IF you were around in the 1990s, you may well remember Channel 9’s annoyingly catchy news jingle ‘Terry Told Me’.
Terry Willesee, who, at the time, was at the top of his career as a presenter and reporter at Channel 9 in Perth said the campaign, which promoted him as a trusted and knowledgeable source of news, had people in the street singing the catchy jingle back at him.
Terry says it was one of the best campaigns he’d ever heard.
“It was just brilliant because the alliteration was fantastic. You would drive past in the Channel 9 news van, and people would sing that out.
“It was a great little jingle. It worked really well for us.”
Visiting Perth from his home in Sydney to celebrate his 80th birthday with his WA-based family, Terry is also taking part in Channel 9 Perth’s 60th anniversary celebrations.
“We’re over here to see the kids and the grandkids and having a bit of a party at my daughter’s house,” Terry says.
He hadn’t been anxious about his big birthday until the first card turned up with a big 80 on the front.
“For the first time I realised it’s real, I’m 80. That’s actually serious, but I don’t feel too bad about it. I feel pretty fit and healthy, so far so good.”
Terry says his wife Melissa has organised a princess cake from Miss Mauds for the celebration.
“For some reason, my wife thinks that’s my favourite cake.
“I haven’t had the heart to tell her it’s actually not, but we’re going to have it and we’ll have a good time. The grandkids (Terry and Melissa have nine of them), are all coming over, and my kids, of course. I haven’t seen them for six months, so it’ll be great to get back together with them.”
Retired for several years now, Terry says he keeps himself busy editing on his computer at home.
“I shoot a little bit of footage with my cameras and edit them up into little stories for myself or give them to people to muck around with. But I love editing on the computer, so that’s one of my hobbies. Plus, I keep fit by lots of exercising, jogging and walking, mainly walking these days. And a bit of swimming, because I live near the beach in Sydney, which is great.”
Terry’s first job in television was in 1969.
“I lived near Yokine, near Tuart Hill next door and one day I just put my suit on and went and knocked on the door at Channel 7 and got a job.”
He moved to Nine in 1976 and also worked with Channel 9 in Sydney.
“I’ve got a pretty strong affiliation with Channel 9.”
One of the big stories Terry worked on was the still unsolved murder of brothel owner Shirley Finn.
“I was driving across the Narrows Bridge on my way to a story in Freo and saw her car parked on the golf course, although I didn’t know it was her car at the time, and there was what I thought was an unmarked police car nearby so we went over to check it out. I walked up to the car and there was a body in it, she’d been murdered, she’d been shot.
“I didn’t know who she was at the time but it’s one of the great unsolved murders in Western Australia’s criminal history.
“The most amazing thing was that back then we were allowed to walk around the car and the cops didn’t stop us. It was just quite strange. You know, these days you can’t get near a crime scene.”
While Terry started out in WA, and worked nationally he also spent several years as a news presenter and reporter in the United States, which he says gave him a different perspective of the world.
“I loved New York which was fantastic. I worked on a current affairs show there called Current Affair Extra. I hosted that and also reported on it, so as a reporter I got to travel all around America and not just the big cities, but also the smaller towns, which was very enlightening.
“New Yorkers think the world revolves around them, and not much else happens outside of New York City, and Americans in general don’t know much about the rest of the world, as it turns out.
“But the one thing I did learn is about Australian journalists. They know how to go and get it done. I think we’ve bred them right here, and I think we have the best in the world.
“I think we do a fantastic job. And I think that I saw that in evidence in the United States.
“Some of America’s top-class presenters are brilliant, they’re outstanding, but I think in the main we really hold more than our own internationally.”
Terry says a lot has changed in the news gathering world since he retired, and it’s hard for him to get a sense of the quality of news reporting these days.
“But I do admire the journalists today who do so much in one day. In my day, back at Channel 9 when I was here, we’d go out and do two or three stories and that would be for the 6 o’clock news. But now they’re filing regularly during the day on bulletins, so it’s very hard work and it’s not just filing for one show, it’s filing for many.”
On the day that we spoke Terry had been to the new Channel 9 offices on St Georges Terrace in the city for the first time to be interviewed by Michael Thomson.
“We’re old mates from back in the day. We used to do a lot of stuff together, we worked together. And we did the Rottnest Island swim together. We go back a bit.
“He interviewed me about my experiences at Channel 9 and elsewhere over the years, so it was great to talk to him.”
After the interview Michael said he had been a fan of Terry’s in his teenage years and they’d gone on to become friends when both were working at Nine.
“As a teenager, my recollection is he was the first really big star at Channel 9 because he read the 6 o’clock news, then he had his own show, Terry Willesee’s Perth.
“And that Terry Told Me jingle was really big, I just remember that.
“I knew all about Terry but I didn’t meet him until he came back to Channel 9 Perth, I think it was in 1995 after he had been working in America and then he returned here and read the Six O’clock News with us,” Michael said.
“And he was fantastic, very hands-on, he wanted to do everything, wanted to be a part of everything in a good way.
“We said, what about the City to Surf Fun Run? We sponsored that, Terry ran it. What about the Rottnest Channel Swim? 20 kilometres across from Perth to Rottnest, from Cottesloe to Rotto. And he did that, we did a team of four.
“He was a real professional, a real craftsman at presenting. He was very good. And I think I learned a lot from him as well.”
At that stage Michael was running the sports desk.
“And when Terry had been back about a year, we started doing Just Add Water, which was a local water-based lifestyle show, and he was really good at helping out with ideas for that.”
Michael said Terry at 80 years old still looks great, he’s still sharp, but he’s still very strong on: if you get a job, you’ve got to take it and be humble, work hard and you’ll get the results.
“If you’re doing it just for the ego or to become a so-called star, it’s not going to work. You’ve got to really want to be a journo and really want to get into the industry. He still holds those values and I think they’re great values to have and they’re very true to date.”
The TV special on Nine Perth’s 60th anniversary will be screened on Thursday, June 12 at 7.30pm.
