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Take a look. Take a look inside.
00:24S1
Hello and happy 2024 to our listeners of Hear This, the Vision Australia Library radio show. I'm Francis Keyland - and on today's show we're having a bit of a retrospective, a look at an interview with Tony Porter back in 2011. Tony was at that stage just deciding to retire from narrating, but he left behind a huge body of work and such an entertaining and lovely man to speak to. So I hope you enjoy our interview with Tony Porter. For many of our library clients will be familiar with Tony Porter. He's been the voice behind many of our talking books, with subjects as diverse as. And I'll name a few, Tim Fischer's Outback Heroes Richie Benaud, my spin on cricket dealing with depression by Gordon Parker and One World, The Ethics of Globalization by Peter Singer and this is to name just a few of the over 100 titles. But there's much more to Tony Porter, so we're going to speak to him today. Hello, Tony. Welcome to the studio.
01:30S2
Hello, Francis. I don't know whether I should feel all depressed myself. I'd forgotten I read Dealing with Depression.
01:35S1
Oh, well, the range of books you've tackled is quite amazing. I'd like to ask that at some stage when you first get a book, how you decide what approach you're going to take with it. Yeah.
01:45S2
Ah, yes. It's a bit different with me to, to most of the narrators that you talk to in this program because as you know, most of the books, fiction, novels and the like or anthologies, whereas I specialize in the non-fiction. Yeah. So I confess I don't have to do a lot of research in terms of characters or accents or any of that stuff. Occasionally there'll be a quote from someone, or it's got to be read in that particular personality, as it were. Beyond that, I don't need to do a lot of research and my advantages, and probably why I get a lot of the non-fiction is because I come from a news current affairs background as well as an acting background, which means I've got a sort of a corporate voice, um, which lends itself. And that's putting tickets on myself. I know, but it's no special talent, it's just the background. So again, where a lot of people would probably have to put in quite a bit of time into how they would approach a non-fiction read. For me, it's what I've been doing all my life anyway, in the corporate and news and current affairs world, it's just the same stuff.
02:41S1
And there's also you obviously have a comedic touch as well, because there's a lot of light hearted anecdotal type books in there.
02:48S2
And it helps, I guess, if you've got a bit of whimsy about you. Yeah, because yeah, some of it, some of the books are made and it's not just the books that are deliberately meant to be comical, although there are those, of course, and there are some that are from start to finish. They're a bit of a giggle, but there are others that have got amusing anecdotes in them. I think of Richard Woolcott, who was a former ambassador in his book, which is just slipped my memory. There I am. How am I doing? Diplomatic. It'll come to me in a moment. But it was a biography in a way, of his time as a as a diplomat. And a lot of the stuff that he had to do was very funny. And a lot of the dispatches he wrote as a diplomat were very amusing. In fact, one of them was banned by his own department. They wouldn't release it to the public and the media because it was scathing but hysterically funny in how it described the Liberian government of the day. This is back in the 1960s, I think. Yeah, they're very funny and you have to take a light touch to them sometimes.
03:43S1
And that's another thing I imagine a lot of corporate speakers may not have that ability. Yeah, God bless them.
03:48S2
Um, um, I do in another life. I've got several parallel lives because Lord knows you don't make a lot of money out of acting. Um, and in one of my parallel lives, I, I do train people in how to speak and present when they're talking to groups or to classes, or when they're talking to the board or whatever, or when they're talking to the media. I train people in talking to the media. And a lot of people, you're right. They they they don't realize that the voice people want to hear is your voice. Yeah. And if you stand up at the front with a lectern and hang on to the lectern for dear life and read the words off a page or an autocue prompter, sometimes it doesn't come out like you. It comes out like an automaton. The difficult thing, I guess. I like to think it's not difficult, but for some it is is sounding like a human being, sounding like, you know, I can, I can picture it's a bit like when you read a really good book or even read a really good play for the first time. If it's well written, you can hear the voices. Yes. And that's the important thing. When you're reading that, you bring the voices to life for people.
04:44S1
How long have you been training people?
04:46S2
Oh, look, it's because they're all parallel careers. It'd be hard to put nail it down. Exactly. But about 1980, when I started drifting out of news and current affairs as a full time occupation and started chasing a bit more of what I really love doing, which was performance. But of course, people I found people were coming to me and saying, hey, you've done this a lot, you know how the business works. Can you come and give us a few tips? Before you know it, you've got yourself a sideline, you're running where people are paying you to come in and teach them how to do it. Billy Connolly, I think, is is the person I've heard saying it, that he spends his entire life terrified that someone's going to come up to him one day, tap him on the shoulder and say, we know. We know you're bluffing. You know we know you don't know what you're talking about. And I'm a bit the same. You know, I've picked up an awful lot in my life. That's one of the skills that I pass on to others. But quite often I'm in the middle of training. I was doing it just yesterday, training some executives in media management and thinking, I'm bluffing. I don't think I am, really, I think I must have some knowledge. Yes. Yeah.
05:43S1
You're drawing on on resources.
05:45S2
Yeah. You're drawing on a lifetime's experience or perspectives that other people don't have.
05:49S1
Where did it all begin for you? I happen to know. And you're a £10 pom oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you came to Australia at what age?
05:57S2
Uh, I'm a proudly neutralised Australian, I say, because I arrived here at the age of 13, in 1963, so I'll let everybody do the sums. Um, at the time, we traveled a lot because my father was in aviation in Britain, in charter aviation, and in fact, my family, not singly but among others, were responsible for destroying the cost of Brava in Spain, which is now a great tourist strip. Yes, in the 1950s it was lovely fishing villages and the like. But then the poms discovered it and started flying out there. And my father was involved in post-war aviation, and he came up with these ideas of charter flights taking, filling up planes with tourists, charter, uh, doing packages where you'd hire hotels on the Costa Brava. So as a child, I spent a lot of time travelling between England and Spain and Holland and France. And, you know, it was a wonderful childhood. Yes, except it was so normal to me. I didn't think anything of it. Yeah. So when we packed up in 1973 and 63, sorry. And headed off to Australia, it was no different to me. It was just another trip.
So I guess I was lucky in that regard and I acclimatised very quickly. We went to Adelaide, which is a fairly conservative English sort of a town, so I settled in very quickly and what they call Pommy town north of Adelaide, a place called Elizabeth. Yes, which is only a working class town, but a lovely place. And my father by chance took over the local theatre there, brand new theatre that was running into problems. They needed someone with a bit of panache, a bit of entrepreneurship. So my father was good at it. So he started running the theatre. So quite naturally I gravitated into that sort of world. I found myself hanging around the theatre, went into school plays and thought, this is it, found it. I'm in love. Mhm. Um, so forsaking everything except girls, I went into theatre and I dabbled in other things. I went and did a part of a university course in politics at Adelaide Uni, but I was getting work already in theatre by then. So I said, oh, forget the other stuff.
07:45S1
Yeah, just took over. Yeah. That's an interesting entrepreneurial background. Then you obviously inherited a kind of idea of, well, there's an opportunity here. Yeah. And I know that I can do this and yeah confidence.
07:57S2
It nobody ever told me to. But all my life I've had the attitude if a door opens, at least go and have a look. You know you can't. You can get tunnel vision. Sometimes it's good to have a goal, but you can spend your life aiming for something and be terribly disappointed when you get there and then think, oh, those opportunities I should have taken. So all my life, if someone has come along and said, would you like to? I say, yeah, why not have a go? And it's it. Okay, I haven't made a fortune. I'm not rich and famous because maybe I wasn't focused on the one goal, but I've done so much stuff. I've travelled around the world 4 or 5 times, all on other people's money. My wife hates me because she never got to go. But I've had a good time. I had a very good time and learned so much, and I'm doing it now, even, you know, reading here at Virgin Australia.
And as it was, of course, the Braille and Talking book library before, I'm still doing it because I'm in a way fortunate that I'm reading so much non-fiction. I mean, I'd love to read fiction, too. I love that stuff, but I know that it's horses for courses. And when you read non-fiction, you're reading other people's views of the world, other people's ideas constantly. And you learn and you learn and you learn. You discard a lot, you forget a lot, but at the same time you pick up a lot. So it broadens your mind. So I'm getting as much out of reading as I hope the listeners are. The clients.
09:09S1
Are. That's great. Is there any particular project that you've taken on in acting, performing, writing, presenting anything that you're really glad you took on? In retrospect, it was one of those watershed things where it changed the course of your life.
09:22S2
Yeah, a couple and I should be nice, shouldn't I? In case Vivian's listening. But I got married in 1971. I was I was a long haired newsreader at Mount Gambier, channel eight, Mount Gambier. And and I'd taken that job because we were going to get married and, and so I took a job in television because bright lights and all the rest of it. Yeah. And a.
09:41S1
Steady income.
09:42S2
As well. And it was an income. That was the point. And I know a lot of actors live a life of penury, you know, in a garret and so on. But I could never ask my wife to take that on watch, as it might have been fun for me. So I knew there was some responsibility there. So I went and got a steady job, so to speak. And the closest I could get to theatre was telly. Yeah. So it's which I've got to be honest, I thought it was glamorous. I thought it would be wonderful. And it was. For a year I was a star in Mount Gambier. It's, you know, small pond, big fish. Um, so that was one turning point. And I loved every moment of that. Well, this.
10:11S1
Show does go to South Australia.
10:13S2
So high Mount Gambier. Yeah. High, high. All those places in South Australia that no one can pronounce for longer. Do. You're, you'll you'll I think so, um, all those places. But it was a wonderful time and I. Not so much being a pom and having led a fairly insulated life in Adelaide for those few years before I got married and moved out. Moving to Mount Gambier was was the making of me in many ways because it taught me about the greater Australia, the wider Australia, and it moved me a bit closer to Melbourne. So we'd nip over and and I saw the big smoke for the first time. And so that was all terribly exciting. And it was some years before we moved to Melbourne. I didn't move to Melbourne until 1975 when, and there's another watershed moment I'd been working in by that time, television news and radio news for some years, and I was producing in Adelaide at Channel nine, producing their nightly news, and Peter Harford, Peter Harvey rang up and said there's a vacancy in Melbourne Town if you'd like to give them a call.
Next thing I know I'm on an aeroplane and I'm reporting for channel nine in Melbourne, so there's another turning point and those come along again, opportunities. It would be so easy to say no, too big a move or I don't know anyone in Melbourne, but God bless my wife again for saying, yeah, let's do it. Because I left her in Adelaide to move over here. She had to stay there because she was expecting our second baby and she was too far gone to move. So she stayed and packed up everything and moved while I had a wonderful time. Um, so I've had a good life thanks to her. Um, so there was that. And I've got to mention another turning point, but it's a personal one. It didn't change my career in any way, but in the early 90s, I decided to go and take take part in actor's workshops in Fitzroy, which are not there anymore. Doesn't matter. Run by a crazy American lady called Mirren Lee. And she opened my eyes to a whole bunch of stuff, which I won't go into now because it's just that's not what we're here to talk about. But in approaches to acting and approaches to development of character and so on, and interpreting scripts and so on.
And it's funny how, you know, that little thing about I thought, oh, look, I'll just go along. It might be a bit of fun. Yeah. And hey, I've always been conceited. I've always been a bigot. I thought, oh, I'll be able to teach these youngsters a thing or two. Well, it was the other way round. I learnt so much in what, 2 or 3 years going to those workshops, that that was a turning point for me. As I say, it means nothing to anyone outside. But it was important to me. Yeah. And the other one I've got to mention 1998 Gordon Bennett, who would be known to many people, not the Gordon Bennett from the Gordon Bennett 1930s. Yeah. Uh, Gordon Bennett, sports producer, television producer at channel seven. He's been there for 50 years now, and he was the producer of World of Sport and a lot of important programs in the Seven Network. And we'd got to know each other. And he and Rocky Rowland rang. Another director rang me up and said, can you come and help us with the Good Friday appeal? Just putting segments together and documentary material and so on. And so I did in 98. And again, it didn't turn my life around exactly, but it was one of those reality check things. I've been going back every year since then and working for four or 5 or 6 weeks prior to the Good Friday appeal.
And then on the day, because you go to that hospital and you walk around there and do you think you're pretty good and you think life's treating you badly or you're unfairly or whatever, and you go along there and it's, I'm not talking about the kids, even although God bless them, you know, they've got a lot to fight with. The doctors and nurses are heroes, but the people that get me and bring a lump to my throat every year is the parents.
13:24S1
Oh, yes.
13:25S2
These people who, through no fault of their own, their lives are just turned upside down and they drop everything. They drop everything for the kid and you've got to take your hat off to them. So every year now I go back and get my reality check that says, mate, you know, don't you complain about your life. You're doing all right.
13:42S1
Yeah. No, I know exactly what you mean. It's incredible. And you sort of wonder how they can hold up under under such stress a lot of the time, and some don't.
13:51S2
There's support mechanisms there at the hospital and elsewhere for them. But gee, it's so tough. And you know, you're not talking just about people from Fitzroy and Prahran and Lilydale who've got problems. You're talking about people who come from the far reaches of this state and interstate. Yes, occasionally even overseas. And they just turn their lives upside down. Yes. Inside out, leave.
14:11S1
Leave farms for a while.
14:13S2
And they are they're the salt of the earth, you know, the vast majority. Sure. You know, there's this there's people. You think, oh, really? You don't know. There are people who need to get their lives together, but there are other people. The vast majority of people are just the most wonderful people. And they don't get medals. They don't get recognition. And certainly nobody puts their hands in their pockets and and helps them out. They just have to figure it out. Yeah. Very tough. Yeah. Very tough. What you've talked.
14:35S1
About is so many opportunities that you've taken hold of and thought, oh, I'll just try that or I'll go there or I really like that.
14:40S2
And there'll be another one next week, I hope. Who knows, who knows. Yep, that's for sure.
14:44S1
But is there, um, is there anything that you regret turning down, ever or not doing, or do you think there's always time anyway?
14:50S2
Yeah there are. There are times when you think I should have done that. Yeah, I was working, for instance. It must be one, because it's just come to mind since you asked me, um, I was working on a remake of the old Tommy Hanlon game show. It could be you. Oh, yes. Yeah, and I did a remake of it. I didn't, I was on the team on camera with Barry Crocker and the lovely Melissa Hannon, Andrew Harwood, who's now the late who used to do it's academic. Yes, many years ago and, and a bunch of wonderful people. Anyway, I was doing that in Sydney in 1982 and at that time one of the senior executives said. Look, the show is going to fold. It's not writing well enough, so we're going to pull it off here. But if you want to stay in Sydney, then we'll find more for you here. It was obviously a vote of confidence. That was a regret because I said no. I said, well, Melbourne time, but it's not a big regret. I hope nobody from Sydney is listening. Um, Sydney's a wonderful town and I enjoyed it while I was there, but Melbourne is one of those towns. As soon as I hit here I thought, this is home and it's been that ever since. So it's not so much a regret as yes. Sure, you spend all your life saying, I wonder what if you have to.
15:53S1
Weigh things up?
15:54S2
Yeah, but you can't regret them. Yeah. Every day is an opportunity. Every day is a new chance. There's always something interesting happening. And as long as you keep your eyes and your ears open, you know, enjoy what you're doing, enjoy the experience and learn what you can. Then you know you can't worry about what you didn't do, for heaven's sake, you'd spend your entire life doing it.
16:11S1
Yes.
16:12S2
Then I'd have to read that book on depression. Yeah.
16:15S1
Well, getting back to the books, are there any particular books that stand out as being particularly touching or ones that really even ones that challenged you.
16:24S2
Challenge would be books like, oh dear, all the cricket fans are going to throw things at that. The radio receivers. This is going back a few years. I forget when, um, A History of Australian Cricket volumes one, two and three. For all I know there might have been 4 or 5 and six. I can't remember now. I like sport, um, I was an athlete at school, but not a cricket follower, so reading it was a bit of a challenge anyway. But reading the appendices was even more of a challenge because it had every cricket match that Australia's national and international, but Australia has been involved in since, I don't know, whatever it was 1492 or something. Yeah, um, which was fine, but it had all the team members listed in every match. Now again, I suppose I should be good at this, but you try reading all the Pakistani players from whatever year to date.
17:10S1
Oh my gosh. Yeah, it.
17:11S2
Was a challenge because you know that the cricket fans, they know how to say it all. Yes, you got to get it right. Yes. So there's that sort of stuff that ah challenges the science books that we do. We've done, you know, the 5050 ideas in physics that you ought to know and that sort of thing. Yeah. And in fact, there was one book which I won't mention the name, but it was written by a world leading expert in his science. And there was one chart because, as you know, we try to read as best we can read or describe charts and diagrams and so on. There was one chart in the middle. It was full of all this advanced maths stuff, but I couldn't figure out what it meant and the producer couldn't figure it out and we made phone calls. Nobody knew. Eventually I got onto the author, who was travelling overseas and got on to him via his little BlackBerry in Switzerland or somewhere. And three days later, eventually he got back to me and said, well, actually, I didn't understand it either, so don't bother trying to read it. He'd put it in his own book and he didn't understand. So you get that?
18:04S1
Yeah.
18:04S2
But most of the books I've read are just inspiring books, you know, books that teach you something. Dear Mr. Rudd, there's a book I'd recommend to read Howard's War for another reason. There's a book that I would suggest people read Michael Moore's books. Hey, dude, where's my country? Uh, stupid white men, whether you like Michael Moore or not, that's the sort of stuff that challenges you and makes you think so. I'd certainly be recommending those kinds of books to people. And and the quarterly essays. I've read a number of those the collections of essays from Australian Quarterly magazine on politics and other subjects, on the Australian story and so on, and are the land of plenty. There's one. I've put a note here on the Land of Plenty to remind myself of fascinating book Australia in the 2000, those kind of books that just make you look back at what's happened over the last ten, 20 years and then try to extrapolate what's going to happen in the future. Where is this country heading and what's my role?
18:57S1
They really stretch you and and they.
18:59S2
Challenge you and they they make you stop and think, well, I've got a role to play here. And I apologise to all those people to whom who think I read too fast. I don't I've never had a complaint. I like to think I speak clearly, but I do speak very quickly.
19:12S1
I haven't heard that so much. And with the daisy players that we have now, the disc players that are loaned out to all the library clients, you can actually slow the voice down. Yeah, I.
19:19S2
Must try that.
19:20S3
Yeah, sure, sure.
19:22S2
I'll sound like Peter Harvey.
19:24S1
Well, you might sound more like you've had a few wines.
19:28S2
Oh, I should say, too. We mentioned a minute ago about things that you do that inspire you. That sort of stuff. Yes. Yeah. The other thing I should mention last week I was again, probably well out of my depth, but I was one of the speakers at Scotch College talking to the students there. You're in at 11 and 12 on media. Yeah, at their biennial Lit Fest literature festival, and I'm trying to do a lot more of that, too, talking to schools and talking to students, because on acting, on writing, on journalism, on media, on all of those topics. Because again, you know, we knock the kids and there's a few bags around. Of course there are. Yeah. By, gee, there's some clever kids coming through, some Smarties.
20:06S1
And what you're teaching also, or what you're talking about are life skills.
20:09S2
But also, you know, and helping them to find their place in the world and to know that they can make a difference. Yeah, because they probably feel a bit isolated, a bit left out kids these days. And as I say, the teenagers, they come up and talk to me afterwards and there's some smart kids there. And when you meet them, you think. The country is in good hands.
20:24S1
That's nice to hear.
In your CV, it mentions that you've done a bit of variety show performances and you've come across worked with people like Rolf Harris and Bert Newton, which are Australian icons. Can you tell us a bit about that?
20:36S2
Yeah, I fall into those shows as much as I fall into a lot of things that I do. Rolf Harris I was the resident comic on the show. They did comic sketches. This is back in the 1980s. Um, he had a show on the ABC, a variety show. Bert Newton was doing his daytime variety show on channel seven, and I went on there as a personality reporter. I've worked with those kind of people, and the thing that strikes you all the time. I remember working with Maggie Tabora, writing and producing a program for her, a lifestyle show. With all of these people, you strike the same thing. Their minders and their minders constantly say, do this, don't do that. Don't say this, don't do that. Keep away from them, then allow them this and so on. If you can just get past the minders to the real people, you suddenly discover that it's the minders. It's not the real people at all. Yes. And when you get to them, you find they are the sweetest, nicest, most cooperative people. They'll do anything for you. I can't recall ever having met one who was a real headache.
And I gotta say, when I worked on that show in Sydney that I mentioned, it could be you with Barry Crocker. I was up there living there in a little flat in Lane Cove, all on my own, a lot of people on the crew, and they all knew I was a loner. Everyone else was local. One person, one person out of the whole crew said, yeah, what are you doing this weekend, tone? Ah, you're not going anywhere. Come around. I'll make a spag bol. My wife's away for the weekend. It's quiet and we'll sit down and we'll watch the footy. That was Barry Crocker.
21:56S3
Oh, geez.
21:57S2
Star of the show. Yeah. So, you know, you've got to again, you've got to sometimes see past the mythology that surrounds people who are well known. Yes. They're just like the rest of us. Yeah. They're waiting for that tap on the shoulder to.
22:07S1
Thank you so much for coming in today, Tony, and appreciate your time. I hope you're going to many more books for the library.
22:13S2
Oddly enough, so do I.
22:15S3
Thank you. Thanks, Frances.
22:22S1
And just a bit of a warning here. I'm just going to tell an anecdote that Tony told me after the recording, and it involves Rolf Harris and the allegations. So while there's no real detail, it might be just an unpleasant thing for people to hear, as it does involve sexual assault. In 2014, Tony. And I'm really proud of him for this, because he did tell me the story. After we'd finished recording, he took to the stand as a witness about seeing Rolf Harris indecently assaulting a makeup artist, and it had been on his mind at the time. And in his testimony, he said he was hired as a comic support for Harris's TV show in the 1980s. And in the makeup room, he saw Harris reach forward and grab it, this makeup artist, and making lascivious noises as he did so. Harris himself said he had no recollection recollection of Porter at all, even after he was shown a clip of them acting together and denied the allegation.
But I'm really happy that Tony Porter stood up because I know it was on his mind and his arm to another man that stood up and spoke out, it's beloved father Bob. And we have a biography by Sue Williams simply called father Bob the Larrikin Priest. This is the life story of father Bob McGuire, a rare behind the scenes look at the much loved people's priest. The enigmatic champion of the down and out was shaped by a lonely childhood in poor circumstances, an early priesthood that collided with the upheaval of Vatican Two and working with the army during the Vietnam War. This is a lively portrait of the man behind the resilient social activist and popular media performer who refuses to be defeated by enforced retirement from the parish over which he presided for nearly 40 years. And yes, so, so sad when father Bob passed away. We've lost a good one there. Let's hear a sample of father Bob by Sue Williams. It's narrated by Richard Bligh.
24:19S4
A lone bagpiper steps into an old church in an inner city suburb of Melbourne, to the soaring refrain of amazing grace as he makes his way up the aisle, the 1000 strong, packed congregation rise as one to their feet. They turn and look behind the piper to see a short, bespectacled, snowy haired man in flowing white and green vestments hurrying to the front of the church. Immediately, the applause starts and doesn't stop until he takes his place behind the pulpit and adjusts a microphone. Already there's barely a dry eye in the house, for this is father Bob McGuire, Butler, Army veteran and for the last 38 years, the priest of this proud parish. During that time, he's been the founder of both national and local charities to help the poor. A champion of efforts to democratise Catholicism in Australia, an outspoken campaigner for the rights of perhaps the most downtrodden of all in society. A one man comedy turn and along the way a much admired TV and radio personality. He's received nationwide recognition for his work too. As well as being the 2012 Victorian of the year.
He's also a member of the Order of Australia, a Local Hero as part of the Australian of the year awards, and a longtime Australia Day ambassador. In addition to winning an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year award for social and community enterprises. On the flip side, he's a man who also manages to outrage people. Some of the more traditional members of the church have been appalled by his approach from time to time. He's been criticized by people as diverse as the archbishop of Melbourne and one of the city's most influential shock jocks, and he once scandalised one of his old school teachers with his utterances from the pulpit. I'm embarrassed by him now, says the elderly Christian brother, shaking his head.
26:20S1
That was Father Bob by Sue Williams and a salute and a vale to father Bob McGuire, who passed away in April 2023. Thank you for joining us for our first show for 2024. Can you believe it? And thank you to to everybody that listens and gives great feedback and book recommendations. I'll have some coming up next week. I still got some from late last year that I'm eager to put on the show. If you would like to contact the library, please just ring them on one 365 4656. That's one 300 654 656. Or you can email library at Vision Australia. Org that's library at Vision Australia. Org and I hope you have a lovely year ahead. And we'll be back next week with more Hear This.
