It was 1969 when Alex Nicol first opened the microphone at the ABC to announce, 'This is All Ways On Sunday'. Very few people would have heard him. ABC regional audiences on Sunday morning were miniscule.
A year later, the three-and-a-half hour program was essential listening for tens of thousands across the country and its audience continued to grow. Driven by a network of reporters all around Australia and, increasingly by listeners, it had tapped into a rich mine of stories about us.
Alex was just in time to hear the voices of the last of the First World War soldier settlers, and to meet the man who still cut sleepers for the railway by hand in the PIlliga. There was the fourteen-year-old who spent his days at the races, the last Cobb vCo driver, and the silk stockings and chocolates the Cattle King Sir Sidney Kidman provided to telephonists in post offices all over the back country. It was our history being told by the people who made it. And pity help any reporter who phoned when the beloved daily radio drama Blue Hills was on air.
Now, half a century later Alex has captured these stories in a book that reflects the tenacity, wit and adventure of regional Australians.
'Alex Nicol's Old Days, Old Ways evokes and celebrates those unmistakeable national qualities that set us apart and that reside in the common man and woman.' - Ian 'Macca' McNamara, Australia All Over
