I remember waking up New Year morning, 1 January 1966, watching the sun rise next to the neighbour’s camphor laurel from my bed on the back verandah of the house I grew up in.

It was a beautiful yellow orp in a cloudless lapis blue sky. I made a note to my 5 year old self to remember the joy of the moment forever. It was a year of optimism. Then within a few short months, in April of that year, I was fighting for my life.

1969

New Years Eve night 31 December 1969 was what I recall to be a three hour special on a local commercial station (Channel 9) covering the momentous decade that was the 1960s.

I thought at the time the same thing would happen in 1979, 1989 and so on. But no decade has been so optimistically radical since.

Australia did have a bright three years with the progressive Whitlam government 1972-75.

And, since you’ll be hearing Tuxedo Junction live from 1970 radio on this week’s show, it reminds me that in the early 70s, Sydney ABC station 2BL always played Tuxedo Junction sung by a blues singer as its open song after the station came on the air for the morning at 5:45am.

However, by 1979 the country was in the doldrums under the ‘austerity’ of a wealthy farmer prime minister and a suburban lawyer treasurer.

20 DECEMBER PLAY LIST