My Life in Broadcasting

Born into a small farming community near Geelong, Cliff Peel’s youth was spent at boarding school, in farm work and on surfing holidays. His natural curiosity and interest in the world saw him hitchhiking around Tasmania with a school friend at age seventeen, the beginning of a lifelong love of travel. After some fortuitous media experience while President of the local Young Farmers’ Association, Cliff decided that the rural life was not for him and enrolled at the Vincent School of Broadcasting in Melbourne while supporting himself as an electrical meter salesman and spruiking for Woolworth’s. His first positions as a broadcaster, copywriter and finally a journalist in regional radio stations in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria are entertainingly described. Making the move to television and Melbourne in 1964, Cliff worked in the newsrooms of ABV2 and Channel 0, between undertaking a major solo rail trip to see the world the first of many. From childhood he loved stamps and the places on them, and as an adult and a serious collector, he travelled the world to visit those places, over time visiting 67 countries. Returning to the ABC and radio news, Cliff describes in rich detail his work as the first Tapes Room editor in the news department, and his later assistance with the implementation of the BASYS digital computer system at the ABC and elsewhere. Over a career spanning more than thirty years, Cliff Peel recounts the transformation of broadcasting from Morse code and telegrams to the digitised 24-hour news cycle from his personal experience. His involvement in football umpiring, surf lifesaving, amateur theatre, wine, cheese and railway appreciation, volunteer work and above all travels both within Australia and overseas, is related engagingly, and with wry humour. In retirement, Cliff remains actively involved in the ABC Reunion Club and various red wine and dining clubs. With his partner Rob, he is still an enthusiastic traveller. About the Author: Cliff Peel was born in 1936 into a farming family near Geelong, in Australia. After school, he worked in casual occupations while enrolled at the Vincent School of Broadcasting the training ground for presenters Brian Naylor and David Johnson in later years. He had many roles in rural and regional radio before moving into television with ABV2 TV in Melbourne, scripting the television news. Leaving the ABC to travel the world for nine months, Cliff then returned to the ABC before going to work at Channel 0 (now Channel 10) as Chief of Staff in the newsroom in 1971. At this time, Cliff met his life partner Rob. He later became the inaugural Tapes Editor at ABC Radio News in Melbourne, where he oversaw the training of journalists such as Ian Henderson, Barry Cassidy and Heather Ewart. In the late 1980s, Cliff worked again as Chief of Staff in the ABC Radio newsroom, before taking up a role implementing the BASYS digital computer system at the ABC and, later, in Asia.