The 7BU 7DY 7SD SUNPOLISHER'S CLUB

3/9/2020

Authors Collection

The Sunpolisher's Club stands out from the other Radio Listener Clubs because it was shared across three Northern Tasmanian towns, Burnie, Derby & Scottsdale. In the Memoirs of one long term resident Mr T.D. (Peter) Carins, he believed that almost every child up to 14 years of age in the whole North-East (of Tasmania) became a member of The Sunpolisher's Club.

Radio Station 7BU Burnie commenced 19th October 1935 and the Sunpolisher's Club commenced at 7BU Burnie in November 1935.

The first newspaper mention of the club that I have found, was in the Burnie Advocate 21st January, 1936 program guide, showing that The Sunpolisher's Club with Cliff, Alan & Marie was broadcasting 5.30pm until 6.00pm. Later that year it extended from 5.00pm to 6.30pm In the Burnie Advocate it was listed as The Sunpolisher's Club, then in the 1940's The Sunpolisher's Session, then late 1944, The Sunpolisher's Hour 5.00pm to 6.00pm

The Burnie Museum supplied me with a transcript of a Burnie Historical Society talk given by long term 7BU staffer, Jan Blizzard in 2001. Jan remembers as a 16 year old, around 1951, running the Sunpolishers Club session. She also remembers the 7BU Station Manager Pop Towner, insisting that every evening at the end of the session, a Hymm had to be played from 78rpm records kept for the purpose.

(Please note that throughout this article, the spelling of Cliff or Cliffe will change on the documentation like Membership Certificates and Newspaper articles. At this stage I don't know which is correct. Obviously I am not alone in that.)

Collection of Ian Grieve

On the 26th February, 1938 Radio Station 7DY Derby was opened. The 7DY Sunpolisher's Club commenced. According to an article in the Burnie Advocate, Cliffe Parish late of 7BU for two years, was to commence at 7DY. The article also mentioned that Cliffe as Uncle Cliffe, was the Founder of the 7BU Sunpolisher's Club and that he would continue to run the Sunpolisher's Club from 7DY. Thus became the 7BU - 7DY Sunpolisher's Club. The article also mentioned that at the time of 7DY commencing, the numbers of Sunpolisher members was over 5,000 The name remained constant as The Sunpolisher's Club.

I believe however, that there was an inbetween badge similar to the below certificate for 7BU-7DY Sunpolisher's Club.

At this stage I believe there were separate membership numbers for each station, which were then combined, but I am struggling to understand the numbers on the various Membership Certificates and the years they represented. All the Certificates I have in my collection, or that I have collected from the internet or photographed in museums, appear to be after the 7BU/7DY networking. They also appear in the earlier ones, to include staff from both stations.

Here are some examples of the Membership Certificates and questions they raise.

Membership number 753 AFTER 7BU-7DY combined, at which time there were in excess of 5,000 members.

This would appear to indicate it is member 753 of 7DY Sunpolishers Club.

Uncle Cliff was Cliff Parish
Aunty Pam was Pam Findlay (borrowed from 7LA)
Sunny Jim was Jim Trethewie
Aunt Betty was Betty Burr (Mrs Taylor)
Uncle Bob was ??

The Motto of the Sunpolisher's Club is "To brighten the lives of others"
Then the Certificate concludes with a quote from Hazel MacKaye's 'Good Will, The Magician: When Children's friendships are worldwide; new ages will be glorified

Several items however appear to have remained fixtures. The Theme Song for the Club, which was 'Who's Been Polishing the Sun?' and Birthday Cheerios at the end of the session.

What did the Sunpolisher's Club actually do?

Talking to members of the club, their main memories are of attending the Studios, both 7BU & 7DY and participating over the air. There seemed no prior arrangement most of the time, the children simply turned up and recited poems, told riddles or sang. Sometimes there were discussions on pet names for dogs or cats.

The main thing that they did, was raise money or goods for Charitable causes.

7DY ceased broadcasting in November 1951 after a storm demolished their aerial.

The Sunpolisher's then became the 7BU - 7SD Sunpolisher's Club. Whilst 7SD continued the club with members dropping into the Studio to sing, play music, recite poems, they didn't continue the badge. At this stage the Membership Certificates at 7BU and 7SD changed to the Blue Certificate and I have examples from 1956 and 1960.

Radio Heritage - With Permission

That membership number of 6,090 in 1956 I am guessing is for 7SD. Unfortunately I have been unable to find any membership records from 7BU/7DY/7SD to tell me how the membership numbers were worked out between them. I am guessing that each was responsible for their own.

That is a large jump in membership numbers in 4 years.

Researching this club has taken me a while. Before COVID I had conducted a lot of research both online and on the ground in Tasmania. I started this Blog article during COVID and whilst I am publishing the blog finally, I do know I have a long way to go. It will form the basis of what goes into my book on the Radio Listener Clubs where I will flesh out the charitable works, the people involved in the clubs. I already have most of that information. But I need to put something up online to keep faith with people who are helping me to track information on the club.

If you have any badges, Membership Certificates etc that you can part with, please let me know. If you have family who want them after you, great, a good photo of the certificate or badge instead, would assist me greatly.

If you have information, personal anecdotes of the Club, please send them to me via the contact section on this site.

We can tell the story of the Sunpolisher's Club together.

Ian Grieve

1 Comment

Trevor Rootes

10/7/2021 08:38:33 pm

During the golden years of radio before the introduction of television and into the 1970s, one Tasmanian regional station, 7SD at Scottsdale, stood out.

Bert Scetrine was the manager, engineer and chief announcer from its establishment in 1954. Bert said at the outset, “the aim of the station is to take an active part in the life of the community, and (give) as much help as possible . . . to local talent and activities.”

His aim was in line with the Australian Broadcasting Control Board (ABCB) expectations that stations, particularly in regional areas, should make essential contributions to their community and be a “cementing force” in their communities.

This paper is a case study exploring the role of 7SD as a “cementing force” in its community; it is also an exploration of Bert Scetrine’s role in shaping the station. The narrator throughout this piece is Bert’s son, Bill Scetrine.

Figure 1. Sign displayed in 7SD agencies
throughout the Northeast, 1950s, Bill
Scetrine Collection, Ballarat, Victoria.

Figure 2. Photograph of Bert Scetrine,
7SD Recipe Book, 1972,
Bill Scetrine Collection, Ballarat, Victoria.

The ABCB encouraged children’s services. By the 1940s across Australia, almost 400,000 children belonged to children’s listener clubs. The 1942 Gibson Committee had found that such clubs help “guard morality on the air” and provide a valuable community service.

7SD established the Sunpolishers' Club, broadcast weeknights from 5.00 pm to 6. 00 pm. Bert appeared as “Little Georgie”, using a little kids voice. Bill Scetrine recalls, “he told stories, jokes and poked fun at anything and everything. The female hosts would frequently be so broken up, there’d be a few seconds of silence as they re-composed themselves.”

Figure 3. Photograph of a Sunpolishers' Club membership card, 1956, original held by Christine Sandow, Kingston, Tasmania.

Every second Friday there was a live Sunpolishers' talent quest. Children would recite a poem, play an instrument, or sing a song. Bill says, “It was a family affair with my grandmother Alice May Scetrine accompanying the performers on the piano.”

Charity fundraising was another community contribution the ABCB encouraged by regional stations. Sunpolisher's were encouraged to run backyard concerts, hold street stalls and donate pocket money to support appeals for less privileged children.

The station also conducted the Ambulance Appeal. Bill Scetrine sums it up:
The ambulance appeal was an all-day appeal . . . where he (Bert) in the weeks prior to it, would go all over the northeast and record all the choirs, and bands, and singers, and talk to people and get stuff on tape for . . . that day. It was the only way they could keep that ambulance in Scottsdale.

Encouragement of “Local Talent” was another expectation under the Broadcasting Act. 7SD sponsored community charity concerts for the local football club and the hospital. In these, Bill Scetrine tells he was sometimes cast as the fall guy to his father Bert, the compere. Concerts were also held as fundraisers for families who had experienced hardship, such as the loss of their home by fire or an infant's death.

The concerts featured local artists, notably The Singing Kettles. The three brothers, Max, Bill and Ross Kettle, lived at Scottsdale and could have regularly listened to the 7SD hillbilly programmes such as Hillbilly Roundup. Inspired by such recordings, the Kettles began singing country music.

Bert recognised their talent and they regularly performed live on 7SD. He also recorded their songs for airplay. From this beginning, the Kettles became leading country music artists. They were inducted into the Australasian Country Roll of Renown in Tamworth in 2005.

Figure 4. Record cover, the Singing Kettles – Songs of Slim & Hank, Hadley Records, 1969, original held by Peter Webb, New Town Tasmania.

In encouraging “Local Talent” Bert “believed in involving everybody he could think of in the business.” Other artists came into the studio such as Bruce Mulligan, a local bank manager. Bruce sang requests, accompanied by Alice Scetrine. Then there was Mr Carl Jentz “a crack zither player” and the Chitty girls “who sang wonderful harmonies.”

Bill says there were hundreds of hours of reel-to-reel recordings of local artists and
events. Now in 2021, with the studio recently sold, much of this sound archive is in private hands. Bill hopes these recordings can be donated to the National Film and Sound Archive. Here they would be preserved and made available for future generations.

Figure 5. Photograph of Mrs Cheryl Martin sifting through the 7SD tape archive, published by North Eastern Advertiser, 10 March

Author

Ian Grieve has been Collecting, Researching and Documenting Australian Old Time Radio since about 1998. He enjoys the thrill of finding and identifying shows thought to have been lost and then researching their history as well as the people involved in their production.

The 7BU 7DY 7SD SUNPOLISHER'S CLUB

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