Blue Hills (radio serial)

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Hilda (Nellie Lamport) serves tea to Dr and Mrs Gordon, seated, (Queenie Ashton and Gordon Grimsdale) and Peter Frobisher (Max Osbiston). (ABC Blue Hills publicity photograph from 1949)

Blue Hills, written by Gwen Meredith (1907-2006), was an Australian radio serial about the lives of families living in a typical rural Australian location. The serial is set in a town called Tanimbla. "Blue Hills" is the name of the residence of the town’s doctor.

Blue Hills was broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) for 27 years, from 28 February 1949 to 30 September 1976. It included a total of 5,795 episodes, and was at one time the world's longest running radio serial.

The famous opening theme tune was taken from a short orchestral piece called Pastorale written by Ronald Hanmer. He later re-worked this into a longer orchestral work titled Blue Hills Rhapsody. Each segment lasted 30 minutes.

Some of the actors who played long-running roles in Blue Hills included:

• Queenie Ashton
• Nigel Lovell
• Rod Taylor
• Nellie Lamport
• Gordon Grimsdale
• Gwen Plumb
• Philippa Baker
• Max Osbiston.
• Grant Bailey.
• Zachary Sykes.
• Callum Ross.

[edit] References

• Australian National Film and Sound Archive Collections Guide

[edit] See also

The Archers the present 'world's longest running soap opera' (its 15,000th episode was broadcast in 2006).

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