Jane Bowron of the Dominion Post once wrote of Dougal Stevenson: “His voice is authoritative. If there is an end-of-the-world broadcast kept in readiness for the final moments on Earth, I hope TVNZ has chosen Dougal to announce it.”
The quote raises a hearty laugh from the man who did, indeed, become a voice of authority for a generation of Kiwi TV news viewers until the 1980s – so much so that Stevenson was an obvious choice to co-host I Was There, a Heartland TV series that reviews many of New Zealand history’s defining moments in four decades since the 1960s.
Stevenson starts the series with the decade in which his broadcasting career began – the 1960s. (Other decade retrospectives will be fronted by Jennie Goodwin, Tom Bradley and Judy Bailey.)
“If I had a time at all, I imagine it was more in the 70s,” says Stevenson. “But I’m very happy and privileged in a way to present this.”
Stevenson’s decade has disasters looming large in the roll call, including the Strongman Mine explosion, the NAC air crash, the MV Kaitawa sinking, the Inangahua earthquake and the Wahine disaster.
Not much has changed in the news there then. But there were many other stories that defined the 1960s for Kiwis – sports successes such as Bob Charles, Peter Snell and Denny Hulme; the rise of pop culture and the end of the
