John Barns, Patron & Volunteer
When I retired as a magistrate I thought after a few months—what am I going to do with my time? I love music so I thought I’d go along to Robert Wilson, who was the Station Manager in May 1991. He said they were looking for a receptionist on Tuesdays, so I did that and worked in the role on Fridays.
David Menzies said to me after I had been there for 2 years: ‘You know quite a bit about music and have a clear voice we want to train you to be a presenter.’ I said 'I’ve done quite enough public speaking when I was on the bench, I don’t need to do any more'. He said, 'Come on you’ll be good!', so I ended up doing the training.
The training involved being in the studio with a presenter, so there was no formal course as such. Then you had to prepare a program and record it as if you were presenting.
I did the program, but the committee didn’t like my presentation because it was too flippant. I said 'I’ve got a request here from a Mr Paul Keating of Canberra'. They didn’t like that at all. David Menzies said to me later 'you shouldn’t have mentioned Paul Keating, you’re not allowed to be humorous on the air.’ I made another recording and that was okay.
Shortly after I was asked by George Dobbins to take over his Concert Hall program on Tuesday afternoon and I started on 1 March 1993, with my own program.
One funny story I have is of a former presenter who pronounced the Austrian composer Johann Fux, as it is spelt rather than 'Fuchs', the phones went crazy in complaint.
Nick Sharman (author): What have you learnt about Broadcasting?
Not to say too much. It is very important to script but it’s best to keep your notes as succinct as possible. I’ll ad lib a little bit and I also try to sound passionate about what I’m putting to air—it helps the listener. Another point is occasionally inserting just a very short pause can be a useful technique. Clive Stark, the former Broadcast Manager, used to say that silence occasionally gets the listeners attention.
I thought when I started, that would be a much more serious place than it was, but we have jokes galore.