Radio man speaks

By Kath Gannaway
LISTENING to older voices is a job radio interviewer Robert Greaves says he wouldn’t swap for quids.
“It’s very much a privilege,” he said of the program Listening to Older Voices which has for the past decade recorded the lives, times and experiences of hundreds of older Yarra Valley residents.
“I’m not just invited into the homes of these wonderful, interesting people but into their lives,” he said.
The program goes to air on Yarra Valley FM twice a week and is broadcast by 28 stations around Australia.
It received national recognition recently when Mr Greaves came runner-up in the National Radio News Interviews and Public Affairs category of the 2006 Older People Speak Out (OPSO) media awards.
Mr Greaves said the award came as a bit of a surprise.
“It’s one thing to be sitting here in beautiful down-town Healesville and quite another to find yourself up against Radio National, ABC and most of the large radio networks.”
It was Mr Greaves interview titled A Man and His Music – Clem Gracie which impressed the judges but it could have been any one of the more than 400 interviews recorded over the years.
Mr Greaves says everyone has a story to tell and he has enormous respect and admiration in particular for the generation which went through the Depression and World War II.
“I think that 20 year period has never really been documented in this way. It’s where most of my stories come from but no two stories are the same.”
Although Mr Greaves prefers to focus on the program and the people sitting in the guest seat, the OPSO award is very much about recognising his skill as an interviewer, something Mr Gracie supports wholeheartedly.
“He’s very good at the interviewing,” the 82-year-old musician told the Mail.
“Once I got going I couldn’t stop. All of a sudden some of the funny things that have happened over the years of playing and teaching piano kept coming to mind and we just kept talking.”
From Mr Greaves’s perspective, it’s about being interested in people, being a good listener and ensuring they feel comfortable about sharing their lives.
“I start with just three questions,” he said.
“When were you born; where were you born, and what is your earliest memory.
“It just goes on from there…”