On the airwaves
ABOVE: Queenslanders lucky enough to own a radiogram could tune into Brisbane’s Radio 4QG on Anzac Day 1927 from 7:55pm for The Citizens’ Anzac Day Committee’s [sic] “live” broadcast from the Royal National Association Exhibition Hall on Gregory Terrace, Bowen Hills. The entree to the 65-minute-long service featured: An address by the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, William Alfred Jolly; classic hymn “Nearer My God to Thee”; an address and resolution delivered by Acting Premier of Queensland, William Forgan Smith; a choir piece; an address by the Lieutenant-Governor, William Lennon, reciting “The Ode” [the fourth stanza of the poem “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon]; the playing of “The Last Post” on the bugle; then everyone standing and observing “absolute silence for one minute”; followed by an address by Canon David Garland; and ending with the hymn, “Abide With Me” – the essential format of every Anzac Day before and since. The genius of Fr Garland in harnessing the extraordinary reach of “live” radio to capture the public’s imagination cannot be overstated. From the success of this experiment, through until his death on 9 October 1939, Garland – as the-then Rector of Ithaca-Bardon Parish – pioneered broadcasting weekly Holy Communion services and light concert entertainments from the pulpit and pews of Red Hill’s St Barnabas’ Church via Radio 4QG and other stations.
– from page 3 of “The Telegraph” of 25 April 1927.
ABOVE: An advertisement for a HMV gramophone which appeared in the Church of England Diocese of Brisbane monthly journal, “The Church Chronicle” on 1 June 1927.
