The Golden Era of Radio Drama – And the Women who Helped Create it

By Victoria Purman

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My novel THE RADIO HOUR is set in a momentous year in Australian history: 1956.

It was the year the Olympics were staged in the southern city of Melbourne – the first time the Games had been held in Australia – and it was the year television broadcasting arrived.

Australia was a little slow to adopt television, something the British and Americans had enjoyed since the 1930s (although World War Two did slow down the adoption of the new medium).  There were widespread fears amongst Australian decision makers that children would develop such strong addictions to television that they would perhaps forget how to run and play. There was a very real belief that, based on what executives had seen in the United Kingdom and the United States, television would be nothing but a conduit for mediocrity and vulgar sensationalism and that it wouldn’t take off in Australia. 

These doomsayers held sway over public policy for many years which meant that, in the absence of alternatives, radio retained its place in the hearts and mind of Australians. And one woman was the Queen of the Australian airwaves: Gwen Meredith. A writer, dramatist, and playwright, she created the most popular radio serial in Australia’s history. 

Her drama, “Blue Hills”, ran on the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s national network for twenty seven years. She single-handedly wrote each of its 5,795 episodes. Set in a fictional country town, “Blue Hills” was a family drama centred around a doctor, his family and the town residents. It was so popular – among men and women – that half of all households in Australia tuned in to the show every weekday when it aired. 

But Meredith wasn’t the only woman to have a tremendous impact on Australian radio. The other was a Texan from El Paso: Grace Gibson. 

Gibson began her career at the Radio Transcription Company of America and she became involved with selling American recorded programs to Australia. She was actually poached by an Australia radio production company in the 1930s and by 1944, she had set up her own production company. It would go on to become one of the biggest producers of radio content, responsible for more than 30,000 episodes of drama, including a locally produced version of the US hit “Portia Faces Life”, “Dr Paul” and the spy thriller “Dossier on Demetrius”. The shows sold all over the world and by 1954, she was putting out 32 programs a week. Gibson never went back to the United States and died in Sydney in 1989, aged 84.

The history of broadcasting (and let’s be honest, many other spheres of public life) often overlooks the contributions of women and I hope to fix that imbalance with THE RADIO HOUR. 

I wondered what might happen if another serial was created to cash in on the success of “Blue Hills” and the other soaps and I also brought some of my own experiences to the novel, as I worked at the national broadcaster as a journalist at the beginning of my career. 

So, I created Martha Berry, a fifty year old “spinster”, and one of an army of polite and invisible women who go to work each day at the ABC and get things done without fuss, fanfare or reward.

She’s seen highly praised talent come and go over the years but when she is sent to work as a secretary on a brand-new radio serial, she finds herself at the mercy of an egotistical and erratic young producer without a clue, a conservative broadcaster frightened by the word ‘pregnant’ and a motley cast of actors with ideas of their own about their roles in the show.

When Martha is forced to step in to rescue the serial from impending cancellation, she ends up secretly ghost-writing scripts for “As The Sun Sets”, creating mayhem with management, and coming up with storylines that resonate with the serial’s growing and loyal audience of women listeners.

But she can’t keep her secret forever and when she’s threatened with exposure, Martha has to decide if she wants to remain in the shadows, or to finally step into the spotlight.

THE RADIO HOUR is set at a time when those who worked in radio were wary about what the arrival of television would mean for their careers and for their storytelling. And yes, the inevitable happened. When people turned to television, they turned away from their radios and the golden days of radio drama were over for good. 

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t throw my characters in at the deep end, having fun while the fun lasted. 

—
Victoria Purman is an Australian top ten and USA TODAY bestselling fiction author. Her most recent book, A Woman’s Work, was an Australian bestseller, as were her novels The Nurses’ War, The Women’s Pages, The Land Girls, and The Last of the Bonegilla Girls. Her earlier novel The Three Miss Allens was a USA TODAY bestseller. She is a regular guest at writers festivals, a mentor and workshop presenter, and was a judge in the fiction category for the 2018 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature and the 2022 ASA/HQ Commercial Fiction Prize for an unpublished manuscript. Connect with her online at victoriapurman.com; Facebook: @victoriapurmanauthor; Instagram: @victoriapurmanauthor; X: @victoriapurman

THE RADIO HOUR

From USA TODAY bestselling author Victoria Purman comes an engaging, clever story about women’s work—often unseen—during Australia’s golden years of radio broadcasting.

Martha Berry is on the brink of fifty years old, unmarried, and one of an army of polite, invisible women who go to work each day at the country’s national broadcaster and get things done without fuss, fanfare, or reward.

When the network prepares to launch a new radio serial in the style of their longest running and most successful show, Martha is transferred to assist the newly hired Quentin Quinn, the man who will write and produce the drama. But Mr. Quinn is wholly unprepared and ill-equipped for the role, clueless about radio and work in general. He’d rather enjoy his cigarettes and imbibe over lengthy lunch breaks and cannot be bothered to call his secretary by her correct name.

Rather than see the new show canceled, Martha steps in to hire a cast and write the scripts for the new show. Her authentic, women-focused storyline snags an ever-growing audience of loyal fans—and causes a stir with management. And Quentin Quinn is more than happy to accept the credit. But Martha’s secret cannot remain hidden. All too soon she faces exposure and must decide if she will politely remain in the shadows—or boldly step into the spotlight.

The Radio Hour is at once a sharp satire exposing the lengths men once employed to keep women out of the workplace and a hopeful tale about how one woman proves her worth and unwittingly outsmarts them all.

“Bestselling Australian author Victoria Purman is one of our nation’s most valued storytellers . . . ” —Mrs. B’s Book Reviews

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing