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August 27th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
Updated
With one of the most radiant smiles in current affairs, Bill Peach will be remembered by a generation of baby-booming Australians for the world he revealed to them in his scenic travel documentaries, and, most recently, as a guide of luxurious travel journeys.
Peach’s sunny disposition made him a natural choice in 1967 to host This Day Tonight, a ground-breaking current affairs program, the first of its kind in Australia.
Having begun as an ABC radio cadet in 1958, Peach had no on-camera experience, but fellow journalist and friend Peter Luck recalled that he “took to television like a duck to water”.
“He was like Ginger Meggs, the boy next door with his sunny personality,” Luck recalls.
“There was some element of larrikinism in This Day Tonight, but I wouldn’t call Bill a larrikin. He was very smart and wise, very loyal and very supportive.”
Together with a team that included Luck, Gerald Stone and Frank Bennett, Peach presented uncompromising coverage of world-changing events, like the war in Vietnam with an informative, sarcastic and witty style.
“There were a lot of things happening in Australia, and part of what made TDT exciting, but also made us friends and enemies, was because we took on big issues, we had furious debates, we had people attacking each other in the studio, and I mean physically as well as verbally,” he told Lateline in 2007.
“And we had riots going on inside and outside the studio, and of course they were happening in the country.”
Fellow journalist George Negus worked with Peach on the program in 1975.
“He was very calm, very composed, very together and very sensible when he was surrounded by a bunch cowboys like myself at the time,” he recalled.
Described as a “self-confessed stickybeak”, Peach’s love for Australia ignited a desire to share the country’s history and beauty, initially with television audiences and later, with tourists.
A life on the road
After working within a studio for eight years, Peach ventured into presenting travel documentaries, with Peach’s Australia in 1975, Holidays With Bill Peach in 1976 and Bill Peach’s Journeys in 1983.
Other documentaries Peach’s Gold and The Explorers followed, accompanied by best-selling history books, magazine articles and newspaper columns.
Born in the eastern Riverina town of Lockhart, New South Wales on 15 May 1935, Peach’s wanderlust developed during road trips with his father, a stock and station agent.
“I did it initially to get out of school but found I had a love of the Australian landscape,” he said in a 2008 interview.
It was at the height of his television popularity that Peach stepped away from it all to begin his own travel company, Bill Peach Journeys.
He knew he was taking a big risk because at that time he said Australians felt they were not really having a holiday unless they went overseas.
“Holidaying here didn’t qualify, so we had to change the concept of what a holiday was,” he said in a 2008 interview.
With the memory of bouncing along in four-wheel-drive vehicles on dusty, pot-holed roads during his journalism career, Peach elected to fly his passengers across Australia.
He bought two Fokker Friendship planes and developed a 12-day luxury tour which incorporated such hard-to-reach places as Longreach, Katherine Gorge, the Bungle Bungles, Kununurra and Arnhem Land.
“A big country such as Australia is made for aviation. Planes shrink the distance between places and you have unrivalled viewing,” he said in a 2008 interview.
“I always say to people the way to look at the Gibson Desert is our way – looking out the plane and sipping a gin and tonic.”
Rosemary Champion hosted Peach and his passengers on her property Longway in Longreach, where they would be fed home-made scones and jam on the verandah and be given a taste of life in the bush.
“Absolutely the real, genuine, authentic thing – nothing Mickey Mouse/Walt Disney stuff, you know – what you see is what you get. And, you know, basically, it’s a working cattle property, and that’s what we like to demonstrate,” she told Landline in 2008.
Sydneysider John Gorman went on more than 50 of Peach’s trips and says his adventures always made an impression on travellers.
“Seeing places they’ve never been before, and seeing outback Australia – it’s been fantastic,” he said.
“I’ve been a city slicker all my life, and it’s opened my eyes tremendously. It’s been great.”
Peach’s appreciation for travel, Australia’s natural wonders
Peach was awarded a Logie for Outstanding Personal Contribution to Australian Television in 1975 and the Order of Australia Medal (AM) for his services to the Australian media and tourism in 1991.
Today his travel company continues to highlight Australia’s natural wonders to tourists from all over the world.
His contribution to the nation’s media landscape and his promotion of the country’s wild and remote places is a legacy of the dedication he had for his country.
Australia is full of wonderful places. Which of them is your wonderful place usually comes down to your personal experiences.
“Australia is full of wonderful places,” he said in a 2008 interview.
“Which of them is your wonderful place usually comes down to your personal experiences. My favourite in Victoria is Beechworth, not only because it’s a beautifully preserved gold rush town, but because my grandfather, Robert Peach, was born there. The place is in my blood.
“Ned Kelly spent a lot of time there, most of it in jail, and his image dominates the town. This is unfair to my family. I would like to place it on record that when the Peach boys rode down from the Wombat Ranges, the Kelly boys cowered in their hut. That’s my story, anyhow.”
Peach is survived by his partner Pam Young and his children Steven and Meredith. His first wife Shirley died in 1997.
Topics:
television-broadcasting,
death,
community-and-society,
broadcasting,
lockhart-2656,
australia
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Source Article from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-27/the-life-and-legacy-of-bill-peach/4916362
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