Leyland Brothers
Mike Leyland, MBE (4 September 1941– 14 September 2009) and Mal Leyland, MBE (born 1945), also known as the Leyland brothers, were Australian explorers and documentary film-makers, best known for their popular television show, Ask the Leyland Brothers. The show ran on Australian television from 1976 until 1984.
When Mike was eight and Mal was five they migrated with their parents from England to Newcastle, New South Wales, and Mike attended Wallsend Public School.
Aged 15 Mike won a trip to the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne from a cartoon drawing competition, and his father bought him a 16mm movie camera to take along.
By the age of 21 Mike was a news cameraman at NBN Television and at age 18 Mal was working as a cadet at Newcastle's now defunct newspaper The Sun.
Their first regular TV series, Ask the Leyland Brothers, ran on Australian television from 1976 to 1980, and again from 1983 to 1984. The show often provided Australian viewers with their first look at outback Australia.
A following documentary series called Leyland Brothers' World appeared on Australian TV. Rather than viewers writing in and asking the Leyland Brothers to visit a particular place in Australia and provide information about it as in Ask The Leyland Brothers, it focused on exploration by the Leyland Brothers in Australia and featured a double-decker bus.
The television show is not to be confused with the theme park of the same name.
In 1980 the brothers were awarded the MBE for services to the film industry.
In November 1990 the Leyland Brothers opened the theme park Leyland Brothers World (32°37′3″S 152°4′48″E / 32.61750°S 152.08000°E), on a 40 ha property at North Arm Cove on the Pacific Highway north of Newcastle, New South Wales. It included a 1/40 scale replica of Uluru, as well as amusement rides, playground, roadhouse, museum and a 144 student capacity bush camp. In a 1997 article in the Sunday Age, Mike Leyland said that the initial A$1 million loan blew out due to rain during construction and a 27% interest rate. In July 1992 Chris Palmer of BDO Nelson was appointed receiver and manager of the park when the Leyland Brothers company failed to meet its loan commitment to the Commonwealth Bank. Auctioneers Colliers Jardine estimated the yearly attendance of the park to be about 400,000 people, with 10,000 students for the bush camp. After an auction held by the receiver on 26 November 1992 the theme park was sold for $800,000, and continues to trade successfully as the Great Aussie Bushcamp. The brothers went bankrupt.
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