Moya Talty might be 91, but she is smart, engaging and funny. ABC Newcastle's Carol Duncan recently paid a visit Moya at her Newcastle home and find out a little bit about a woman whose career broke new ground for women in media.
Moya's first appearance on-air at ABC Perth was in 1942, "But that's giving my age away. Long before you were born."
"It was quite accidental, really. I was just a typist filling in Christmas holidays at school."
"By then, World War II had started and men were disappearing overseas. Part of my duties was to organise auditions for would-be announcers or actors, etc, and I guess they thought that was microphone experience."
"Conrad Charlton who was manager called me in and said, 'I'd like you to open the Classic Hour tomorrow at 10am', and that unsettled me a bit but that's how it started."
Moya was born Moya Frederick in Sydney in 1922, but the family travelled with her father's work with the Bank of NSW and left for Melbourne when she was just three, moving to Perth at about 16.
"I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was at school, certainly not radio. But I used to go in to the ABC and type during my school holidays and I grew to like the atmosphere, I'm fond of music and it was just exciting."
"I quite liked Frank Sinatra and all things considered it was just lovely so there was no more school for me, I just stayed put with the ABC."
Moya's experiences as a young woman in broadcasting during the war are a sobering reminder of a terrible time.
"In those days it was so different, there were no chatty chats or sunny 'good mornings' because that was considered giving information to the enemy. It was just 'good morning, ABC, 6WF 6WN, shortwave station' and announcing and playing music."
By 1949, Moya had married her first husband, Harry Saunders.
"I married and my first child, John, came along. My husband was a pilot, a serviceman with the airforce. In 1952, we were posted across to the Eastern States and ended up in Newcastle."
Just three weeks before the family was due to leave for an airforce posting in Cyprus, Moya's life changed forever. Her husband,RAAF pilot Henry 'Harry' Saunders died when his Mustang fighter crashed during flying exercises near Holsworthy in Sydney.
"Unfortunately there was a bit of tragedy in the family when Harry's plane crashed. If my parents hadn't come across from Perth, I'd have gone straight back. But I stayed in Newcastle and love it. I just love Newcastle. That was 1952. So I came for two years and I'm still here."
"My father got a transfer over to Newcastle with the bank so that was very convenient for me."
"Of course airforce pensions weren't too spectacular so I thought, 'What can I do?', so off I went to the ABC and asked if they wanted anyone to work with them."
"By luck, it was just at the right time. The manager was Richard Freeney and he said, 'You've walked in at the right time because we're just starting a women's session'."
"From little five or ten minute local snippets of 'women's session' we went to two or three hours up here locally, so there was music, interviews and news."
"I think local input important for the ABC and to have our autonomous little half-hour or whatever. When I say 'women's session', that's stretching the imagination a little bit. It was just a local interview with well-known people."
Moya's laugh is never far from the surface and it's obvious that she's biting her tongue thinking about the anachronistic discussion of 'women's programs' but happily acknowledges that it was simply a more conservative time.
"I remember my first victim was Peggy Kinna. She was the wife of a doctor but she bred Siamese cats. I felt that might interest someone so she was my first poor unfortunate victim."
Moya laughs as she remembers this first interview, "I learnt a lot about cats so I hope other people did, too. But from there it just went on and we had our own local program."
"From the time I was on radio in Perth, radio has just shot ahead by leaps and bounds and it's quite different now. I envy sometimes the ability to interview people with different ideas and different subjects."
Moya was the first female broadcaster on ABC Newcastle but had been on air in Perth prior to that. She admits that if it wasn't for the war, women probably wouldn't have been put on air at all and that there were a few complaints about women on the radio.
"Not so much here in Newcastle, but Perth! They hadn't even thought of women on the radio because they just didn't have the 'authority'. So we suffered brickbats and bouquets but women came through, quite a few after I started in Perth."
"Here in Newcastle people just took us for granted. But I remember one especially - I read the news and said, 'Tom-AR-go' (Tomago). When I got upstairs the switchboard was flashing lights all over and one fellow said, 'Tell that sheila it's TOM-a-goh!"
"But the ABC had been given a directive from the Windeyer family that it was 'Tom-AR-go'. We had a little box with the pronunciations but it quickly changed, of course, after the 'tell that sheila' call."
The notion of 'women's programming' wasn't peculiar to the ABC but Moya recalls that during her time in Newcastle she also worked on the sport programs.
But in 1952 Moya was a working mother, a widowed working mother, taking the role of on-air broadcaster in a time when men were being sent overseas to serve in WWII.
"It was different thinking then. Women's hours had recipes and how to clean windows and that sort of interesting conversation," Moya says with a wink and a grin.
We laugh at my suggestion that this is where I've gone wrong. I've never done an interview on how to clean windows.
"Now, it's so different. You have 'issues' and discuss those fully and I think that's marvellous."
Who would Moya have liked to have interviewed?
"That's a good question! I'm not sure, really, because with the years I've changed myself. From being brought up in that very conservative atmosphere of women's sessions being just about household hints, now you can talk about anything. I'm very interested in politics and subjects that raise controversy."
So just who would Moya like to interview these days? She doesn't hesitate with her answer.
"Malcolm Turnbull. I wouldn't ask him about broadband but about his ambitions - I think he has ... ambitions,' she grins, "How would he manage a lot of our current problems. I think he's just waiting quietly."
Moya Talty is now 91. She has the faltering voice of an older woman but the certainty of mind and the humour of a much younger one.
"People show down, of course, as they get older. But touch wood my health is still up there, I'm feel fighting fit. But I'm very interested in present day politics and I have a wonderful family including nine great-grandchildren."
For all the things that have changed, many things remain the same. The outside broadcast and the requirement to adlib during uncertain events.
"It was the arrival of the Queen in Newcastle in 1954. Tom Roberts was the manager and we were parked on the balcony outside Newcastle City Hall waiting for Her Royal Majesty to come out from opening the library."
"She was due to come down the avenue of trees through the park and all we could see was the roof of the building because of the trees."
"Tom and I were standing there trying to talk about anything - trees, crowds, anything - because she was running late."
"We finally saw the promenade of people coming the steps and Tom said, 'Ah! The royal legs!' because it's all we could see."
Moya stayed on air with ABC Newcastle until the late 1970s.
No comments:
Post a Comment