‘Let’s Join in’: Children and ABC Radio

Abstract

This article considers the world for children created by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) and its predecessors between the 1920s and the 1970s. Beginning with the ‘Aunts’ and ‘Uncles’ of early radio, it looks at the ABC’s endeavours in the areas of children’s and educational broadcasting, focusing particularly on the Argonauts Club, Kindergarten of the Air and Let’s Join In. It also explores the work of ABC identities including composer Bernard Heinze and eurhythmics teacher Heather Gell, and a succession of innovative and committed programmers. But it goes beyond on-air programming to consider the extracurricular world created for young listeners by Australia’s public service broadcaster. The article points to the interactivity of Australian broadcasting, examining how a mass medium sought to build communities of young listeners across Australia, and the role of ABC programmes and associated activities in children’s lives.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council, FT130101677, for ‘Switched-on Audiences: Australian Listeners and Viewers’, and DP140102514, for ‘Cultural Conversations: A History of ABC Radio National’.

Notes

Notes

1 Lesley Johnson, The Unseen Voice: A Cultural Study of Early Australian Radio (London: Routledge, 1988).

2 Thérèse Radic, Bernard Heinze: A Biography (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1986), 21–22; A. Jill Ferris, ‘Curriculum and Cultural Hegemony: An Historical Study of the Role of the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s School Concerts in the Promotion of High Art Music to Support Classroom Music Curriculum in Victorian Primary Schools, 1934 to 1980’ (Artistic Practice as Research: Proceedings of the XXVth Annual Conference, Melbourne, 2004), 54–58; ‘Orchestral Concerts for Children’. Argus 13 (October 1924), 11. Heinze was frequently referred to as a ‘Pied Piper’ by radio periodicals.

3 ‘Everybody’s Uncle’, Wireless Weekly, (September 1926), 10. See also ‘Dennis Francis Memories of Mosman’, http://mosmanmemories.net/story/269/dennis-francis-memories-of-mosman (accessed 1 December 2017).

4 K. S. Inglis, This Is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1932–1983 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1983), 15.

5 For example: ‘Wireless Broadcasting’, Daily News (Perth) (April 1927), 5; ‘3LO, Melbourne’, Brisbane Courier (June 1927) 14; ‘Notes from 4QG’, Telegraph (Brisbane) (October 1927), 3.

6 Barbara Corbett, No Ordinary Childhood: Barbara Corbett’s Celebration of a Charmed Life in the 1920s (St. Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1994), 103; Patti Crocker, Radio Days: A Personal View of Australia’s Radio Heyday (Brookvale, N.S.W: Simon & Schuster Australia, 1989), 44.

7 Talbot Sir Duckmanton, ‘The ABC and Educational Broadcasting’, in The ABC and Educational Broadcasting (Sydney: ABC, 1978), 31; ‘Broadcasting: To-Day’s Programmes’, Examiner (Launceston), July 23, 1929, 11.

8 Members of the Farmer & Co. Children’s News Radio Birthday Club, Third Annual Swimming Party, Rose Bay Baths, (March 1930); http://photosau.com.au/WoollahraImages/scripts/ExtSearch.asp?SearchTerm=pf004609 (accessed 3 December 2017).

9 ‘Doings at 5CL Adelaide’, Teleradio (July 1933), 3; photo, Teleradio (November 1933), 70.

10 Australian Broadcasting Commission First Annual Report, 1932–33 (Sydney: ABC), 9; Inglis, This is the ABC, 8, 15; Alan Thomas, Broadcast and Be Damned: The ABC’s First Two Decades (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1980), 39–40.

11 BBC Year Book 1933 (London: BBC), 21.

12 ABC First Annual Report, 1932–33, 9.

13 Inglis, This is the ABC, 35; Bearup quoted in Clement Semmler, The ABC – Aunt Sally and Sacred Cow (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1981); Rob Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts (Sydney: Hodder Headline, 1997), 3–8; Ida Elizabeth Jenkins, Good Rowing! (Sydney: ABC, 1982), 32–33. By 1927 BBC executives were also objecting to radio ‘Uncles’ and ‘Aunts’; see Asa Briggs, The Golden Age of Wireless (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 33.

14 Semmler, The ABC, 172–72; Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 8–9.

15 Inglis, This is the ABC, 14–15.

16 ABC First Annual Report, 1932–33, 17; ABC Third Annual Report, 1934–35, 18; Inglis, This is the ABC, 56; Kay Kinane, interview, November 15, 1977, ABC Oral History Transcripts, SP1762/1, 15–16, National Archives of Australia (NAA); Benjamin Spock, interview by Milton J.E. Senn, Interview 67A, transcript, Senn Oral History Collection, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD (November 1974).

17 ‘Brisbane School Children’, Teleradio (June 1933), 70; Duckmanton, The ABC and Educational Broadcasting, 3–4.

18 Broadcast Year Book, 1934, 49.

19 Ferris, ‘Curriculum and Cultural Hegemony’.

20 ABC Third Annual Report, 1934–35, 10, 19; ABC Fourth Annual Report, 1935–36, 15–16; Inglis, This is the ABC, 41, 51.

21 ABC Third Annual Report, 1934–35, 10; Radic, Bernard Heinze, 62.

22 ABC Fourth Annual Report, 1935–36, 25; Laurence Noonan, ‘The Australian Broadcasting Commission and Music Education’, Australian Journal of Music Education, no. 15 (1974), 71.

23 W. A. McNair, Radio Advertising in Australia (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1937), 268–69, 350, 354–55.

24 Inglis, This is the ABC, 56.

25 M. E. Thomas, An Enquiry into the Relative Efficiency of Broadcast and Classroom Lessons (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1937).

26 Educational Broadcasts 1936 Victoria (Melbourne: ABC, 1936), 5–6.

27 Educational Broadcasts 1936 Victoria, 5; Inglis, This is the ABC, 57; Sir Charles Moses interview, 1975, ABC Oral History Transcripts, 10; ABC Fifth Annual Report, 1936–37, 33–34.

28 Lindley Evans, ‘Hello, Mr. Melody Man’: Lindley Evans Remembers (London; Sydney; Melbourne: Angus & Robertson, 1983), 125–27.

29 McNair, Radio Advertising in Australia, 142–43; Inglis, This is the ABC, 56–57; ABC Third Annual Report, 1934–35, 19; ABC Sixth Annual Report, 1937–38, 33.

30 Inglis, This is the ABC, 56.

31 ABC Sixth Annual Report, 1937–38, 32.

32 Helen Jones, ‘Gell, Heather Doris (1896–1988)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography (Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 2007), http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gell-heather-doris-12531/text2255 (accessed 1 February 2018); ‘This Is a School Lesson We Would All Like to Attend’, Australian Women’s Weekly, November 5, 1938, 37; ‘An Exhibition of Some Really Modern Art’, ABC Weekly (December 1939), 21; ‘Music and the Child’, ABC Weekly (September 1940), 47; R. Bronner, ‘Music through Movement’, ABC Annual (Sydney: ABC, 1939), 128–29; Sandra J. Nash, ‘Heather Gell: A Dalcroze Influence in NSW Music Education from 1939 to 1981’ (Australian Association for Research in Music Education Proceedings of the XXVIth Annual Conference, Melbourne, September 25–28, 2004), 242–57; Sandra J. Nash, ‘Spinning a Vision: Heather Gell’s Life and Work in the War Years 1939–1945’ (Australian Association for Research in Music Education Proceedings of the XXVIIth Annual Conference, Melbourne, September 24–27, 2005), 106–16.

33 Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 11; Semmler, The ABC, 172; Inglis, This is the ABC, 56; ABC Seventh Annual Report, 1938–39, 37.

34 Moses to Manager for Western Australia, 31 October 1938 and memos from Clewlow to Moses, 26 October 1938, C678/2, National Children’s session, NAA.

35 Crocker, Radio Days, 46–47. See also Diana Heath Papers, Box 1, Words to Children’s Hour Theme Songs, MLMSS 8432, State Library of NSW.

36 Cedric Flower, ‘Moore, John Drummond (1888–1958)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography (Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University), http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/moore-john-drummond-7638/text13353 (accessed 1 February 2018); ‘Children’s Session Has First Birthday Party’, ABC Weekly (April 1940), 24.

37 R. Bronner, ‘School Broadcasting and Nation-Building’, ABC Annual (Sydney: ABC, 1939), 123–25.

38 ABC Seventh Annual Report, 1938–39, 37; Jenkins, Good Rowing, 37; Geoffrey Dutton, Snow on the Saltbush: The Australian Literary Experience (Ringwood: Viking Press, 1984), 85; Ida Elizabeth Jenkins interview, 1968, ABC Oral History Transcripts, SP1762/1, 1058352, NAA, 8.

39 Hints to School Broadcasters (Sydney: ABC, c.1940).

40 ‘Program Guide’, ABC Weekly (January 1940), 56; ‘Certificate’, ABC Weekly (April 1940), 55; ‘Our First Birthday’, ABC Weekly (April 1940), 55; ‘Happy Birthday!’, ABC Weekly (April 1940), 24; ABC Eighth Annual Report, 1939–40, 21; Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 51–52.

41 Inglis, This is the ABC, 56, 90–91; Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 15–19; Jenkins, Good Rowing!, 14–15; ‘New Children’s Club’, ABC Weekly (December 1940), 4.

42 Inglis, This is the ABC, 91–92; Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 35–37; Evans, ‘Hello, Mr Melody Man’, 131–33; ABC Ninth Annual Report, 1940–41, 21; ‘Advertisement’, ABC Weekly (January 1941), 55. See also memos from Clewlow, 4 February and 18 August 1941, Monthly Reports Drama & Features 1940–1945, SP1558/5 Box 3, NAA.

43 Patricia Dobrez, Michael Dransfield’s Lives: A Sixties Biography (Melbourne: The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Press, 1999), 81.

44 Semmler, The ABC, 173; Inglis, This is the ABC, 166; Virginia Madsen, ‘Innovation, women’s work and the documentary impulse: pioneering moments and stalled opportunities in public service broadcasting in Australia and Britain’, Media International Australia 162, no. 1 (2017): 27.

45 ABC Tenth Annual Report, 1941–42, 15; ABC Eleventh Annual Report, 1942–43, 12; Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 43; Jenkins, Good Rowing!, 90.

46 ‘Young Australia’s Elizabeth’, ABC Weekly (January 1944), 22.

47 ABC Twelfth Annual Report, 1943–44: 11; ABC Thirteenth Annual Report, 1944–45: 10; ABC Fourteenth Annual Report, 1945–46: 13.

48 Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, xii, 87–88, 222; Paul Matthew St. Pierre, A Portrait of the Artist as Australian (Chesham: Montréal; McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2004), 231.

49 Marion Houldsworth, The Morning Side of the Hill: A Townsville Childhood 1939–45 (Townsville: James Cook University, 1995).

50 Inglis, This is the ABC, 101; Alison Gregg, ‘The Hope of the Future: The Kindergarten Union and the Campaign for Children’s Libraries in Western Australia’, Issues In Educational Research 3, no. 1 (1993): 17–33.

51 School Broadcasts for Youth (Sydney: ABC Federal Educational Broadcasts Advisory Committee, n.d., c.1941).

52 Nash, ‘Heather Gell’, 249, 252; Inglis, This is the ABC, 101. See also Heather Gell Scrapbooks re Music Through Movement, MLMSS 3980, Box 1, State Library of NSW.

53 Inglis, This is the ABC, 103; Julie Lewis, On Air: The Story of Catherine King and the ABC Women’s Session (Fremantle, W.A.: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1979), 23–5; ABC Eleventh Annual Report, 1942–43, 10; Sue Graham-Taylor, ‘Graham, Margaret (1889–1966)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography (Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy, 1996), http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/graham-margaret-10339/text18303 (accessed 1 February 2018).

54 Correspondence and minutes, August 27, 1942–April 5, 1943, SP341, 18/2 File 1, NAA; Correspondence and minutes, August–October 1942, SP724/1, 14/3/8 Part 1, NAA. See also R. Bronner, ‘Australia’, UNESCO, Broadcasting to Schools (Paris: United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1949), 35.

55 Lewis, On Air, 26; Anne Dreyer, Kindergarten of the Air: As I Knew It (Melbourne: A. Dreyer, 1989), 1–2; ABC Eleventh Annual Report, 1942–43, 10; Ruth Fenner interview, September 29, 1980, ABC Oral History Transcripts, C101, 1343759, NAA, 1–3.

56 ‘Has Your Child Joined the A.B.C.’s National ‘Kindergarten of the Air’?’, (April–May 1943), SP341, 18/2 File 1, NAA.

57 ‘Kindergarten of the Air Fan Mail – Miss Dreyer’, November 1, 1944, SP1011/2, 1062, NAA. See also Box20/Kindergarten, C1737.

58 Letter from Homer to Dreyer, January 5, 1944, SP724/1, 14/3/8 Part 1, NAA.

59 Jill Blunt. ‘Penny Falls for Two Voices’, ABC Weekly, April 29, 1944: 2.

60 Australian Broadcasting Control Board agendum, March 10, 1961, MP1170/3, BA/9/2 Part 2, NAA.

61 Gregg, ‘The Hope of the Future’, 17–33; ABC Twelfth Annual Report, 1943–44, 13.

62 Sir Bernard Heinze Papers, Box 7, Folder: Prof. Heinze – Music Advisory Committee, minutes, April 25, 1941, 2, MS9824Y, State Library of Victoria. See also ABC Federal Broadcasts Advisory Committee, The Role of ABC Educational Broadcasting (Sydney: ABC, 1979), 8.

63 ‘School Radio Empire Record’, ABC Weekly, July 8, 1944: 24; ABC Twelfth Annual Report, 1943–44, 12.

64 Heinze Papers, Boxes 6 and 8, folders of ‘Letters of Appreciation’, 1941–45.

65 Inglis, This is the ABC, 167–68. See also program guides for the ABC, March 1943ff.

66 Nash, ‘Heather Gell’, 253 and ‘Spinning a Vision’, 110.

67 ABC Thirteenth Annual Report, 1944–45, 12.

68 Julie Norton, ‘Ruth Had Fans Glued to the Wireless’, Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), July 20, 2002. See also Ruth Fenner Further Papers, newspaper cuttings, 1944, MLMSS 7353, State Library of NSW.

69 Robyn Sheahan-Bright, ‘To Market to Market: The Development of the Australian Children’s Publishing Industry’ (PhD diss., Griffith University, 2004), 166; Robert Hawkins and Jean Hart, ‘ABC Radio Presenter Elizabeth Jenkins Dies Age 98’, SMH, November 15, 2014; ABC Fourteenth Annual Report, 1945–46, 13.

70 Letter from Calwell to L. B. Fanning, June 17, 1943, MP404/1, 44/6008, NAA.

71 Lewis Charles Wilcher, Education, Press, Radio (Melbourne: F.W. Cheshire, 1948).

72 R. J. F. Boyer, ‘Radio in Education Conference’, The Australian Quarterly 18, no. 1 (1946): 94–101.

73 Inglis, This is the ABC, 130–31; ABC Federal Broadcasts Advisory Committee, The Role of ABC Educational Broadcasting (Sydney: ABC, 1979), 9.

74 Radic, Bernard Heinze, 137, 145; Inglis, This is the ABC, 167–68; Martin Buzacott, The Rite of Spring: 75 Years of ABC Music-Making (Sydney: Harper Collins, 2012), 224; ABC Thirteenth Annual Report, 1944–45, 12; ABC Fourteenth Annual Report, 1945–46, 14; ABC Fifteenth Annual Report, 1946–47, 9.

75 ‘Australia’s Unique Radio Feature’, Listener-In, November 16–22, 1946, 17; ‘A.B.C. Kindergarten Session Is World Leader’, ABC Weekly, January 31, 1948, 5. See also Elizabeth Auld, ‘Radio Treats Children As Adults in U.S.’ n.d. (c. 1947), C1737, Box 20/Kindergarten, NAA.

76 Extract From Union Internationale De Radiofusion, June 1947, SP724/1, 14/3/8, Part 1, NAA.

77 Inglis, This is the ABC, 185; Hawkins and Hart, ‘ABC Radio Presenter’.

78 Reports, Miscellaneous Speeches and Talks [Box 3], SP1036/1, NAA. See also newspaper cuttings, 1947, SP767/1, 121, NAA.

79 Observations on A.B.C. School Broadcasting Services in Australia, Reports, Miscellaneous Speeches and Talks [Box 3], SP1036/1, NAA. See also ABC Sixteenth Annual Report, 1947–48, 14; Inglis, This is the ABC, 168; Lewis, On Air, 26.

80 ‘Advertisement’, ABC Weekly, September 25, 1948: 32; Bronner, ‘Australia’, 35.

81 Jones, ‘Gell, Heather Doris’.

82 ‘Joy Session For Children’, Daily Mirror, June 21, 1949, C1737, Box 20/Kindergarten, NAA.

83 See SP341/1, 18/2 File 2, NAA.

84 ‘Ruth Fenner to Marry at Pymble’, SMH, May 5, 1950; Norton, ‘Ruth Had Fans Glued to the Wireless’.

85 ABC Fifteenth Annual Report, 1946–47, 14; ABC Sixteenth Annual Report, 1947–48, 15.

86 Hawkins and Hart, ‘ABC radio presenter’; Jenkins, Good Rowing!, 97; Evans, Hello, Mr Melody Man, 136–37; Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 56–57, 114.

87 ABC Eighteenth Annual Report, 1949–50, 13; Inglis, This is the ABC, 166.

88 ABC Seventeenth Annual Report, 1948–49, 22; Inglis, This is the ABC, 101–02; ‘Saw Displaced Persons in German Camps’, SMH, April 19, 1949: 7; Kay Kinane interview, 13–14, 16.

89 ABC Nineteenth Annual Report, 1950–51, 13; ABC Twenty-Second Annual Report, 1953–54, 16.

90 ‘B.B.C. May Adopt Idea of A.B.C.’s Kindergarten Session’, ABC Weekly, September 20, 1947, 3; ‘The Radio Kindergarten – the Idea Spreads’, CBC Times, April 16–22, 1950; BBC Year Book, 1952, 49–50; Asa Briggs, Sound and Vision (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), 707; Inglis, This is the ABC, 167.

91 ABC Twentieth Annual Report, 1951–52, 5, 13–14; Heath Papers, Box 1, Royal Agricultural Show script. The ABC also supported the annual National Junior Farmer Competition, erecting studios at the showgrounds so that visitors from country and city could watch and hear broadcasts. See Inglis, This is the ABC, 154; ABC Twenty-Sixth Annual Report, 1957–58, 36; ABC Thirtieth Annual Report, 1961–62, 28.

92 ABC Twenty-Second Annual Report, 1953–54, 16–17; memo from B. W. Kirke, March 11, 1954, SP724/1, 14/3/8 Part 1, NAA.

93 ABC Twenty-Second Annual Report, 1953–54, 16; Inglis, This is the ABC, 167; Kay Kinane interview, 9.

94 Correspondence and memos, February 1–11, 1955, SP724/1, 14/3/8 Part 1, February 23–June 16, 1955, 14/3/8 Part 2, NAA.

95 Inglis, This is the ABC, 166–67; Johnson, The Golden Age of The Argonauts, 160–61.

96 Sandra Hall, Supertoy: 20 Years of Television (Melbourne: Sun Books, 1976), 149; Inglis, This is the ABC, 166; Richard Gill, Give Me Excess of It (Sydney: Pan Macmillan, 2012), 5–6; Richard Gill, ‘Let’s Celebrate a Fine Romance’, Limelight Magazine, April 13, 2017. Heath Papers, Royal Agricultural Show script, Box 2, ‘Tie-up’; Box 5, Folder 2, ‘Children’s Hour Song Book’.

97 Shapcott and Hope quoted in Dutton, Snow on the Saltbush, 52, 84–85; Dobrez, Michael Dransfield’s Lives, 80–81, 143.

98 Heath Papers, Box 3, ‘Poet’s Corner’.

99 See, for example, letters from Kenneth Hardaker, January 7, 1953 and A. N. Finlay to Mrs K. Buchanan, January 15, 1953, SP613/1, NAA.

100 Argonauts Club, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonauts_Club (accessed 1 February 2018); Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 104–07, 125–27, 220–21; Inglis, This is the ABC, 167. See also Rob Johnson, ‘The Golden Age of the Argonauts’, SMH, September 15, 1996, 15.

101 Helene Chung, Ching Chong China Girl (Sydney: ABC Books, 2001), 36–7; Penny Olsen, Feather and Brush: Three Centuries of Australian Bird Art (Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, 2001).

102 Jeffrey Smart, Not Quite Straight: A Memoir (Sydney: Vintage Books, 2008), 295, 314–15.

103 Youth and Music, no. 1 (May 1956), 1.

104 ‘Children’s Hour Annual Being Reprinted’, Australian Children’s Newspaper, January 1957, 1; ‘The Argonauts Club’, Pacific Islands Monthly 34, no. 5 (December 1963), 93.

105 ABC Twenty-Eighty Annual Report, 1959–60, 19; ABC Thirty-First Annual Report, 1962–63, 19.

106 ABC Twenty-Seventh Annual Report, 1958–59, 14; ABC Twenty-Ninth Annual Report, 1960–61, 18; ABC Thirtieth Annual Report, 1961–62, 16.

107 Argonauts Club.

108 ABC Twenty-Ninth Annual Report, 1960–61, 18.

109 Heath Papers, Box 1, ‘Letters, Cards etc.’; letter from Beadman, April 18, 1959; Christmas card from Sybaris 24, n.d.

110 John Appleton interview, 1978, ABC Oral History Transcripts, SP1762/1, NAA, 32; Hall, Supertoy, 149; Inglis, This is the ABC, 210, 230; Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 240.

111 ‘A New Yorker Visits the Children’s Hour’, ABC Weekly, August 5, 1959, 38.

112 Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 240–42; Heath Papers, Box 1, ‘Memoranda Written to Supervisor of Children’s Hour’; Box 4, application by Heath, n.d. (1957).

113 Inglis, This is the ABC, 317–18; Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 248; ABC Thirty-Fourth Annual Report, 1965–66, 14; Kevon Kemp, ‘The Argonauts burn their boats’, National Times, March 29, 1971, 18.

114 Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, 240–41, 249–50; Inglis, This is the ABC, 317–18; Semmler, The ABC, 174; ABC Forty-First Annual Report, 1972–73, 7.

115 Survey Made of School Broadcasts in Australia; Stewart Anderson, ‘School Broadcasting’, 1957; ABC Summary of School Broadcasting in Australia 1957/1958: 1, NAA; ABC Federal Broadcasts Advisory Committee, The Role of ABC Educational Broadcasting (Sydney: ABC, 1979), 14; Official Yearbook of the Commonwealth of Australia (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1960), 574; Inglis, This is the ABC, 208, 230.

116 Nash, ‘Heather Gell’, 253; Jones, ‘Gell, Heather Doris’.

117 Sheila Wesley-Smith: Letters from parents and teachers, PRG1374/1, State Library of South Australia.

118 ‘Kindergarten of the Air…It All Began in Western Australia’ (2003), http://w3.unisa.edu.au/alumni/netwk/delissa/newsletters/october2003.pdf (accessed December 2, 2017).

119 Inglis, This is the ABC, 209; Kindergarten Playtime, https://aso.gov.au/titles/tv/kindergarten-playtime/notes/ (accessed February 1, 2018).

120 Kindergarten of the Air meeting, March 20, 1959; SP1044/1, Panel Reports; SP1423/1, R13/2/1 Part 1, NAA.

121 For example, Federal Kindergarten Advisory Committee minutes, May 26, 1966, R5/2/7 Part 2, NAA.

122 See correspondence and minutes, March–August 1968, SP1423/1, R13/2/1 PART 1, NAA.

123 Donald McLean, ‘Educational Broadcasting in Australia’, Hemisphere 11, no. 3 (1967): 2–8.

124 Using Radio and Television in the Classroom (Sydney: ABC, n.d.), 7; Educational Broadcasting and Educational Change (Sydney: ABC, 1976).

125 Inglis, This is the ABC, 262, 317; Ferris, ‘Curriculum and Cultural Hegemony’, 57.

126 Memo from Neil Hutchison, October 16, 1970, SP1423/1, R13/2/1 Part 1; ‘Changes in the Second and Third Network Mid-Morning Layout’, n.d. (late 1971) and memo from Watts, June 29, 1972, ‘Young Children’s Preference for Television Over Radio’, n.d. (c1972), SP1423/1, R13/2/1 Part 3, NAA.

127 ABC Forty-Fourth Annual Report, 1975–76, 24; Australian Broadcasting Corporation First Annual Report, 1983–84.

128 Dobrez, Michael Dransfield’s Lives, 81; Dutton, Snow on the Saltbush, 83–86.

129 Committee of Review of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, The ABC in Review: National Broadcasting in the 1980s vol. 2, section 11 (Canberra: AGPS, 1981).

Additional information

Bridget Griffen-Foley is a Professor of Media, and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, at Macquarie University. Her publications include Changing Stations: The Story of Australian Commercial Radio (UNSW Press, 2009) and, as editor, A Companion to the Australian Media (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2014).