Matthew Abraham: Philip Satchell remained at heart a private man who frequently surprised

A beautiful, softly-softly yet authoritative voice that ruled Adelaide’s airwaves for four decades on ABC local radio has been silenced, writes Matthew Abraham.

ABC radio presenter Philip Satchell at the ABC’s Collinswood studio.

Pockets. Why do we have them?

And with those few words, Philip Satchell moulded a fun, unexpected hour of talkback radio, the broadcasting equivalent of building the Sydney Opera House from a bucket of dry sand.

Nobody did it better.

Philip died in hospital last Sunday night at the age of 83, surrounded by family.

His death has silenced a beautiful, softly-softly yet authoritative voice that ruled Adelaide’s airwaves for four decades on ABC local radio.

What was it about that voice?

You’d tell it your family’s deepest, darkest secrets when you were only supposed to be revealing your grandma’s secret orange marmalade recipe.

To me, the pockets talkback always shouted loudly about his great gifts as a broadcaster and, as it would turn out, his gifts as a friend. This is why.

In my first incarnation on ABC radio in Adelaide, back when it was 5AN, I presented the morning program and one morning invited listeners to call in and impersonate their favourite 5AN radio personality. It seemed like a jolly idea at the time.

Too jolly, as it turned out.

Gillian Waite and Philip Satchell talking to lawyer Lindy Powell on their morning show on 5AN in 1979.

The rusted-on listeners rose to the challenge, forensically pulling apart the foibles and egos of the 5AN line-up with great elan. It was rollicking, excruciating radio.

One caller opted to impersonate Philip, beginning with the words “Pockets. Why do we have them?”, accurately nailing the Satchell fascination with the small mysteries of everyday life.

After the show, I strolled back into the office to be greeted by a frosty silence.

Philip said nothing. But when he settled behind the microphone for his show that day, his opening words were: “Pockets. Why do we have them?”

Rather than being cranky, Philip followed the lead set by the listeners, in one sentence mocking himself, letting them know he enjoyed the joke, and playfully turning the tables to fashion warm and engaging radio by fumbling around with pockets.

Listeners loved him.

They never wanted Philip to go anywhere. He didn’t hold the microphone like a grudge. For this straight-talking son of a clergyman, radio was his pulpit.

In the many tributes that have flowed this week, Philip has been described as the “master of the pause”, some of which went so long they were in danger of tripping the station’s off-air emergency music tape.

Noting this, former Labor speaker Mick Atkinson tweeted that the trademark on-air silences were one of Philip’s gifts “but they were also traps into which the interviewee fell as he or she tried to fill the silence”, noting that he had once fallen into that void.

SA ABC radio presenter Philip Satchell at Collinswood studio.

I never saw the silences as deliberate traps or a “gotcha” technique.

In personal conversations, even around the dinner table, Philip would often fall silent, as if musing about what’s been said, before taking off on an unexpected tangent.

On air, I think he would become so drawn into a good interview he’d momentarily morph into one of the many thousands of listeners tuned to radios at home or in their cars.

He was no pushover. When interviewing the late Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, the archbishop revealed that as a young man he’d dated a beautiful girl but instead chose the priesthood and celibacy.

“Because no woman could live up to your mother,” Satchell observed of the Archbishop.

He was a good listener and that made him a fine interviewer. It made him a good person too.

ABC producer Eliza Kirsch, one of the best radio brains in the business, cut her teeth producing Philip. “He never made you feel like a nobody,” she said.

Philip deeply loved his wife Cecily and their daughter Jemimah and his three sons Andrew, Tim and David from his previous marriage to Anne.

For somebody whose voice was a familiar presence in countless thousands of homes over 40 years, he remained at heart a private, contained man who frequently surprised.

The day I was chopped from my 5AN radio program, I stood in the carpark sobbing on the shoulder of my then producer, now station boss, Graeme Bennett, who lamented “they keep shooting the horses out from under me”.

Philip appeared and when I apologised for the tears he said: “Not at all. I envy you. The crying …”. And then silence. In his company, you were free to cry, laugh or simply fall safely into that silence.

Pockets. Why do we have them? Because the world would be a poorer place without them, as it is without you, dear Philip.