I LOVE how the collective memories of a group of strangers can bring a warm fuzzy feeling as we individually recall places and events in our past. And so it has been this past couple of weeks reading comments on the Lost Ipswich Facebook group.
Initially it was post about the Old Flour Mill, its connection to Ipswich’s first commercial radio station 4IP, the original owners the Johnson family and a change of ownership in 1963 to Frank Moore and Bill Allen.
Coincidentally the same week I interviewed 4IP living legend David Greenwood and Dr Ashley Jones from the University of Southern Queensland for the Ipswich Today podcast.
It is almost 89 years since the station started and the interview offered the chance to have a good old yarn about 4IP and the Color Radio era in the 1960s and 70s. The station played a significant role in making us feel good about ourselves.
Greenwood was big star in the day and Jones was a young teenage listener like many of us at the time.
Jones wrote a thesis in 2016 about the relationship between a local radio station and its community and is available to read online. Much of what made 4IP successful is reflected in the current programming of River 94.9.
A second wave of warmth and fuzziness began after sharing the interview on Lost Ipswich with more than 200 comments, others sharing photos of precious 4IP memorabilia like top 40 charts, drinking glasses with the station logo and from people who had a direct connection with 4IP when it was in Brisbane Street and after it moved to the corner of Limestone and East streets.
What does this tell us? Firstly, 4IP had a significant and positive impact on a generation of baby boomers.
You will have you own answers. There are many others but I don’t have room here.
More than 40,000 people are members of Lost Ipswich. We owe a great deal of thanks to Greg (Jacko) Lyons for having the foresight to create it and for keeping it a safe place to share memories and photos of times gone by.
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