William Hedley Richardson Bunbury [1] (born 7 October 1940, in Glastonbury, England), known as Bill Bunbury, is a former radio broadcaster and producer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and an accomplished historian and writer.
Bunbury was born in Glastonbury, England in 1940, to an Australian father and an English mother. [2] He graduated with an honours degree from the University of Durham in 1963, [3] then decided to visit his father's homeland, Australia. He worked as a farmhand on his cousin's farm in Broomehill for 2 months before moving to Perth, where he taught English at Guildford Grammar School. [4] A visit to the school by an ABC television crew introduced Bunbury to ABC producer Roger Penny. Penny recommended Bill to apply for an ABC position and he joined the ABC'S Education in May 1969. [2]
Bunbury's first couple of years at the ABC consisted of radio work. He moved to television shortly afterwards to present a children's program called Here in the West. [4] Later, while making a film series about significant communities, he came across the experience of Group Settlers in Denmark, Western Australia in the 1920s. Unable to get funds for a TV production he recorded a 30-minute radio documentary THEY SAID YOU'D OWN YOUR OWN FARM Its unexpected popularity prompted Bunbury to move full time to radio, travelling around Western Australia recording series called LIVING HISTORY.
In 1985, historian and broadcaster Tim Bowden founded the ABC's social history unit, and invited Bill to join the unit. He had already produced a Background Briefing on the death of John Pat in the Pilbara and then produced Hindsight', Verbatim, Street Stories and Encounter. He retired from the ABC in 2007. Bunbury said, "I wanted to go while I was still doing good work. I think I've quit while I was, hopefully, still winning races. I think maybe some [journalists] retire too early. Perhaps some go on [working] too long. You try to pick the right time." [2]
He has subsequently worked with Community Arts WA, producing radio features which assist Aboriginal communities to tell their own stories and has also presented VoicePrints for the Perth International Arts Festival' Bunbury's documentary series covered such topics as Cyclone Tracy, Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, and the granting of equal wages to Aboriginal stockmen in 1966. [2] His work had a strong focus on Indigenous Australian history. Bunbury won several awards for his radio programmes and series, [5] including the NSW Premier's Media Prize in 1996 for his six part series UNFINISHED BUSINESS,- RECONCILIATION & THE REPUBLIC, the New York Radio Festival Gold medal for Best History Documentary, "Timber for Gold", Gold Mining and Timber ] in Kalgoorlie, and the UN Australia Peace Prize for "The War Rages On", Australians in Vietnam. [2]
His interest in oral history and recording of people's memories has created a vast resource in the Western Australian state library, Battye Library, of recorded interviews with people from various documentaries and programmes. Journalist Andre Malan has described this as Bunbury's legacy, "a priceless archive of the State's rich oral history that would otherwise have been lost forever". [4]
Bunbury has published extensively with the Fremantle Press, and is currently adjunct professor of History and Media at Murdoch University where he was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Literature in 2008 for services to broadcasting and history. [6]
In 2017 Bill Bunbury was awarded an Order of Australia for his services to broadcasting and Aboriginal communities.
Bunbury and his wife, Jenny now live in Margaret River. They have two daughters, Alison and Kate and two grandsons, Sam and Jack. [4] On 26 January 2017, Australia Day, Bill Bunbury was awarded the Order Of Australia for services to the broadcast media and the Indigenous people of Australia.
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Bunbury is a coastal city in the Australian state of Western Australia, approximately 175 kilometres (109 mi) south of the state capital, Perth. It is the state's third most populous city after Perth and Mandurah, with a population of approximately 75,000.
Albany is a port city in the Great Southern region in the Australian state of Western Australia, 418 kilometres (260 mi) southeast of Perth, the state capital. The city centre is at the northern edge of Princess Royal Harbour, which is a part of King George Sound. The central business district is bounded by Mount Clarence to the east and Mount Melville to the west. The city is in the local government area of the City of Albany. While it is the oldest colonial, although not European, settlement in Western Australia - predating Perth and Fremantle by over two years - it was a semi-exclave of New South Wales for over four years until it was made part of the Swan River Colony.
Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone that devastated the city of Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, from 24 to 26 December 1974. The small, developing easterly storm had initially appeared likely to pass clear of the city, but then turned towards it early on 24 December. After 10:00 p.m. ACST, damage became severe, and wind gusts reached 217 kilometres per hour (134.84 mph) before instruments failed. The anemometer in Darwin Airport control tower had its needle bent in half by the strength of the gusts.
Zuytdorp, also Zuiddorp was an 18th-century trading ship of the Dutch East India Company.
Auber Octavius Neville was a British-Australian public servant, notably Chief Protector of Aborigines, in Western Australia.
Sally Jane Morgan is an Australian Aboriginal author, dramatist, and artist. Her works are on display in numerous private and public collections in Australia and around the world.
Mullewa is a town in the Mid West region of Western Australia, 450 kilometres (280 mi) north of Perth and 98 kilometres (61 mi) east-northeast of Geraldton. Mullewa is well known for an abundance of wildflowers in spring and it is one of the few places in Western Australia that the wreath flower grows. The surrounding areas produce wheat and other cereal crops. The town is a receival site for Cooperative Bulk Handling.
David Robert Warner is an Australian rock musician, author and screenwriter. He lives in Sydney with his wife and three children.
Philip Salom is an Australian poet and novelist, whose poetry books have drawn widespread acclaim. His 14 collections of poetry and six novels are noted for their originality and expansiveness and surprising differences from title to title. His poetry has won awards in Australia and the UK. His novel Waiting was shortlisted for Australia's prestigious 2017 Miles Franklin Literary Award, the 2017 Prime Minister's Literary Awards and the 2016 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. His well-reviewed novel The Returns (2019) was a finalist in the 2020 Miles Franklin Award. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he published The Fifth Season. Since then, he has published Sweeney and the Bicycles (2022).
Peter Holland is a senior lecturer in the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth, Western Australia.
Jon Doust is a comedian, writer, novelist and professional speaker, born in Bridgetown, Western Australia, who lives in Albany, Western Australia. He gained a BA majoring in English from the Western Australian Institute of Technology and worked in farming, retailing and journalism before pursuing a career in comedy and writing.
Richard Leo Woldendorp AM was a Dutch-Australian photographer known for his aerial photography of Australian geography.
Robert James Randall, also known as Uncle Bob, was an Aboriginal Australian elder, singer and community leader. He was a member of the Stolen Generations and became an elder of the Yankunytjatjara people from Central Australia. He was the 1999 National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee NAIDOC Person of the Year. His 1970 song, "My Brown Skin Baby, They Take 'im Away," is described as an "anthem" for the Stolen Generations. He was known by the honorific "Tjilpi", a word meaning "old man" that is often translated as "uncle". He lived in Mutitjulu, the Aboriginal community at Uluru in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Philippa Mary Nikulinsky is an artist and botanical illustrator based in Western Australia.
Leslie Cannold is an Australian philosopher, ethicist, educationalist, writer, activist, and public intellectual.
Lakewood is a ghost town in Western Australia, located between Kalgoorlie and Kambalda in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia.
Duncan Graham is an Australian trained journalist and blogger.
Susan Maushart is an American author, journalist and feminist. She lived in Perth, Western Australia, for over 20 years and now lives in New York City.
Charmaine Papertalk Green is an Indigenous Australian poet. As Charmaine Green she works as a visual and installation artist.