Daily Cargo News takes an inward look at one of its own, journalist Dale Crisp
I was born in Burnie but lived the first eight years of my life in the tiny West Coast railway/forestry town of Guildford Junction, where my father was a forester. The total population was less than 100, and the single-teacher school had 24 pupils from grade 1 to grade 8.Average annual rainfall was 90 inches and it snowed through winter. Not a lot of fun for a child!
Consequently a lot of time was spent at my maternal grandparents’ place in Burnie, which overlooked the port. My grandmother had been a Bass Strait Coastwatcher during WWII and my grandfather was particularly interested in the port expansion work literally taking place before our eyes in the 1960s. My grandmother kept a daily record of all ships calling and my grandfather photographed them. The seeds were sown.
My degree was actually not completed; I was majoring in English Literature and Asian History but became disillusioned when the faculty downgraded the latter near course’s end. And I had a distressing practical teaching experience amongst cynical, jaded, time-servers. I quit. But yes, by then I knew how to write.
I have dabbled in some mainstream commentary/analysis but I don’t really have the time (or inclination) to write more than I already do!
I guess my original stint at DCN would be it. From ‘not-a-journalist’ to deputy editor then editor of an historic national daily newspaper in little more than five years was something of an achievement.
After a period of aimlessness I scored a job as a junior copywriter at Hobart radio station 7HO. During four years there I took on many other roles: traffic reporter, album show host (it was the 70s), sponsorship manager, everything I could try, I would. A station presentation I wrote, targeted at interstate advertising agencies, attracted considerable attention and I was recruited to 7EX in Launceston in 1981 as promotions manager.
In 1985 I was approached by and moved to Sydney’s 2GB to set up their promotions department. In 1988 internal politics saw my departure and along with the station’s commercial writing/production head we set up a business providing radio creative services for small advertising agencies and their clients.
In early 1990 my then girlfriend, now wife, was asked by her IT employer to establish a Melbourne branch of the company. Cognizant that our parents were aging we decided to move to be closer to them. Then that company got cold feet but we were committed. I kept working for Sydney clients but this was pre-internet and mobile phones, and became too hard.
Because of my lifelong interest in shipping I had long been a DCN reader. One day I saw an ad that said “Wanted: keen young journalist”. I applied, noting (a) I wasn’t a journalist, and; (b) I could no longer be called young. But I did know quite a lot about shipping. I got the job.
I haven’t been to a cinema in 20 years and I don’t watch a lot of TV, except the ABC. After 15 years in commercial radio – and, believe it or not, several years as a disco deejay on the side – I have a massive music collection, which is broad but not exotic. Around the mid-late 1990s the household playlist was taken over by my children and I lost interest to some extent. So I live now in my musical past.
I don’t think there could be any more random place than Guildford Junction, which my father used to describe as “37 miles over hawk-infested mountains”. In an ideal world I would retire to Tasmania but my wife likes heat and I like cold. Melbourne is a good trade-off (though doubtless there’s no agreement north of the border). And family will keep us here, especially grandbaby Raphael, born 30 January.
Time for a few clichés. If you can get paid to do something you love, it’s not just a job: my hobby became my career. The greatest quality a journalist can have is unending curiosity. And whatever knowledge you accumulate, share it.
This article appeared in the October | November edition of DCN Magazine