One of John Pickup's early ABC tasks was recording a rhino's roar. It didn't go to plan, he says

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One of John Pickup's early ABC tasks was recording a rhino's roar. It didn't go to plan, he says
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The former radio and TV broadcaster was part of many memorable moments at the ABC, including covering the Olympics and broadcasting from a telephone exchange.

"[The producer] started reading to the rhinoceros. He read a few pages of the script," he says.Eventually the herbivorous mammal did make a sound, but it wasn't what they were expecting – it was a meek squeak.

This led to a three-month contract with Sydney radio station 2UE, followed by two years in commercial radio with 2GB Macquarie, working in sound effects, before he made the leap to the ABC in 1950. "There were drums from New Guinea, there was an old crank telephone from the 1900s, telephone bells on boards, car doors, doors for offices and ordinary house doors, set in big wooden frames. And every other thing that you [could] want for the sound effects [were] stored in that area," he recalls.But there was a downside to that studio – it was only good in dry weather.

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