ABC Overnights presenter Trevor Chappell announces his retirement after more than a quarter of a century

After 26 years keeping Australia’s night owls company on Australia-wide ABC radio, Overnights host Trevor Chappell has decided to call it quits.

The 65-year-old actor will host his final Nightly show on Thursday, July 30.

While the rest of the country sleeps, Trevor has been a familiar voice to shift workers and insomniacs since 2000.

Having worked in the mining industry, trained as a teacher and even attended acting school (he quit when he realized he could never remember his lines), Trevor’s love affair with radio began with a brochure he found on the coffee table of his Melbourne sharehouse. Studying broadcasting took him to the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

There, one of his professors gave him advice that he has carried with him ever since: “Never underestimate your relationship with your audience because they know you much better than you know them.”

It wasn’t long before Trevor was snapped up as a producer and roving reporter before being offered the Overnights job.

He remembers his first terrifying night on the air in 2000, when he was surrounded by extensive notes and scraps of paper filled with tightly written scripts. But all nerves disappeared when the first person to comment called Pamela from Queensland.

“He was so kind and welcoming, it made everything so much easier,” says Trevor.

“He would call regularly. It was always great talking to him.”

Trevor, like many of his listeners, has since formed a personal connection with Pamela and visited her during a trip to Queensland. Unfortunately, when he went to a nursing home, his search became very difficult.

The relationship with Overnights listeners is genuine. Trevor says they are as much a friend to him as he is to them.

“You’ll learn about their background, what makes them laugh. You can chat a little and don’t be too serious.

“Having that relationship also encourages more people to call.”

There’s Simon who calls and always says “bird box”.

There’s Don, who calls every year asking for the same song for his wedding anniversary.

Trevor has a regular caller who notes everything he’s done wrong since his last conversation.

Then there are the people Trevor lost. Like Portland’s June and the show’s royal correspondent Barry.

Trevor says these were among the moments he cried live on air, moments that suddenly hit him.

He still gets choked up when he remembers the listener who called to reminisce about the first day he took his child to school.

“One woman said it hit her the hardest when she went shopping and there was no one to hold it, and that still makes me feel funny,” says Trevor.

The widow who had cared for her husband in his final days was watching him slowly slip away from Alzheimer’s. When she told Trevor that she woke up in the night because she felt so alone, Trevor had to play a song to pull herself together.

But there was also a lot of laughter.

It’s like Trevor asking the audience what color the werewolf’s hair is in Warren Zevon’s song Werewolves of London.

While people kept calling to say the werewolf’s hair was “perfect,” Trevor was adamant they were wrong.

“I’ve been hearing the song wrong my whole life. I thought it meant ‘her hair was purple,'” he says.

“I went to a song and looked it up. I had to go back and apologize.”

He endured great sorrow for this.

Trevor still laughs about the incredibly creative insult he received from a listener who texted him to say he sounded like “a eunuch in a wind tunnel.”

Another time, Trevor received a text and asked Overnights gardening expert Sabrina Hahn, “Can you give me some advice on using Kar-le?” he asked.

“[Sabrina] he laughed and laughed and then said, ‘I think you mean cabbage.’ So it became a running joke for the ages.”

These memories speak to Trevor’s deep connection with listeners. There’s an intimacy that develops throughout the night because, as Trevor says, “We’re different from day people.”

People reveal things about themselves that they cannot say during the day.

“It’s the best job. You talk to really interesting people and you have time to talk to people. Daytime radio doesn’t give you time,” he says.

“I can talk to an audience for three or four minutes.”

Trevor achieved his goal of creating a positive show. Recognizing that many Overnights listeners live with anxiety, Trevor never wanted the show’s topics to be triggering or upsetting.

“I don’t think I would change anything… I’m proud of what we’ve done and it would be sad to let it go.

For Trevor, working the graveyard shift wasn’t just a job, it was a way of life, and it suited him perfectly.

The night was quiet and Trevor describes himself as a shy person. But now it’s time to turn off the microphone.

Red Symons and Trevor had been sailing past ships at night on ABC Southbank for many years when the former Skyhooks guitarist hosted 774 ABC Melbourne Breakfast.

“Trevor and I were two lonely old men bumping into each other in the night,” says Red.

“He was always glad to see me because it meant he was almost done, and I was glad to see him too because it meant I was about to start.

“What we had in common was that we both enjoyed the camaraderie of seekers.”

Longtime colleague Michael Pavlich began working with Trevor in the 1990s; Both were makers of the 774. Michael was Trevor’s studio producer for much of his Overnights tenure.

The pair produced one of Trevor’s favorite Nightly shows, when Trevor made live passes from the roadside to the studio in the Pilliga Forest in northern New South Wales. The site was nominated by Overnights listeners as one of the scariest places in Australia.

Michael says he could never have imagined in the 1990s that the two would still be colleagues all these years later.

“Through his dedication and commitment to his time slot, Trevor has built a national audience that has enabled ABC Overnights to become a significant presence in the media landscape,” says Michael.

“The spontaneous nature of the program and the uncontrollable laughter that often ensues has always provided a wonderful antidote to the unsocial working hours we share.

“He is a skilled communicator who prides himself on his integrity and always treats audiences and colleagues with an even temperament and great respect. He has never dropped his armpit in his life.”

(Trevor is no relation to the cricketer of the same name, who is known for bowling his famous underarm delivery on the last ball of the one-day international against New Zealand in Melbourne in 1981, on the instructions of his captain and elder brother Greg Chappell.)

Overnights producer John Standish says it has been a pleasure making Trevor in recent years, after Trevor returned to Overnights after a stint on Afternoons.

Trevor says he wouldn’t have lasted this long without the support of his wife Cathy and his producers.

Even so, this much-loved host and ABC cast member isn’t sure how to say goodbye.

“I’m trying not to think about it. It’s going to be really sad. I’m going to have to try really hard to hold back the tears.”