Whenever I interview musicians for the NZ musicians’ book, I ask about the music they heard when they were growing up. Quite by chance my sister & I ended up having this conversation a few months ago. She is almost 10 years younger than me which means our experiences were different.

But first to Maureen who lived in Wellington & had these recollections about the music she heard in the late 50s & early 60s. In the living room in the house where she grew up there was a radiogram that all the family listened to together & if her grandfather was visiting they listened to opera as he hated any form of modern music.

Each morning the family listened to the breakfast programme on 2ZB & on Sundays they listened to the Request Session from 12 – 2pm. Occasionally, they listened to the national hit parade but it was rare for her to be able to listen to her own music.

My sister & I grew up in provincial NZ. In the mid 60s when I was at high school there was no television in the house. In the evenings our parents listened to LPs like My Fair Lady; Carnival of the Animals; classical music or records by Winifred Atwell. I remember daytime moments of us huddled round the radiogram listening to spoken words programmes like Take It From Here & My Word.

I was allowed to turn the radio on to listen to the local hit parade Wednesday night & the national Lever Hit Parade Thursday night as I dried the dinner dishes. Pa washed dishes slowly. At the time it drove me insane but looking back it meant I had more music as I helped with that dreary task those nights. On Sundays permission was given to listen to the request session on the ZB network while the family ate lunch. Mostly, songs requested by listeners were soppy drivel. The Jim Reeves song He’ll Have to Go seemed to be played often, along with songs by Mario Lanza or Gracie Fields. Just occasionally a song a teenager wanted to hear was broadcast.

Luckily I had the old family valve radio in my room so while I did  my homework week nights I listened to the Sunset Show on 2ZB. It arrived with varying amounts of static. After dinner, after dark in New Zealand, drive-time shows on Sydney radio boomed in. I loved 2UE & 2SM & mostly listened to the former. Sydney radio was lively; the delivery upbeat, in complete contrast to the dull presentation from staid local radio. Very occasionally, when the family went out I played my own small collection of records.

For Christmas 1965 I was given a transistor. I took it everywhere I could, not that there was much to listen to in the daytime but it went to Auckland with me when I moved there very early the following year to embark on the first stages of my career.