Alan Douglas Wilkie (23 July 1928 – 10 July 2023) was an Australian meteorologist and radio and television weather presenter. Wilkie was the first weatherman on broadcast television in Australia. He began in the first week the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

opened in Sydney, later moving to commercial television at the

Seven Network The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, and is one of ...

. Finally, he would become best known for his lengthy 25 year career as a Sydney-based television weather forecaster at the

Nine Network The Nine Network (stylised 9Network, commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of five main free-to-air television netw ...

during the tenure of news presenter Brian Henderson. Wilkie, along with his brother Ray Wilkie and others such as Mike Bailey presented the weather at a time, when many TV weatherman where professional and trained meteorologists, rather than simply presenters, complete with weather maps, black or white board markers in hand, magnets and pointers.

Early life

Wilkie was born on 23 July 1928 to William Wilkie and Daisy Isobel Lewis. He grew up in

Childers, Queensland Childers is a rural town and locality in the Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Childers had a population of 1,584 people. Geography Childers is in the Wide Bay-Burnett region of Queensland, Australia, situated ...

, where his father worked at the nearby Isis Central sugar mill. From 1943, he attended Maryborough Boys State High School. After initially embarking on a career as a school teacher, Wilkie graduated from the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

. Wilkie then attended

Melbourne University The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

where he did a post-graduate meteorology course.

Career

In 1950, Wilkie commenced working for the

Bureau of Meteorology The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the Australian Government responsible for providing weather services to Australia and surrounding areas. It was established in 1906 under the Meteorology Act, and brought together ...

. During his time at the bureau he was posted to Sydney, Melbourne and Woomera. At the insistence of the bureau, Wilkie auditioned for a role as a television weather presenter, upon the launch of the ABC TV's new Sydney television station

ABN-2 ABN is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television station in Sydney. The station began broadcasting on 5 November 1956. Its original studios were located in Gore Hill and were in use up until March 2004, when they were co-located wit ...

in 1956. Wilkie spent three years at the ABC before leaving the role to become a quality controller for Rheem. Wilkie returned to television in 1968 after his wife told him of a newspaper advertisement placed by the Seven Network's Sydney station

ATN-7 ATN is the Sydney Flagship (broadcasting), flagship television station of the Seven Network in Australia. The licence, issued to a company named Amalgamated Television Services, a subsidiary of Fairfax Media, John Fairfax & Sons, was one of the ...

which was seeking a new weather presenter for its nightly news bulletin. In addition to being the weather presenter on the station's flagship evening news bulletin, Wilkie was also asked to deliver the weather on its new breakfast show ''Sydney Today''. Hosted by

Bruce Webster Bruce F. Webster is an American academic and software engineer. He is currently a principal at Bruce F. Webster & Associates and an adjunct professor in computer science at Brigham Young University. Early life and education Webster studied ...

and

Patricia Lovell Patricia Anna Lovell (née Parr), (1929 – 26 January 2013), commonly referred to as Pat Lovell, was an Australian film producer and actress, whose work within that country's film industry led her to receive the Raymond Longford Award in 2 ...

, with newsreader

Geoff Stone Geoffrey Stone (10 April 1924 – August 1993) was an English footballer who made 35 appearances in the Football League playing as a centre half for Notts County and Darlington. He went on to play non-league football for Consett Cons ...

, ''Sydney Today'' was launched in 1969 and subsequently became a national program in 1971 simply titled ''Today''. Wilkie also delivered weather reports for radio stations including

2SM 2SM is an Australian radio station, licensed to and serving Sydney, broadcasting on 1269 kilohertz on the AM band. It is owned and operated by Broadcast Operations Group. The SM call sign is taken from the initials of Saint Mary's. 2SM's progra ...

. In 1977, he was poached by the

's Sydney station

TCN-9 TCN is the flagship television station of the Nine Network in Australia. The station is currently located at 1 Denison Street, North Sydney. The licence, issued to a company named Television Corporation Ltd headed by Sir Frank Packer, was one of ...

to deliver the nightly forecasts on ''

National Nine News ''Nine News'' (stylised ''9News'') is the national news service of the Nine Network in Australia. Its flagship program is the hour-long 6:00 pm state bulletin, produced by Nine's owned-and-operated stations in TCN, Sydney, GTV (Australia) ...

''. Seven's attempts to convince Wilkie to stay with their network failed. Wilkie remained at Nine until his retirement in 2001. Upon Wilkie's retirement, the Nine Network indicated that they didn't intend to replace Wilkie with another weather presenter, instead preferring to have long time news anchor Brian Henderson read the weather from the news desk at the end of the bulletin.

Personal life and death

When Wilkie was aged 16, his mother Daisy Wilkie died in Maryborough at the age of 45 on 24 June 1945. His older brother Ray Wilkie was also a meteorologist and television weather presenter, best known for his work at

Network 10 Network 10 (commonly known as Ten Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network owned by Ten Network Holdings, a division of the Paramount Networks UK & Australia subsidiary of Paramount Global. One of five ...

's television station in Brisbane. Ray Wilkie died on 18 May 2023. Wilkie's engagement to Virginia Anderson was announced in August 1960. They married at

St Philip's Church ''Riceyman Steps'' is a novel by British novelist Arnold Bennett, first published in 1923 and winner of that year's James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. It follows a year in the life of Henry Earlforward, a miserly second-hand bookshop ow ...

in Sydney on 30 November 1960. After their marriage, they purchased a house at

Killara Killara is a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia north-west of the Sydney Central Business District in the local government area of Ku-ring-gai Council. East Killara is a separate suburb and ...

in 1961 where they lived until listing the property for sale in 1992. They eventually divorced and Virginia Wilkie died at the age of 75 on 5 May 2015. Wilkie died on 10 July 2023, a couple of weeks shy of his 95th birthday, and just under two months after his brother's death at 98.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkie, Alan 1928 births 2023 deaths Australian television weather presenters Australian television newsreaders and news presenters Seven News presenters People from Childers, Queensland University of Melbourne alumni University of Queensland alumni