STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY
COLLECTION
OH 309/35
Full transcript of an interview with
BARRY HALL
on 16 August 1999
by Paul Linkson
for the
ONCE UPON A WIRELESS: AN ORAL
HISTORY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIAN RADIO
PROJECT
Recording available on cassette
Access for research: Unrestricted
Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study
Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the
State Library
OH 309/35
BARRY HALL
NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT
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2
J.D.
SOMERVILLE
ORAL
HISTORY
COLLECTION,
LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIANA: INTERVIEW NO. 309/35
MORTLOCK
Paul Linkson interviewing Radio 5DN announcer, Barry Hall, at the Vic Palmer
Studios in Adelaide on 16th August 1999, forming part of the Once upon a wireless
project of the Somerville Oral History Collection of the Mortlock Library of
South Australiana.
(Also present, contributing occasional remarks, is one ‘Rick’ who appears to be in the
role of recording technician.)
TAPE 1 SIDE A
Barry Hall, it’s a while since we’ve got together over a microphone, but I’d like to
go back and put it down for the record in this wonderful world of radio of your
role in this great Australian industry. Tell me now about your first interest in
radio, and how you ended up commencing your career at 5DN.
Well, it goes a long, long way back, Paul, probably back to about 1949, and I had a
very healthy interest in the radio then  mainly 5AD; I didn’t ever dream of ever
being on 5Dn, but I dreamt of being an announcer one of these days because I was a
great fan of Bob Fricker, who was on the early morning programme, the breakfast
programme, of 5AD. And he ran a little competition where the prize was a Charlie
Cheesecake road safety booklet and I happened to win this  I’d never won a thing
in my life before and I thought I was absolutely made. And I thought, ‘Oh, I love
this radio bit,’ and I then became fans of not only Bob Fricker but Roberta Russell
and Kangaroos on parade, which was very popular at that time.
Yes, indeed.
Now, I was always interested in music. When I was a little boy  you know, I was
four years of age, five years of age  my parents would take me along to the Theatre
Royal, which is where the car park is now in Adelaide. I usually say ‘the Miller
Anderson car park’ but they’ve gone as well (laughter). So the car park in Hindley
Street now is where the old Theatre Royal used to be. And Mum and Dad used to
take me  I was an only child, and my Mum and Dad used to take me along to the
great vaudeville shows in those days with George Wallace, Jim Gerald, Bob Dyer,
The last of the hillbillies  all of those great variety shows  and I used to sit there
3
and watch these shows absolutely entranced. And when the music would start up in
the orchestra my little fingers would go like mad on the seat in front of me, you
know, and much to the annoyance, of course, of the person sitting there. So I always
had music in my blood and I learned to play the piano when I was only seven: went
into hospital to have my appendix out and my Dad said, ‘Well, you’ve been a very
good boy: what would you like to have when you come out of hospital?’ And I
said, ‘Well, Dad, I’d love to have a piano.’ And it just so happened that a lady two
doors up from us was a piano teacher  her name was Anna Sloane  and I had my
very first lessons from her. But she wanted to teach me, you know, in the real
original ridgy-didge way how to play the piano  scales and all that sort of thing 
but my sort of feeling for music was far in front of my eye and she wanted me to
read every note and dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’, but my mind was too far away
from that  well, my ear was  and I was playing all the tunes on the radio   .
But did you in fact take notice of what she tried to teach you?
I did indeed; and of course now  now that I’m very much older, like about thirtynine, I try to tell everybody (laughter)  that should be changed to sixty-four now 
but I did indeed take notice of what she said and so I’ve got a very good working
knowledge of music now. But just going back to those days, I was very interested in
my piano work and I learned to play the piano in the classical way and then, of
course, I used to play all the pop tunes that came on the radio as well. And then we
changed address  at that time we were living on the Port Road at Woodville; my
Dad was one of the executives down at Holden’s, General Motors Holden’s  so we
moved closer to the factory down at Woodville Road, which wasn’t all that closer,
but we moved down there. And when we moved to Woodville Road we sort of lost
track with the teacher because she then became married, and I started to just play the
piano by ear. And I became interested in the banjo.
Now, the reason I became interested in that was there was a programme on 5DN
every Sunday afternoon sponsored by the Adelaide College of Music, just called The
Banjo Club  half past five  and I worried my Mum and Dad to buy me a banjo
and, of course, being musically inclined I learned to play this thing in about three
weeks and in next to no time I was playing on the radio! On Sunday afternoons at
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half past five! I thought I was made, absolutely made, in The Banjo Club. And of
course they had spade shows at the old Tivoli Theatre  there’s another old theatre
for you   .
Was this a 5DN programme?
Yes, it was.
And who was running it? Who was the compere of it?
The compere was a chap called Jack Ryan  and I’m not quite sure where they got
him from; he had a very good voice  and Jack Ryan was the compere back in those
days, and it was a good show. There was really  lots of people got their start, and I
think Bobby Limn [?] is somebody else who got his start on the old Banjo Club.
Anyway, I played on there just about every Sunday afternoon, and going to school
and playing my banjo; then I became interested in the ukulele and I got into a little
Hawaiian band called Four Boys and a Bass. And our teacher, whose name was
Dale Petherick [?], she taught me to play the ukulele and she also taught this young
fellow to play a double bass, and his name was Darcy Wright. Now, that may not
mean anything to you unless you’re into musical circles: Darcy Wright had had six
lessons; I’d had about a year on the ukulele and another young couple of lads played
the Spanish guitar and one of them Hawaiian guitar, and we went on 5AD’s Amateur
hour with Dick Fair [?]. And we won the programme  our little band was called
Four boys and a bass. Now, that Darcy Wright, he went on to become the principal
bass player in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, having had only six lessons, you
know. Now, he was  he really stole the show with Dick Fair.
Now, this is all leading into my introduction to radio, because I feel, Paul, that a
lot of my involvement with music and the people that I met early in my life helped
me to get into radio in later life.
How old were you at this stage?
I was only thirteen when I was on Four Boys and a Bass. So, no, I went to
Woodville High School, and then  what happened then? Oh, I know: I just had an
idea that I wanted to become an announcer. I used to look at all the shop windows
after school and look at microphones and look at musical instruments, and I was one
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of these kids  I wasn’t interested in sport: most of the kids were interested in sport.
In fact, down in my class at school, I mean, I went right through Woodville School
with a fellow called Geoff Motley [?], who became one of the top names in football;
and Neville Hayes [?], he was another one. And being in the Port Adelaide district,
you know, if you didn’t play football you were right out of it. And I had, you know,
other famous people in my class at Woodville High School, one fellow called
Charlie Perkins  I’d better say no more about Charlie, because he was in my class at
school as well and has become a very famous person in his own right. But, getting
back to my   .
So how did you become an announcer? What did you do about it?
Well, I’m still working up to that; it takes a long time, doesn’t it? (laughter) But in
the meantime, this lady, Dale Petherick, who taught me to play the ukulele, she said
to me, ‘You should develop your piano work because I think you’d be pretty good.’
So I said, ‘Okay, well, who should I go to?’, and she recommended a teacher called
Frank Buller. And Frank Buller gave me a number of lessons and he said, ‘What do
you think you’d like to do when you leave school?’ And I said, ‘Well, I reckon I
might like to be an announcer.’ He said, ‘Well, you haven’t got much of a voice
now. You want to be an announcer  who have you been listening to?’ I said,
‘Well, there’s Uncle Bob Fricker on 5AD and I work on The Banjo Club every
Sunday afternoon now,’ and he said, ‘Oh, well, I heard them the other night
advertising on 5DN they wanted an office boy.’ And I said, ‘Well, that sounds
pretty good.’ So I applied as office boy at 5DN  this was in 1951  and I got the
job, and it started from there. So, as office boy  I was office boy for about three or
four months  and then I got into what we call ‘radio presentation’: I used to   .
Well, tell me about the office boy job: who were you working with in that period
of time?
Well, the General Manager back in those days was a gentleman called Joe Larkin,
who looked the typical manager: he was a very tall man and a ruddy face with hornrimmed glasses and you’d shudder in your boots when he sort of walked past you in
the corridor (laughter). And he had a secretary named Miss Tie, Clarice Tie [?], and
she was a sweetie. And my first job was always to go down and buy Miss Tie her
6
ten Turf every Saturday  every morning, down to the little tobacconist store at the
bottom of the CML, because 5DN was in the top building of the CML back in those
days. So I had to buy ten Turf for Miss Tie, ten Turf for Mr Anderson, who was the
Sales Manager, his secretary 
Frank?
 Frank Anderson; his secretary was Mrs Nicholls, I think it was  I had to buy ten
Turf for her, and thirty for Mr Larkin. He had Peter Jackson; he liked a Peter
Jackson. I’ve got a good memory, haven’t I?
I was beginning to wonder whether Turf might have been a sponsor (laughter)
and they never smoked them!
No. So that was my first job of the day. And then I used to have to sort of lick the
stamps. And another job was to empty the bucket: we didn’t have any plumbing up
on the twelfth floor of the CML. Every time the girls made cups of tea, instead of
putting the slops down the sink, they’d have to put them in a big bucket; and because
the big sink and everything else was on the eleventh floor I had to carry the bucket
down periodically to empty that: that was another job of the office boy. And then
my final job of the day was to man the switchboard from five till five-thirty, and then
after that I would go down to 5AD to pick up the news, which was written in by one
of the journalists at The News, bring it back to 5DN, hand it to the announcer, and
then he would read it. So that was my first job as office boy at 5DN.
How long did that last?
It lasted three months. And then I was given the opportunity of becoming what we
call a Presentation Officer. Now, a Presentation Officer sits in a little studio and
when the announcer announced, well, the Presentation Officer would play the
record. Now, in those days, we used to play the transcriptions, all the big plays like
Biggles and Hagan’s circus and Hop Harrigan, Quiz kids, Caltex theatre  they all
came to us on these huge sixteen-inch recordings which we called transcriptions.
What sort of shifts did you have?
Well, there was morning, afternoon or evening. The breakfast shift runs from six
o’clock until about midday, and the afternoon went from twelve to six.
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And who was the line-up of people? Who were the big stars then, when you first
started?
The big stars then were people like Mel Cameron  he was my first encounter at the
radio station: when I was taken around to be introduced to everybody, Mel Cameron
was the first I met. And then there was Vic Braim [?]  I always held Vic very much
highly on a pedestal; Marjorie Irving was on the afternoon 
Oh!
 programme then. Yes; she was taking the place of Kay Brownbill who was
overseas at that particular time for three months or so, and then Marjorie Irving was
doing the afternoon shift. And then at night, my very pin-up boy, his name was Alan
Sanders, and I used to think Alan was just It-and-a-bit. And they were the line-up.
There was a sporting man called Matt Hines [?]  I can always remember Matt
Hines: I think he fancied himself a bit, you know. After I finished my stint on the
switchboard one night Matt came in, he said, (in growling voice) ‘G’day, lad,’ he
said, ‘I’m Matt Hines and perhaps you’d like to read my book: I’ve written a life
story.’ (laughs) I was armed up with his book and took it home and read it and, you
know, he was only a name to me before that. But that was very interesting to meet
these people.
But who was your immediate boss then?
My immediate boss was a gentleman called Merv Thomas. Having had Miss Tie as
my office boy (hesitation) 
Boss?
 boss, put it that way  I was then transferred to Merv Thomas, who was somewhat
of a rough diamond but he had a heart of gold. And I owe a lot of my thanks in the
radio world to Merv Thomas because I was one of these kids who wanted to do
everything straight away and he put a bit of a rein on me; he held me back. And I
said, ‘I want to go on the air.’ ‘You’re not going on the air. Your voice is dreadful;
you’ve got to wait.’ (laughter) And I thank him today, because had he let me go I
would have made a fool of myself.
So how long did you have to wait?
8
I had to wait for about seven years before I said one word on the air.
Really?
Yes.
And you still continued to be the Presentation Officer and   ?
Yes; well, Presentation Officer, and we also had what we called the Transcription
Department.
Now, the Transcription Department handled the incoming and
outgoing of the radio plays: they’d come in to us from, say, a station in Sydney,
2GB which was our sister station at that time; we’d play the plays and then we’d
have to send them off to another Macquarie station, the network that we were on.
And what about the commercials in those days? Were they all live, or how were
they presented?
Well, some of them were live and some of them were recorded on what we called an
acetate disk. You see, back in those days, Paul, in 1951, we didn’t have the types of
recordings that we have today; we had to change the needle every time we played a
781 record. You know, back in those days, there was no LPs 2 or anything like that.
In fact, I can remember the very first night that an LP came on the air: it was one
Sunday night they tried out this new-fangled invention called microwave, and the
engineers had 
RICK
Groove?
BH
 made up this 
RICK
Microgroove?
BH
 microgroove  oh, microgroove, yes: there’s a correction from the
(laughter) sixpenny seats over there. Yeah, microgroove: I can remember that as
well as anything. We had this flimsy little pick-up and it was to be tried out late on a
Sunday night, just in case it didn’t work. And it turned out that it worked very well.
And your role as Presentation Officer, the musical side of it was all chosen by
somebody else? You just played them.
1
2
78 rpm, played with a turntable speed of 78 revolutions per minute.
Long-playing record, played at 33 rpm.
9
Oh, it was chosen by our Record Library.
Who was in charge of that?
Well, in the Record Library then there was a lady called Lorna Coates [?], who
was   .
I’ve never heard of her.
Haven’t you heard of her?
That’s a new name I’ve heard.
Oh, you’re learning a bit today (laughter). Lorna Coates, and then there was  she
had an offsider there called Elizabeth Salter 
Oh   .
 and another lady named June Clarke [?] and Margaret O’Reagan [?]: they were
the girls in the Record Library when I first started there. I can remember them all
quite well; I often wonder what they’re doing these days.
And they would programme, choose the records and the various   .
They would programme the records back in those days and they’d make up the lists.
The announcer didn’t have any rein at all on the programmes then; they were
entirely chosen to fit in with the station’s format by the record library.
And then in 1951-ish and in those early ’50 years, what were the weekend
programmes? What coverage of sport was there, do you remember?
Yes. Well, of course then they had  football was not like it is today; football was
just your Sturts and Norwoods and Port Adelaide and West Torrens and it was local
football, and we used to cover that every Saturday afternoon with  our commentator
was Ken Ackland [?]. Ken was formerly an umpire, and a very good one at that, and
when he retired from umpiring he took up commentating. So he was the football
commentator for many years. And then we also broadcast the races from Adelaide,
and this gentleman I referred to before, whose name is Matt Hines, he handled the
race descriptions. And then when he retired, his place was taken by a gentleman
called Matt Fitzpatrick, who was also a journalist at the time for The News.
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Good. Well, now, when and how did you make the transition from presentation to
air? How did it occur?
Well, it occurred in a very funny way. Because, as I told you before, it was seven
years before I said one word on the air   .
So this would have been around 1958?
Yes; and finally Merv Thomas said, ‘Well, look, you can just try yourself out on the
Saturday morning.’ So  this was the training ground for announcers; today I think
they put them on the all-night session, but we didn’t have that then  so I got my first
go on a Saturday morning. We had a programmed called Around the rotunda which
featured brass band music 
Lovely music.
 it is, very stirring. So I did that and thought I was made, and I just couldn’t wait
until the next Saturday morning when I could sort of get onto it again. And then
shortly after that we moved from the CML Building in the city to North Adelaide, to
Tynte Street, North Adelaide, where the present studios are. And Merv came to me
one day and said, ‘Look, brother’  he used to call me brother  he said, ‘We’ve got
this idea for a new programme in the afternoon; we’re not ready to start it yet; we’re
going to put on a stop-gap programme of requests and we thought you might like to
do that until we get organised in this other show.’ And I said, ‘Well, what’s your
other show going to be?’ He said, ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘All I want you to do is to
do a few requests.’ And I said, ‘What’s it going to be called?’ and he said, ‘Well,
the boss thought about it and thought, well, we’d just call it Choose your own,’
which is just to coin a phrase, pick your own record, choose your own, so he said,
‘See how you go with that.’
So I did it for a week and the letters started to literally pour in and the phone calls
saying, ‘We like this person’s style,’ and the two weeks went past, three weeks went
past, I was still there; and I said, ‘How long’s this going to go on for?’ ‘Oh, we’ll let
you know,’ said Merv. But it seemed to go on and on and on, and finally (laughs),
after twenty years, I said, ‘When am I going to go?’ (laughter)
Well, I can remember, when I first started at the station you were the major
afternoon announcer and you had ratings and good following and you were very
11
well ensconced as one of the major line-ups. Because, having done presentation
for you, I can remember how relaxed and how easy and how enjoyable it was to
be working with somebody of your balance and sensibilities and lack of
temperament, put it that way.
Yes. Well, I think you need that (laughter) to be in radio. Lots of them haven’t
these days.
But it was a very popular programme: it was  it had a vast coverage, didn’t it?
It was. Our coverage covered many parts of the State and even beyond. Most of our
requests came, funnily enough, from Eyre Peninsula, from Port Lincoln, from
Cowell 
Elliston.
 Elliston, all those places over there on Eyre Peninsula; we had a huge amount of
mail that came in from the Yorke Peninsula. 5DN didn’t reach terribly well into the
mallee beyond Murray Bridge at that particular time, so we didn’t get a lot from
there  although in recent times I’ve been doing some work and whenever I mention
that I was on 5DN people from places like Coonalpyn and beyond, Tintinara, say,
‘Oh, we often used to listen to you out on the tractor.’ So, even though we didn’t get
any mail back in those days from these places, I found that we did in fact penetrate.
There’s a lady I’ve met in Elliston in recent years  she has since died, but going
back a few years  she was a great Barry Hall Choose your own fan: I can’t recall
a name, but as soon as she mentioned who she was I said, ‘Barry Hall’s Choose
your own,’ because it used to be  she used to be a regular contributor and
requester, asker, for on the programme.
Right.
And she said   .
What was her name?
I can’t remember it, Barry; I can’t  one of your real favourites from over there.
I remembered it because the time I was doing presentation for you that name
would come up regularly and she was a great fan, and she has since married a
nephew of mine  her daughter has married a nephew 
Right.
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 so there we go.
enormous.
But your listening audience over on the West Coast was
Yes. We used to get our regulars, you know. And we had one family called the Del
Bello [?] family, and they lived at a little place called Kyulpa [?], which apparently
was a very small railway siding and that was it, and all the girls’ names ended in ‘a’:
there was Corinda, Lorinda, Berinda (laughs)  all these names; I think there were
about eight or nine youngsters altogether  and then we would receive letters for
years to play all their favourite Slim Dustys and Tex Mortons because they used to
love their country music and in fact they used to just wait for the programme every
afternoon to hear their favourite requests.
It’s amazing how the format was so simple and uncomplicated that they had a
request and the people in the library put it together in terms of balance and who
should sing what and where and how.
Yes.
But was there  rack your memory  was there a great request for instrumental
music, or was it basically vocal or popular record?
No; I think we used to get a few instrumentals, you know. If something might come
up like Winifred Atwell’s Black and white rag that would be an instrumental that
would get a lot of airplay; but if you sort of said what about Fascination by the
Melacrino Strings [?]  no, you wouldn’t get that: we used to use that sort of music
to pad out to the chimes. But all the popular songs of the day, you know, the Elvis
Presleys and   . We used to get, Paul, mainly the extremes of the religious ones,
extremes of cowboy songs  country  but you’d never know what was coming next.
I mean, we could have The Lord is my shepherd (clears throat) one recording, and
then, you know, The redback on the toilet seat could come after that. So you never
used to know what was coming next.
RICK
George Beverley Shea The eighth hour [?] (laughs).
BH
Yes, that was another popular one too, Rick.
That was often requested, was it? Yes.
Yes. But you know, you were saying before, the concept is so simple: even today in
the ’90s, 1999, if you tune into most of the radio stations, they have some form of
13
instant request type programme on. Where I live in Callington now, I listen to their
local station, 5MU  they have their Morning tea trolley every morning with a young
lass, and they play requests.
So I think the concept and format of a request
programme, even though it’s changed in concept, is still there.
Barry, after all the years you were on, how did you cope with the repetitiveness of
what it was about? Because a lot of the requests would have been frequently
played  fortunately, in the musical field, the new hits come out and people like to
hear them  but how did you, as a presenter, keep yourself so fresh all those years
in your presentation?
Well, you know, I think you said before, I had an even temperament (laughter). I
don’t get ruffled very easily. Mind you, when I get ruffled I get very ruffled
(interviewer laughs), but that only happens on a very rare occasion.
But that lasted how long? Choose your own.
The …..? It went for twenty years, went for twenty years.
It’s a long stint, isn’t it?
Yes, yes.
Five days a week.
Yes; it started at one thirty every afternoon; went through till four. And the thing is,
I never got sick of it. One of our managers, following Joe Larkin who I mentioned
before, Rex Palmer: he called me up to his office one day and he said, ‘Do you have
any real ambition in radio?’ And I said, ‘No; I’m quite happy to be doing what I’m
doing.’ And I think I floored him there, because most people had tremendous
ambition. But I had a lot of ambition when I was younger, but I had felt that I’d
achieved what I wanted to achieve and, even though I did virtually the same
thing   .
Did the time start to diminish as they began to cover more bloody races?
Oh yes, it did, well and truly. (laughter in the background) But, you know, it’s
amazing how we got our requests in between those bloody races (laughter). But they
were a real challenge as far as an operator is concerned because, as you know
yourself, Paul  you did these programmes and another one of our announcers, Craig
McGee [?], and he was an absolute whiz in the studio  we used to have to not only
14
present our programme; we used to have to listen to all the relays coming in and we
had to take results and mark them down across to the TAB  sometimes listen to two
or three programmes at once, which would send the average person around the bend.
But with those days in radio it became quite complex, and I think there was a real
challenge, apart from just doing your own programme, which you felt very satisfied
after having done a good shift.
Yes. Because the years as Presentation Officers does teach you all about time,
doesn’t it, and what the announcer or the performer is capable of doing in the
space of a second.
Yes.
Because you’ve had to do it technically, and then you get before a microphone and
then you’ve got to judge what your own ability is in terms of speaking.
Yes. That’s right.
The time factor.
And I mean, as far as the listener’s concerned, well, you know, it’s just they become
very blasé and they think, ‘Oh, well, it just happened.’ (laughter)
Well, now, you came to the station with a very good background in music and as a
musician: tell us about now your extra bits you used to do on air with musical
shows and things that used to happen.
Well, I think my main involvement when I was on air was to be musical director of
the children’s programmes at Channel Nine. I used to run my programme Choose
your own in the afternoon from one thirty till four, and then with black and white
television coming in in 1959, ’60 as it was here in Adelaide, Kevin Crease  who
made the transition from radio to TV  approached me one day and said, ‘Look,
Harry,’  he always used to call me Harry (laughter)  ‘Harry,’ he said, ‘we’re
running this Channel Niners kids’ show on Channel Nine,’ he said, ‘and we think
perhaps you might be able to do a bit of musical input  would you like to do a
couple of segments, see how it goes?’ So a little bit like my start in radio: I did
these segments and had these little kids come around the piano and I think we were
sponsored by Tip-Top Bread, and they all had their little buns in a packet or they’re
holding them up, and used to sing little songs and clap their hands and do all sorts of
15
things like that, and that developed into a little show called Stars of tomorrow and
then Here’s Humphrey, so I was involved with Channel Nine as a musical director 
I never considered myself an on air presenter on television; I wasn’t comfortable
with that at all. But I loved doing this musical work behind the scenes there and I
ended up doing that for twelve years or so, and it dovetailed very well with my work
on radio and working on radio for two or three hours and then coming across to do a
little bit on the TV as well.
But you were also doing programmes, weren’t you  was it the Tuesday morning,
you used to do a programme   .
No; that was Here’s Humphrey.
No, on radio.
On radio?
Yes. The studio used to be playing solos in the what was then the D Studio.
Oh, yes. Well, I think you were involved with that, too.
Sometimes.
Yes.
But you  I think you already had it established.
Well, no, no; it wasn’t originally established by me. That was with Mel Cameron. I
think it was  originally featured the late Mal Badenoch [?]: he used to come in
playing the piano and requests and so on. Just forget the name of the show now 
it’s not like me, is it, to forget that one?  but Mal used to come in and play solos
with Mel Cameron, and then for some reason he either left or went overseas and then
I played a few little tunes on the show  and I think you did, too, from time to time 
Yes.
 and that was very popular, too. So, even though I wasn’t a regular pianist on the
radio, I did get my opportunity to do a few spots like that.
Did they ever ask you on Choose your own to play something and you’d go and
record it or something?
16
Yes, we did. Yes, I used to have a little segment on the afternoon called Piano time,
which was on on and off: it was never a regular thing; it was just if somebody wrote
in and asked me to play the piano, well, I would record it and then play it that
afternoon.
END OF TAPE 1 SIDE A: TAPE 1 SIDE B
Barry, what other aspects of music came into your life at 5DN?
Well, one of the fun things of my music there, Paul, was I wrote some singing
commercials. Back in those early days of radio, in the early ’50s, singing jingles
became very popular and of course most of them were produced in Sydney. And we
had a very distinguished salesman who used to sell air time on 5DN named Mr
Smythe, Phil Smythe [?]. There were two salesmen, Phil Smythe and Tom Brent,
and they used to sell the station. And   .
Two very contrasting men, weren’t they? (laughter) Phil Smythe was like a
Shakespearean actor and Tom Brent was a lovely old character, wasn’t he, like
one of  a fool in one of Shakespeare’s characters too, I might   .
But Mr Smythe, bless his heart, he was such a big man:
he used to get in
everybody’s way and I think they used to buy time just to get rid of him, a lot of the
sponsors. But that’s by the way; he was a lovely person. But he said to me  he was
a great fan of mine: he used to say (in high, thin voice) ‘Oh, Barry,’ he said, ‘how
would you be at writing singing commercials?’ And I thought to myself, ‘I couldn’t
do that,’ and I said, ‘Well, who’s the commercial for?’ He said, ‘Old Herbie
Beecham [?], he’s the manager of Amscol  would you like to have a go at doing
something for Amscol?’ So I did; I wrote a little commercial for Amscol ice cream:
‘Give me Amscol ice cream please, sir, because it’s a food and not a fad,’ 
something like that  ‘It’s been South Australia’s favourite since my papa was a lad.’
(laughs) And we were fortunate at the time in having a very famous singer at 5DN,
her name was Josie Lorraine [?], and she was secretary to Merv Thomas who we
mentioned earlier in the interview. And I asked Josie if she could sort of help me on
this singing commercial and she said, ‘Yes, that’ll be fine, I’ll do that,’ and then Jan
Springett, who was also one of our fellow announcers there, who’s turned out to be a
lifetime friend, Jan could sing as well and I said, ‘Well, look, how about  I can’t
17
sing; I can play but I can’t sing for ….. …..’ So anyway, we went around to our
auditorium which was in Churchill Buildings in Gawler Place back in those days,
and we went around and we tried out this little song and we put it down on a disk
because we didn’t have tape then  we put it on an acetate disk  and Mr Smythe
played this to Herbie Beecham and they thought it was marvellous. So they said,
‘Well, what’s your fee?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’d better put in my fee.’ Thirty
shillings I got for it, I think. Thirty shillings  I thought I was made, getting all this
high fee for a simple commercial.
Did they pay you any residuals for that every time it was played?
Not a penny.
(laughter)
Anyway, that was my first introduction to singing
commercials. And after that I did one for Lightburn products  they sold mops and
floor over products and that sort of thing; and I did one for nibble Nobby’s Nuts 
‘Salted, roasted, candy-coated, nibble Nobby’s Nuts’, did that one  and one for
Clarkson’s, breaking windows for Clarkson’s. I did quite a few singing commercials
which were played quite regularly over the years.
And you did all the arrangements?
I did all the arrangements, yes, and of course it was much cheaper to produce them at
5DN paying me thirty bob than it was to   .
And you were the key executive producer for them? Did you produce them
yourself 
I produced 
 or perform them?
 produced them and performed them.
In other words, done the lot.
They were Barry Hall productions (laughter).
Would you ever have thought of going into that business? Did you ever think
later on you’d like to have gone on to that?
Yes; I wish now may I had of, but I suffer sometimes from an inferiority complex
and I thought, ‘Oh, these other fellows can do that better than I can,’ and I sort of
18
lost my will to do that. But I sometimes wish now that I’d maybe done that, because
it could have been very lucrative 
Yes.
 more than thirty bob (laughs).
Did you ever co-work with a lot of the identities at 5DN? You mentioned Jan
Springett. I have an idea that you and she  did you ever do that infamous
programme called Can I help you??
Yes. Oh, yes, we did that on a number of occasions, and that brings to mind a funny
little incident that happened there. Because Vidal [?] Can I help you? was just like
one of the sell-mart of the year, was on for years. It was sponsored by Vidal
Products of Albert Park.
RICK
Did you propose that theme too?
BH
No, no, I think Ken Chinner, who is one of our former announcers and
producers at 5DN did that one. Jan and I were working one afternoon  it was
raining cats and dogs outside  and the studio just went dead: we were off the air.
Because back in those days the transmitter was in fact within the studio itself, in the
control room. So we were put in a taxi and sent out to Dry Creek where our
auxiliary transmitter was at the time, and they had a makeshift studio out there 
very makeshift, I can tell you (laughs). So we got into the studio, and sure enough
we went on the air. And there was only an old box there that one of us had to sit on,
so I said, ‘Well, okay, Jan, I’ll sit on the box; you sit on my knee.’ So she sat on my
knee and we both said, ‘Can I help you?’ and of course the listeners didn’t know
what was going on; but all of a sudden the drips started to come through the ceiling.
It was  oh!  absolutely pouring down with rain. And the cows were mooing out in
the paddock (laughs) and then, to cap it all off, on the script we had to sell some
babies’ bootees and they left out one of the ‘o’s, you know, and that broke us both up
(laughs)  ‘babies’ botees’ to sell (laughter).
There were lots of funny things, too, I remember when you were both doing that
programme. They  lost and found and the things they’d find on the beach or lose
on the beach  where both of you used to end up in hysterics and would find it
very hard to continue the programme.
19
Once you start you can’t stop laughing.
Who else did you work with? Did you work with anyone, any other people?
Kevin Crease.
Yes.
I worked with Kevin on Sunday afternoons. We had a regular programme on
Sundays 
What was that?
 called Top-liners. And that was on  remember I told you about the old Banjo
Club?
Yes.
Well, that was on also at five-thirty on a Sunday afternoon  this was long after the
Banjo Club had finished  and we did that for a long time. And Kevin was very
good then, just as he is now.
What was the basis of that programme there?
Oh, we used to just talk about the various artists. Usually it was divided up into
vocal and instrumental, and Kevin would talk at some length about the vocal artists
and I’d do likewise with the instrumentalists.
Were you into the Outside Broadcast systems  did you broadcast in the olden
days with the early Choose your own, or I know when we got the big, modern,
mobile studio, did you go out in that a lot?
Oh yes, we went out quite often with that. Not only with Choose your own; we did
other promotions on the beach for Pepsi-Cola and  in fact, I’ve got some old home
movies at home with myself out there in the mobile studio with this hideous red shirt
on running a competition on the beach. You know, we used to attract thousands of
people down there in those days; it was great. So I did those and other outside
broadcasts I did, which were a lot of fun, was going up in the little Cessna doing the
shark reports along the beach. We used to go on the plane, the little Cessna.
Were they on the weekends, basically?
20
Weekends, yes, from Parafield, which was the major airport then. We’d go from
Parafield down the coast, down to Granite Island and fly all round Granite Island and
back again, commentating on beach conditions and whether there were any sharks
around the place and, you know, whether   .
Any traffic reports?
Traffic reports, yes. We could do all of that from the plane as well, so this was the
forerunner of what they do today and which people take for granted now.
Yes. Was there much to talk about in terms of what was happening on the beach
or how busy the traffic was back then?
Oh, we got over Maslin’s Beach, there was a fair bit of interest there (laughter). But
I (hesitation)  you know, I was up  I frankly didn’t know where I was (laughs).
But one occasion, one day, the pilot said to me  we’d taken off and we’re going
down the beach  and he said, ‘There’s a bee in the cockpit at the moment: can you
kill that?’ And I said, ‘Kill it?’ He said, ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I’m exceedingly allergic
to bees.’ (laughter) So I made it my business to dispatch that bee very quickly
(laughs).
You must have, over the years, with all that you did at 5DN, come across meeting
lots of people: did you integrate into the Choose your own programmes, or were
you doing  did you have the opportunity to meet any of the recording stars or
well-known and famous people who used to come into the studio, perhaps in the
latter years?
Yes.
Did you have a lot to do with those, or did you just get the chance to interview
them? I can’t recall whether you integrated them into Choose your own.
Oh yes, I interviewed Winifred Atwell, on several occasions; Slim Dusty, who was
always a great favourite in the afternoon session; I don’t know whether I interviewed
them but I certainly met people like Johnny Ray and Nat King Cole and Joe Fingers
Carr [?], they were all here. Don Corneal [?]  do you remember Don Corneal?  he
used to sing great songs. I don’t think I actually interviewed those people, but I did
meet them at various receptions we had at the radio. One person that I did have the
great honour of introducing once  I didn’t actually interview him for radio, but I
had to introduce him on stage down at the old State Theatre in Hindley Street  and
21
that was Harry Secombe, and I found him to be one of the most charming men that
I’d ever met: he was marvellous. But I was shaking in my boots because I thought,
‘Here am I, just an ordinary old rookie announcer, introducing one of the world’s top
funny men.’ I thought, ‘He’s going to send me up, surely.’ But he didn’t. And we
had an incident on stage where this barrel, which held thousands of entries and he
had to pick out the winning one, got stuck: we couldn’t get it open. (laughter) And
he made such a fun of it  but he sort of put it back on himself rather than me, you
know  and it was hilariously funny; the people were in stitches. But it was just an
absolute pleasure to be involved with a man of that stature in show business on the
stage.
There were some great identities there we worked with, didn’t we, outside the
windows of the studios  particularly the engineers.
Oh, yes. Those people in the goldfish bowl.
Yes.
Yes.
There were some wonderful characters there, weren’t there?
There were, yes. And it’s amazing how those characters stayed on over the years. I
mean, with radio these days in the ’90s, as I understand it, people are there one
moment and they’ve gone the next. But back in those days that we were there I
think everybody looked upon their stay in the radio as an absolute career, and the
engineers were just the same as the announcers. And the engineers I can remember,
the one very colourful character named Wickham Bailey [?] who was always there;
and there was Mel Cameron  sorry, not Mel Cameron: we know Mel; Mel’s the
announcer  there was Warwick Parsons 
Yes, he was a character.
 he was a character; Bill Smith  I think some of them are still alive   . And
George Barber, poor old  he was our Chief Engineer; he’s now passed on of course
 and Laurie Shoburg [?]. There was one very enterprising young man, George
Bejoko [?] who we used to work with.
Clarry Naylon [?], a particularly nice
gentleman; and Tom Gardner, so  you’d know all these people yourself, of course.
22
Yes.
And they were real characters in their own way.
Warwick Parsons loved to try and break you up, didn’t he 
Yes, he sure did.
 with his homing pigeons announcements, do you remember that? (laughter)
Ah, yes. I can always remember Mel, back in those early days, of course: Mel used
to do the programme, the breakfast session  he did that for years and years at 5DN
 and whenever he used to have Wickham Bailey on as his engineer he used to send
poor old Wick up, and it was Wickham’s ritual to open the station at six o’clock and
he would go into the toilet (laughs) and would take the radio with him just in case
anything happened so he could make a bolt out to fix up the transmitter. So, on this
particular morning, Mel came on air and welcomed everybody and gave his
introduction to the hymn of the day  and they used to start off with a hymn  and
then he came back on air again and said, ‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, Wickham’s
our engineer on duty today, and there’s old Wick, sitting down on the job again.’
(laughter) Of course, Wick could hear this out in the toilet.
Yes. Those were the days; they were very good.
Yes.
Well (hesitation) your period on air was a very long and successful one, because
you came off  what?  in about ’70 
’76, I think it was.
 ’76 or so, which was great. How did you feel about that, you know, after that 
that things were changing rapidly in terms of talk radio and using the talents of a
lot more people than just the basic 
Announcer.
 anchor, anchor person.
Yes.
How did you feel about that, after all those years?
23
Well, I realised that times were changing and that my particular type of personality
maybe wouldn’t have fitted into the times at the time. So of course I came off air
and I was given the opportunity of becoming Programme Manager, which I enjoyed.
But I think I still yearned to be back behind that microphone.
Do you  did you ever regret that you didn’t push for it more, that you go back in
some capacity to get into the talk mode, if you like?
Well, at the time I thought  I just took it as it came, and I thought, ‘Well, my day is
 as an announcer   .’ I got into a bit of a groove, I think: having done Choose
your own for so many years, I would have found it maybe a little difficult in getting
out of that groove. But maybe I should have pushed, you know, in retrospect maybe
I should have pushed and I might have been a John Laws or something today.
Well, it’s true. Your period as Programme Director was a matter of  years?
Couple of years.
Yes. How did you like it? What  can you remember some of the people you put
on or you were involved with, or some of the people that came in to try and get on
the air and all that?
Yes; well, we went through a great stage of interviewing prospective announcers.
There was a young fellow called Stan Murrawood [?] who, in fact, took over my
Choose your own for a time. It was one of my first jobs to put him on the air. And I
think David Sabine, we accepted him through an audition tape that he’d sent into the
station.
He was a former policeman, wasn’t he?
He was, yes. And I think after he had an accident  he was working up in Port
Augusta in the local TV station  he wanted to get back into the city so he sent us an
audition tape, and he was one of the first that I decided it was good to have on as an
announcer on 5DN and he stayed there for some years and of course has become a
regular on radio since then. Who else did we have? Oh, there was a fellow called
Barry somebody  I just can’t remember his name now. But we had a lot of people
that went through when I was there. Do you remember Rod Henshaw?
Yes (hesitantly).
24
Now, Rod Henshaw was in the last election: I think he’s up in Queensland now.
Yes, I see that.
And he was standing for one of the electorates up there in Queensland. And in fact
he was a sort of a  in the balance, the balance of power was  it is right on his
doorstep, I think.
He came over from Canberra, didn’t he?
Yes, originally, yes. So Rod Henshaw was there. And then we had  oh, we had a
lot of announcers whose names I’ve just forgotten now. They sort of came into the
station and out again very quickly. But, you know, times have changed in the radio
business now: it doesn’t seem to be the  well, to stay in one radio station for a
lifetime doesn’t seem to be the way that most of the radio people work these days.
They use one station to another as a stepping stone.
Unless you are a John Laws, sort of thing.
Yes, well, that’s right, yes.
Yes. Now, the transition, I suppose, from being on air into the position of
Programme Director would have been of good value to you as a radio person,
though, wouldn’t it, the fact that you 
Well, it was.
 got some experience in administration.
It gave me an all-round experience of how the business worked in radio. And then,
of course, subsequently, when I moved out of radio, I went into the business of
selling organs and pianos, so I’d had that administrative experience before moving
into that type of business.
What were your thoughts at the time of leaving 5DN, which would have been in
about 1978, ’79?
Yes, about that, yes. I don’t know the exact date, but it was about that time.
What were your feelings about it, what were your thoughts about it?
Well, it was a 
I mean, be honest.
25
 it was a big step, and I thought, ‘Now, well, should I get out or not?’ And a friend
was twisting my arm, saying, ‘Would you like to get into the business of selling
organs and pianos?’, because organs were very popular at that particular time. And I
thought, ‘Well, this is a total career change,’ and I wasn’t entirely happy with what I
was doing; you know, I thought, ‘Well, I’ve had my stint on air and it doesn’t look
as though I’ll be getting back there again,’ and I frankly wasn’t enjoying behind-thescenes work as much as I had being in front of that microphone.
Right.
So that’s when I decided to move on into the world of selling. But I wasn’t in that
for very long when I was approached by somebody at 5DN  I can’t remember who
it was now  ‘Can you come back and fill in and do a few shifts?’ So I was no
sooner out of 5DN than I was back there again doing some freelance shifts. And
then, not long after that, I was approached by 5AA  who’d apparently followed my
career on 5DN with Choose your own  and said, ‘We are anxious to run a request
programme at night called Just for you: would you like to do that?’ And so
therefore I ended up doing that at 5AA for some years  I was there for probably
between two and three years 
Really?
 until it was taken over by the TAB and then, of course, they changed their format
completely then so the type of programming that they were running at Kent Town,
where they had their studios, wasn’t suitable to the racing format so therefore I
dropped out of that.
The format of the program was again requests?
Requests, yes.
Yes.
But it was done in an automated way: because 5AA worked as an automatic station
and most  or, in fact, all  of their programmes were pre-recorded  I don’t think
any of them were live at the time  I was able to do a two-hour programme which
was broadcast at night in about twenty minutes, because I would have all the details
26
of the records which had been prepared for me: I would go in at eight o’clock in the
morning and say, ‘Well, good evening, everybody. This is Barry Hall; I’m about to
programme Just for you for tonight. Here comes our first request, and it’s going to
be Elvis Presley singing Love me tender.’ Then I’d pause. ‘Well, there he was,
Elvis Presley with Love me tender.’ And we we’d do the programme like that, and
we’d just leave a space where the record was to go, and then later on during the day
the engineers would slot all these records into little cassette tapes and programme the
automatic system through their computer and then, once it got on air at night, you’d
swear that I was there in the studio. So that was automated radio.
And then, following that, 5AD approached me because they were running a
request programme on the evening with David Sabine, just called The request show.
And David invited, who I mentioned before, he’d formerly been at 5DN: he was
now doing a very successful evening request show from six until ten, and through ill
health he wasn’t able to be there all the time. So those times when he was not
available AD would approach me and ask me to do that. So I ended up being on
5AD for probably two years, maybe two or three years, on and off doing the show
from their building in The Advertiser.
All based on the original idea of Choose your own.
Yes. So I think that all these programmes had sort of used Choose your own as their
basis.
Did you ever have the opportunity anywhere to try the talk factor? Direct access
on line on air? Or would you have liked to have? Do you regret not being invited
to, if you like?
I would like to have. The only time I would’ve done that would’ve been through a
programme called At your service, which I know you were involved with as well,
when we had the clergy in one day and we’d have doctors and lawyers and builders
and so on   .
All pre-recorded, of course, though.
A lot of it was pre-recorded but then, towards the end, when radio became more
sophisticated, we took the calls directly on air.
That’s right.
27
So I became involved a little more then with interviewing. But I did some talkback
programmes talking to people, and when I was on 5AA we did in fact do some
talkback programmes there, but not to the extent of the Jeremy Cordeaux’ and John
Laws’, et cetera.
We were never bothered or very much, or you in your career, and all of us who
were on air in those days, with ratings.
No. (interviewer laughs) Well, I think we got on with the business of entertaining
rather than what our 
Worrying about figures.
 worrying about figures and ratings.
You would have had a lot of sponsors that came to Choose your own because of
what you were doing, wouldn’t you, in terms of 
Yes.
 good   ? Who were some of them? Can you remember some of them that
you were really tied up with?
Well, there was Joyrene Frock Salon, they were with us for years; and Mastercraft
Upholstering Company. Who else was with me? Oh, there were so many; I just
can’t remember them. A lot of them were sort of spot-ads rather than sponsored ads,
but  Dorothy Downing Travel was another: Dorothy was with us for many years.
Yes, quite a few, but I just can’t recall them.
They were paying you something like thirty thousand dollars for personal
endorsement sort of thing, were they? (laughs)
Oh yes, every cent. (laughter)
How times have changed.
You can say that again.
Well, now, looking back, (hesitation) your thoughts in these after years of what
radio  what do you think of radio and whether  I don’t suppose any one of us
regrets ever having been in it, but do you regret not being there now and what do
you think of what’s going on at the moment? Do you get a chance to listen much?
28
I listen quite a bit, and being in the country I can’t listen to the city stations as much
as I would like to be able to, because my aerial is not that long and I’ll have to get
Rick, my friend over here, to put an aerial up and I’m sure I’ll be able to pick up
some of the stations in the city. But I hear mainly 5MU now, which is a very
progressive little country station. I don’t know whether I’d like to be in radio again.
It’s a bit like when I did my National Service: I enjoyed it, I like to look back on it,
but I wouldn’t like to do it again, you know? With radio it’s the same thing: I think
it’s a very demanding medium now. I mean, it’s very much formatted, from what I
can understand. You know, even if you wish to give the time, you have to have it
written on your log before you’re allowed to do so, or if you give the temperature or
something it must be pre-programmed on your log before you even mention the
temperature, from what I understand. So I think it’s structured a little bit more now.
We had more of a free go and a free hand when I was on air.
Looking back also now, in terms of South Australian radio, for somebody who’s
been involved for so long in it, who were your great performers, do you think?
Who were the great performers in the industry?
Well, Jack Davey, no doubt, was the greatest performer that I can recall. Oh, yes,
people like him who had these great shows in Sydney were Willy Furnell and Bob
Dyer  they were great people in those days, they really were.
They’ll be coming through from your presentation days.
Yes. And, in fact, my early days on air because, you see, I was on air before the TV
really hit Adelaide, and when radio was really the showcase of the mind then, wasn’t
it 
Yes.
 the theatre of the mind.
Yes.
And that was the beauty of it: people could tune into a radio drama and they could
visualise what was happening in their own mind, whereas when the TV came they
just used to sit there with their dinner on their lap and watch the Mickey Mouse Club
or watch the news and whatever and they didn’t have to think. But in those days,
with the great plays that we had on  and they were beautifully produced, even if we
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listen to them now: some of the techniques they used were pretty good. And we
miss that, somehow, these days, I think, in these days of radio.
Well, one of the great 5DN shows, Barry, we haven’t mentioned in which you were
involved was Radio canteen.
Yes. Now, that was a great live artist variety show, Paul, and I think what I didn’t
mention before was the fact that I’d been on Radio canteen before I actually joined
5DN as the office boy.
Really?
Yes. Because this music teacher that I had, Frank Buller, said to me, ‘I’ve heard this
Radio canteen show: why don’t you go on that?’ where they had a little section
called ‘radio auditions’ which was a bit like Hey, hey, it’s Saturday and ‘red faces’
you might watch these days, only they didn’t crucify you then as they do today
(laughter). So anyway I went in to do this thing, and I played a piece called Bumble
boogie on the piano. Now, the format of the thing was that you would get one bell if
you were pretty bad; you’d get two bells if you were reasonably good, and a ten-andsixpenny order on Savery’s; if you were very good, you would get the three bells and
the ten-and-sixpenny order on Savery’s, but also a future engagement on Radio
canteen. So it was at this night on watching Mel Cameron and  Mel and Alan
Sanders, who were the comperes of that programme  that I sort of felt, ‘This is what
I want to do.’ And that was a prelude to applying for the job as office boy there.
But when I’d started work at 5DN I was offered the job to be Ken Chinner’s
assistant. Now, Ken Chinner was the producer of Radio canteen. Now, as his
assistant, I used to have to ring the artists and get the names of their songs they were
going to sing the following week and a bit of administrative work that way. But on
the night, on the Saturday evening, I would sit behind a desk where there was a panel
and I used to have to mix all the microphones on the programme, and there was a
microphone hanging down for the comperes, there was one for the piano, there was
one for the choir  the Glen Lee Singers [?] were the choir  one for the audience
when they’d clap hands, and I used to have to bring the microphone volumes up”
when the announcers would speak I’d bring theirs up and then take it down; and if
the trio played a little song I’d have to bring up the piano mic; and when the
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applause came on I’d bring up their mic and take the piano one down and bring up
the compere again.
So it was actually a behind-the-scenes job, which I really
enjoyed, and I probably did that for about five years. And every Saturday night, it
was. I was very dedicated in those days. You know, most young men were going
out to dances and that sort of thing on Saturday nights, but Radio canteen was the
thing for me.
And the audience tickets were very hard to get, weren’t they?
Yes, they were; they were booked out weeks and weeks in advance. It was a very
popular programme.
How many did the auditorium hold?
Oh, it probably held about a hundred and fifty, maybe. It was a little auditorium in
Churchill Buildings in Gawler Place, but it was very neat and very tidy: it was all in
shades of muted grey and the 5DN logo on the back wall was in a royal blue. It
looked really lovely as you walked in there. And they had red plush curtains at the
door. It always looked very neat and tidy and very professional. But the comperes
of the show then were Mel Cameron, Alan Sanders; and the trio consisted of Tom
King, who was a very well-known piano player around Adelaide, Ron LeCornu, who
played drums, and then the bass players varied. There was one fellow called Alan
Ellis and another one called, oh, Milton Howard, I think, used to come there now and
again  two or three bass players used to rotate. And then there were the Glen Lee
Singers, I think I’ve mentioned them. We used to have a drama time, drama spot, in
which actors used to move around the microphone with their scripts and they had a
little sound effect bay and Ken Chinner would be standing there with his earphones
on and crinkle cellophane paper to simulate a fire or open a door which he had as a
little portable door, you know (laughs). It was really fun radio, and it came over
beautifully.
END OF TAPE 1 SIDE B: TAPE 2 SIDE A
Barry, we can’t talk about Radio canteen without talking about Merv Hill.
No; Merv was a brilliant man. He wrote the script in its entirety  and I think Radio
canteen must have been on the air for at least ten years. It was certainly going
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before I started as the office boy. He not only wrote the scripts for Radio canteen;
he wrote for the big-time stars, one of whom was Joey Brown in the United States.
But other programmes on 5DN that he wrote for was Vic Braim’s Under the stars on
Sunday evenings; he wrote Rods, rifles and records for Mel Cameron on Saturday
mornings and various other programmes. I think there was one called Turn the
record over and Raspberries and razors: these are all very early programmes that I
can remember on 5DN. He was a brilliant man and always came up with something
new in his scripts. And some of those scripts on Radio canteen were absolutely
hilarious.
Well, now, who were some of the cast that they used to put in them?
Well, of course, the cast really made the scripts come to life, and I think Ron
Hedrick [?] was probably the basis of all of those, and he became a Shakespearean
actor after he left South Australian radio. But there was Ron Hedrick, and there was
Betty Smallacombe [?], who subsequently did a lot of writing for TV; Marjorie
Berriman, who I only saw down at the supermarket the other day  she’s still going
strong; and Ken Chinner himself, who produced the programme: he devised a
beautiful little character called Kenny Kissmefoot in the Pughole Public School
(laughs); and Alan Sanders was somewhat of a good actor and so was Mel, and
between the lot of them they used to have a heck of a lot of fun.
And they  Merv’s scripts each week would be different versions, or different
stories, around the same characters?
Yes, that’s right:
the Pughole Public School and there was Porter Slaughter’s
Funeral Parlour or something, or whatever it was, and the main one was the Pughole
Public School.
It’s amazing how long that show went on, really, because it really was unique.
And it was only television that ruined it, wasn’t it?
Yes, yes, that’s right. I think a lot of things stopped when television came in, and
it’s a pity because that was a really top-class show.
Were you ever involved with those travelling Macquarie shows which came to the
various cities around Australia?
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Yes, I was involved with the Jack Davey show on and off. The first one that I can
recall that came to Adelaide was in about 1960, ’61, and it was recorded down in the
Thebarton Town Hall.
And my principal job was to hit the gong when the
contestants couldn’t answer the questions correctly (laughs); the producer was a
gentleman named Eric Bush, and he used to sit on the sidelines there of the stage
with his earphones clapped over his ears and he used to wave his arms around giving
cues to various people, and whenever the contestant couldn’t answer the question I
got the cue to hit the gong. And one night we’d lost the gong stick so the nearest
thing we could find was the end of a screwdriver (laughter), so we hit that. And then
another of my little chores on that show was to carry ten packets of Persil across the
stage at a time. Contestants would answer a question; if they got it right they’d win
ten packets of Persil from one table  there were a hundred packets of Persil on one
table; they had to get the hundred on the other table, you see. It was sort of a quick
quiz. Very much the same as Sale of the century. You know, nothing’s new;
everything’s the same these days, isn’t it? But I used to have to race these packets of
Persil across the stage, and then they’d miss the questions, I’d take the ten packets
back, and then another ten, then another ten, and that was my involvement. But
then, when we went to El Alamein  El Alamein was the name of an army camp up
out of Port Augusta, and one of the Jack Davey shows came across to put on a show
for the boys up there, and  oh!  it was a dreadful night, and the wind was blowing
a gale and we had to do  it was an open air broadcast and I was in charge of the
prizes so I had to take all the prizes up there and make sure that those who won them
got them in good order and condition. So I had a bit of involvement with those big
Macquarie shows in that way. I know some of the others came across: I mean, the
Gladys Moncrief [?] show came over, but I wasn’t involved with those at all.
What I was going to ask you, something along the lines of in your radio career, did
you ever read news?
Ooh yes, I read news a lot. And I enjoyed it. That’s something I really enjoyed.
And in fact I used to read the early morning news on 5DN from the actual newsroom
in the News Building. I’d go in there at six o’clock in the morning and read the news
until eight-thirty on the half-hour, and I would then go home, have breakfast and I’d
come back in the afternoon and do my programme, Choose your own, and then I’d
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go to television after that, so that was my day. But I read news regularly on air in the
breakfast programme for some time.
So there’s really very little you didn’t do in radio over those years.
Yes.
RICK
Paul, can I just butt in and ask Barry about his hay fever tablet he took,
the little blue one, one day before a news bulletin? Do you remember the story? I
think it was called a Phenigan [?] tablet.
BH
(pause) No; you’ve got me there, Rick (laughter). I can’t recall that one.
You’d better complete it.
It must have knocked me out  what happened? (laughs)
RICK
You went to sleep with your head down on the papers when the theme
played, and you didn’t open your mic and read on because you were asleep.
BH
I’ve got a very good memory, but I can’t remember that one (laughter).
RICK
You told it to me some twenty or thirty years ago.
BH
Well, it must be true. But I did do  one thing I did do, and I don’t think
I did a very good job, but I enjoyed it  and that was I took part in one of the royal
tours. When the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh came out here, the ABC recruited
various people from the commercial stations to assist their own announcers with
commentaries, so they put me on the oval out there at Elizabeth, and I stood there
while the royal entourage went around the oval: it seemed to take an eternity and I
had to just ad lib until (laughs) they got within view. And it was quite a daunting
job, but I enjoyed that as well. So I put my hand on most things in radio.
Yes. Well, now, what are you doing in  today: does it involve any radio at all?
Yes; well, at the moment, I’m Cruise Officer for a paddle boat on the Murray River
called the Captain Proud, and as such I arrange mainly groups of senior citizens and
Legacy groups to come up to enjoy all the good things that the river has to offer. We
run two power cruisers in which the people come up and they have a delightful twocourse roast lunch, and I also play music and I give them a little commentary as to
what they’re passing on the river. But I usually introduce myself by saying, ‘Well,
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good afternoon, everybody, I’m Barry Hall from the old 5DN,’ and they all break
into spontaneous applause which indicates to me that people do remember. And
that’s probably a compliment for somebody who was on the air so long ago. And in
addition to my work on the river, I do the odd programme for Rick Palmer, The
golden years of radio, on public radio. And we’ve been involved with 5RPH 
which is the radio for the print-handicapped  we’ve done quite a few programmes
there for Rick, and it’s good to get behind the microphone again in a voluntary
capacity and to recall some of those days in 5DN and 5AD and 5AA and play the
songs that we used to play then and to talk about them, and to still get the response
from those listeners who always seem to be there.
Yes; well, I think you should be very happy with the career you’ve had, because
you’ve been one of the great people of South Australian radio and there seems to
be very little you haven’t done, which is a credit to you.
I’ve enjoyed it.
Thank you.
TAPE ENDS.
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