Norman Banks (broadcaster)

Norman Tyrell Banks, MBE (12 October 1905 – 15 September 1985) was a pioneering radio broadcaster of Australian rules football in Melbourne for over 50 years from the 1930s. Banks is also famous as the founder of Carols by Candlelight. In later years, he was known for his strongly conservative viewpoint on talkback radio.

Banks was born at Sandringham, Victoria on 12 October 1905.

Banks studied for nine years for the Anglican priesthood, first at St Aidan's Theological College, Ballarat, and then at Ridley College, Melbourne.

At age 24, he decided he could not proceed as a priest, and went to work as a car salesman and married Lorna May Gilmore. He then had four children: John, Beverley, Felicity and Rodney.

Banks had an interest in public speaking, drama and the creative arts, and the emerging medium of radio soon provided an ideal opportunity to display those interests.

Norman Banks started at 3KZ (now 3KKZ or Gold 104.3 FM) on a salary of four pounds a week in December 1930, but within a month his instant success had seen his wages rise to eight pounds a week. Over the next 20 years, Banks was a leading figure in broadcasting in Melbourne, initiating programs such as Voice of the Voyager, Voice of the People, Voice of the Business Girl, Voice of the Shopper, Husbands and Wives, Junior Information, Spelling Bee, Victoree Varieties, Myer Musicale plus "OBs" (outside broadcasts) of football, tennis, athletics, swimming and other events.

Although not the first to broadcast VFL football (Melbourne's 3AR was broadcasting ex-Carlton player Rod McGregor's descriptions of play at least as early as 1927), Banks was certainly a pioneer of football radio broadcasts, often overcoming extraordinary working conditions. At Princes Park, Carlton in 1931 he broadcast his first football match standing on a ladder at the end of the dressing room. On another occasion at Princes Park he had the luxury of broadcasting from a hardwood plank protruding from a ladies toilet, with no protection from the weather. At Lakeside Oval he broadcast from an 18-metre steel tower.

...
Wikipedia