Some of my earliest memories revolve around radio.

I can clearly remember listening to the car radio as my mum and dad would drive us to my Nana’s place halfway across the city in Sydney.

Or drifting awake to the sounds of Tommy Roe singing Dizzy, as it played on my big brother’s radio in our bedroom.

Listening to stations through a crystal set that I had built (with an adult’s help, I am sure) while I was supposed to be asleep, late at night.

Riding around with an 6-transistor portable taped to the handlebars of my scooter.

And then hearing the soundtrack of my youth as I was transplanted from Sydney to my new home in Brisbane.

Later, the radio was my constant companion through my teenage years, until I helped launch a closed-circuit ‘radio’ service at my high school.

And I’ve been in radio, almost without a break, ever since.

I wonder how many people have spent their entire lives with one company – or even in one industry?

We’ll be looking at that in more detail in the coming weeks – and particularly on what that means for people who are at a career crossroads – but it struck me the other day that I have been in radio for close enough to 45 years.

It’s been just over 42 years since I got my first paid gig in radio – 28/December/1977 was when I started my first paid job in radio, at 4LG Longreach.

That followed more than two years of helping establish and run a high-school radio station at Mount Gravatt State High.

Four and a half decades in radio – and it has (in general) been lots of fun!

Over the years there have been so many mentors, bosses, employees, and friends I’ve made in this game … too many to single them out – but stations over those 42 years include

4LG Longreach
4AY Townsville
4LM Mount Isa
2LM Lismore
4KZ Innisfail
2TM Tamworth
2CA Canberra
4BH Brisbane
5DN Adelaide
COAST-FM Adelaide
5GTR Mount Gambier
5MG (ABC) Mount Gambier
BNA News (ABC) Brisbane
Newslink (later ABC News Online) Brisbane
ABC NewsRadio Brisbane
4BC Brisbane and
River 949 Ipswich

But no matter where I roam, I will always consider Radio to be my ‘home’.