a multi-million-dollar liability for one dollar,” he jokes.

Today the three-storey, electrically powered mill built in 1891 remains the heart and soul of Katanning, but as a derelict building it only survived because the money could not be raised to cover the costs of demolition.

The Perth Girls School, built in 1934 and opened in 1936 with 502 students, has a fascinating place in WA education. A study of the school’s history revealed a trend for formalising domestic studies for young ladies – how to cook, sew, iron and starch clothes. Once the school closed in 1962 it was taken over by the WA Police, with the Traffic Branch not moving out until 2015.

The program also visits Perth’s iconic Bell Tower, where 100,000 people come each year to see and hear the 300-year-old bells ring, and Fremantle Harbour, where the pilots oversee shipping movements in a port that is quite unique. It is used by a wide range of vessels, from small fishing boats and superyachts to container ships and car carriers. The stats are remarkable: $3 million worth of cargo per hour comes through Fremantle Ports.

4:30pm Sunday on Nine (Perth).