Veteran of Australian broadcasting from the pre-television era

ARTHUR WYNDHAM: 1925-2023

When Arthur Wyndham rose to ABC radio management in the 1970s, he declared he would not hire anyone who sounded like him. Australians should sound Australian. He began his 38-year career with the ABC in 1947 as a radio announcer and newsreader with the obligatory BBC-inflected voice, even before a stint with the BBC.

Arthur Wyndham on Anzac Day 2021.

Arthur died in Sydney on October 6 at the age of 98. He was one of the last veterans of Australian broadcasting from the pre-television era, as well as a pioneer in television in the 1950s, and an innovator who oversaw the introduction of the youth station 2JJ (now Triple J) with funding from the Whitlam government.

He was remembered by colleagues from 2JJ as “a cool dude” and an open-minded, supportive boss who defended their irreverence. Actor-presenter Lex Marinos said: “He unfailingly had a sparkle in his eye and a witty observation, and he always showed an interest in what I was doing.”

Arthur remained friends with Gary Reilly and Tony Sattler, creators of 2JJ classics The Naked Vicar Show and Chuck Chunder and the Space Patrol, before they went on to commercial success in TV. He sometimes thought he should have chased the money, but he was a devoted ABC man.

Arthur Winchester Wyndham was born on February 14, 1925, the third of four sons of Scottish migrants George and Margaret Wyndham. George had left the British Army to travel the world, and was working as a cane cutter in Queensland when he volunteered for the Australian Infantry Force and survived Gallipoli and the Somme.

Arthur (centre) as a RAN radar operator with his brothers Alan and Ian Wyndham.

George and Margaret raised their family in the suburbs of Sutherland Shire. They saw three sons go off to World War II: Ian and Alan in the Royal Australian Air Force and Arthur as a 17-year-old radar officer in the Royal Australian Navy. All three would come home. The fourth son, Roy, was too young to serve.

After vomiting into a silver coffeepot, Arthur gained his sea legs and successfully intercepted Japanese attacks. His memory of being in the occupying force in Hiroshima was of seeing people huddled around fires amid the bombed ruins.

His future career was foreshadowed by leisure time on HMAS Quickmatch, when he and others brought order to a chaotic record collection by building and cataloguing an extensive library.

Before the war, Arthur had been a copy boy at The Sun newspaper. On his return he began to study accountancy but decided that wasn’t for him and answered an ad in the Herald for jobs with the ABC.

Arthur as a young ABC radio announcer.

His work behind the microphone included news reading and introducing music. There were shenanigans among the announcers such as putting a metal garbage bin over the speaker’s head or pouring a watering can over the newsreader as he gave the weather forecast. Not surprisingly, Arthur became a lifelong fan of The Goon Show and kept the series on rotation when he controlled programming.

In 1948 Arthur married Shirley Moore. After he distinguished himself as a commentator on the royal tour of 1954, they were sent to Canberra, where he broadcast parliamentary sittings and she worked as a Hansard reporter.

A year later they set out to travel to Europe and the UK. The plan was to drive overland with the motor racing driver and journalist David McKay and his wife, but they went their own way after driving across the Nullarbor Plain. While touring the continent, he was seconded to the BBC for four months to learn television production.

Back in Australia for the launch of ABC TV in 1956, he oversaw opening programs around the country. As the first producer trained in outdoor broadcasting, he covered the Melbourne Olympics, and trained many others. He had a string of firsts in television including first cricket telecast, football match, and orchestral concert from the Sydney Town Hall.

Training Radio Saigon reporters during Vietnam War.

Learning techniques as they worked with limited space and budget, he led crews making programs ranging from At Home with prominent personalities such as Dame Mary Gilmore in her tiny Kings Cross flat, to a report from the Sydney Dog Pound, where fleas distracted the cameraman.

There were a few disasters. A mobile broadcasting van blew the power during an interview with the governor-general, Lord Slim, in his Canberra home, and Mungo MacCallum carried on oblivious to technicians running past the windows.

Arthur was acting program director for each state as ABC television was rolled out and spent six years as program director in Melbourne. During the Vietnam War he was sent as an adviser to Radio Saigon to train local broadcasters in reporting rather than propaganda. Under mortar attack while recording documentary material for the ABC, he felt in greater danger than he had in World War II.

During this busy period, Arthur and Shirley Wyndham’s daughter, Susan, was born but the couple divorced in 1962. He remarried to Prudence Bavin and had two more daughters, Joanna and Katharine.

Arthur in a pensive moment on an aircraft.

Arthur was an attentive father when he had time, adamant he was glad to have daughters rather than sons. They remember going fishing at Sydney Harbour, tree climbing, kite flying, holidays in the bush, at the beach and later overseas. He made up entertaining bedtime stories, meticulously built a cubby house, and brought home autographs from American TV stars.

There were excursions to the television studios to watch filming of Play School, Adventure Island and Bellbird. On one visit he asked Grahame Bond, dressed as Aunty Jack (“I’ll rip yer bloody arms off”), to look after a shy Joanna, who was reduced to a quivering mess.

Arthur Wyndham and daughter Susan.

In the 1970s Arthur returned to his first love, radio, in Sydney and filled many senior executive roles, including director of Radio 2 (now RN) and Radio 1 (now Radio Sydney), where he championed the eccentric presenter Clive Robertson and mediated between equally hardline staff and management. He made many long-lasting structural and programming changes.

Richard Connolly was astonished by Arthur’s offer in 1973, over a 1965 Mildara cabernet shiraz, to create a three-hour poetry and arts program, Sunday Night Radio Two (later Radio Helicon). Robyn Williams credits his “suave” boss for giving the go-ahead to The Science Show, which he has hosted since 1975.

Arthur retired from the ABC in 1985, but not from broadcasting. He fulfilled an ambition by reporting from the Philippines on the fall of president Ferdinand Marcos, storming the palace with other journalists, and covered elections there in 1992 and 1998. He followed his love of Asia into a senior position with the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union in Kuala Lumpur. An elegant writer, he self-published a personal account of South-East Asian politics.

Eventually retired, he planted hundreds of trees and built a huge aviary on the family farm in the NSW Southern Highlands. He was a loving grandfather, catching trains across Sydney to pick up children from different schools.

He continued to read avidly in English and French, listen to his beloved “serious” music, and always had on radio or television. Arthur told his family for many years, “This will be my last Christmas.” He spent the last seven in a nursing home, where he is remembered as a gentleman. Until the end he enjoyed sitting in the sun with his daughters, and asked them, “Do you know how much I love you?”

He is survived by his daughters and six grandchildren.

Susan Wyndham is a writer, journalist and former Herald literary editor.