Melbourne
radio
man Clark
Sinclair passed
away in hospital on Sunday after a long battle with
cancer. He was aged 73. Clark
David Sinclair was
born in Bendigo,
where his father was a dance band master, and in charge of the Bendigo
Fire Brigade Band
and the Bendigo
Municipal Band.
Clark
inherited
this love of music, and added a passion for radio, when he came as a youngster
to
Melbourne
for
treatment for an eye infection, that left him with just 20 per cent vision.
Part of the treatment involved a stay at the Repatriation
General Hospital, Heidelberg,
and Clark
was
fascinated by the RGH
in-house
station run for the benefit of military patients. It gave him the idea for a
community radio station, and the St
Kilda Council came
to the party by installing an underground cable to each of the local homes in
the 10 blocks surrounding the Sinclair
family
home in Grosvenor St, East
St
Kilda.
Aged
just 19, Clark
Sinclair went
to air on March 27, 1954, with Radio
3SA to
a potential audience
of 3000 people, with programs broadcast 8am-Midnight three days a week.
Sinclair
teamed
with radio coach Lee
Murray
to
provide tuition for radio aspirants, and the Radio
3SA School included
students including Mal
Walden, Greg Evans, Ward
Everaadt,
Stephen Quartermain and
Derek
Guille.
Clark
Sinclair gained
experience on a number of Victorian
radio
stations: he started by presenting the Factory
Favourites program
on 3AK
with
young presenter, Ian
‘Nicko’ Nicholls.
His experience widened with work at 3XY,
voicing commercials, plus other work for radio stations at Warrnambool,
Warragul, 3CV at
Maryborough,
and
2QN
at
Deniliquin.
He
was fascinated with the close-to-themicrophone technique of ‘Nicky’
(Clifford
Nicholls
Whitta) at
3UZ,
and
was an in-studio spectator as ‘Nick’
worked
with a young Graham
Kennedy.
Clark
Sinclair was
an enthusiastic supporter of ‘conversational radio’, and showed this with
his
long-running Remember
When program
on 3AW,
broadcast
from 1977-1985 with Neville
Wragg.
He
continued his association with 3AW
over
the
years, contributing to programs hosted by Bruce
Mansfield and
Philip
Brady, Keith McGowan and
Alan
Pearsall. In
later years he became a theatre critic,
particularly
on the Pearsall
show,
and was a
regular
guest on the Yvonne
Lawrence programs
on
both 3AW
and
3AK.
Clarke
Sinclair also
did shifts on the then- ’Magic
693’, also
enthusiastically contributing to the 3CR
community
radio station programs including Swing
and Sway, Steam Radio and
Nostalgia
Unlimited, associated
with presenters including Ralph
Knight, Rod Roach and
Jannine
Bryden. He
enjoyed theatre and cabaret opening nights, and publicists assisted by
obtaining front row
seats where he could view the acts using powerful opera
glasses.
Clark
was
a strong supporter of local theatre, and enjoyed interviewing Production
Company chair
Jeanne
Pratt each
year, to hear of the new season’s shows. Sinclair
was
awarded the British
Empire
Medal
in
1981 for services to broadcasting. He was presented with the medal by State
Governor, Sir
Brian Murray.
Clark
Sinclair continued
his radio tuition, also lecturing in the City
at
nights. Students were
encouraged to operate panels, write copy, prepare and present shows on
3SA.
He
offered frank appraisals of students’ attitude, voice and on-air potential.
Only those with serious potential were accepted for training. About 10
students at a time were coached, and Sinclair
used
his wide network of radio industry friends to help obtain jobs for young
people.
3SA
students
prepared to work hard for a radio industry career, were encouraged to make
programs to a rigid format, with a “warts and all” CD
‘air-check’ sent to country stations asan
audition. Many students obtained work on FM stations, with older candidates
winning AM station work.
These included Craig
Huggins (now
at Gold
FM),
and
Jane
Holmes (Magic
1278 and
3AW).
Others included John
Deeks (Channel 7),
Dan
Lonegan (ABC) and
Tony
Pilkington (5AA
Adelaide).
Clark
Sinclair maintained
his enthusiasm for radio in his later years, and enjoyed catching up
with friends at the twice-a-year Survivors
Club reunion
meetings.
“Radio
today is very exciting,” he said in
the
months prior to his passing. “The opportunity
is
there for the real communicators to make
their
mark. The strict regimentation of formats
has
evolved into personality.
“What
you say and how you say it is vital
and
shapes every format in radio today. I believe
that
it is important that individual personality
is
the back bone to all formats.”