CHARLES WOOLEY: George Negus changed Australian television forever in a very subtle way

Of all the things George Negus will be remembered for, helping Australian journalists find their voices will probably be the biggest.

Negus finally introduced the Australian accent to Australian broadcasting.

Before him we spoke like the BBC or Bob Menzies. Both looked remarkably similar.

A walk through Australia’s sound archives is quite an ear-opener.

It reminds us that even in the 1980s the frequency of the nations’ radio waves was English.

Why should that really be surprising when at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century we are still a monarchy and about to receive our English head of state?

George is said to have said many angry words about that in the most demotic Australian tone he could muster.

Charles Wooley (second from right) has paid tribute to the late George Negus (third from left). They are pictured with Liam Bartlett (left), Liz Hayes (second from left) and Ray Martin (right) at the 2018 Logies

In the late 1960s, Negus first raised eyebrows in the hallowed halls of the ABC, then housed on Gore Hill in the North Bank, where people looked a lot like the cultured Poms.

‘Did you hear his terrible Australian accent? He must learn to speak’. I remember a top manager was still complaining when I got there ten years later.

‘If that is found acceptable, anyone can appear on television.’

And that was of course George’s strong suit. He was nobody, but he sounded like everyone.

He may have been an imitation diamond in the rough, but to us slightly younger recruits trying to sound like the BBC, it was clear that Negus stole the show.

When he did the unthinkable and left the ABC for the vulgar commercial world and something called 60 Minutes, our bosses assured us: ‘My dear chap, it will never last long.’

But if you pull up a few 60 Minutes stories online from my time, into the 1990s, we all still sounded quite British. Including the great Ray Martin.

“Good evening and welcome to television” were the first words spoken on Australian television on September 16, 1956.

By today’s standards, Bruce Gyngell sounded like he had just stepped off the boat.

But he was a boy from Sydney Grammar and, channeling George, I might remark: ‘Bruce would have had no trouble attracting the dog.’

Dropping the real Australian accent and broadcasting it to the masses in the language they spoke was a major breakthrough – and 60 Minutes was a huge success.

George Negus gave the show a lot of attention as he introduced the world to ordinary Australian families every Sunday evening at 7.30pm.

Years later, I traveled the world for the program he developed and always felt like we were setting up our camera in George’s tripod holes.

George’s death comes as no surprise.

I call it death, because as an old-fashioned journo he hated mincing words. He wouldn’t pass. He would die.

And it wasn’t a shock. With Alzheimer’s he quietly escaped from us some time ago.

I like to think that in the speechless silence that enveloped him, George was still able to repeat his great adventures in every corner of the world and hear them again and again in the everyday language and accent of Australia.

The tone that was his great legacy.