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Vale: Gaynor Bunning

Singer Gaynor Bunning, who co-hosted pioneering music show Teenage Mailbag, has died.

Singer Gaynor Bunning, who co-hosted pioneering music show Teenage Mailbag, has died aged 78.

She died on Friday in Mooloolaba following a battle with dementia.

She became a regular on Melbourne radio station 3DB in “Swallows Juniors” remaining with the show when it moved to 3KZ then HSV7 in 1957 with host Brian Naylor, renamed as Brian and the Juniors.

She had her own showcase The Gaynor Bunning Show on ABC and with Ernie Sigley, and friend Heather Horwood co-hosted Teenage Mailbag at HSV7,.

Heather Horwood recalls, “Ernie, Gaynor Bunning and I sang the requests of the day. This was the first popular music show on Australian television, and it was extended to an hour Saturdays at 4pm then 7.15 pm renamed The Teenage Show with guests like Shirlene Clancy and Johnny O’Keefe.”

Bunning also appeared on Sunnyside Up, Bandstand, The Bobby Limb Mobil Show, Moors the Merrier, Adelaide Tonight, The Ray Taylor Show, The Penthouse Club and In Melbourne Tonight appearing in comedy sketches with Bert Newton and Pat Carroll. She also performed with friend Anne Wills on cruise ships.

Nine’s Pete Smith tells TV Tonight, “I first met Gaynor when she appeared regularly on the ABC’s Teenage Show, a radio program I compered when I first started out at the ABC in the early ’60s. I will never forget hearing the likes of Gaynor and her friend Heather Horwood, singing live in the Broadcast House radio studios supported by a sixteen piece showband. Along with the likes of Heather and Frankie Davidson, Gaynor was already an established recording star on the W&G label.”

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