Angela Catterns (1971) is one of Australia’s most loved broadcasters and media personalities. With a diverse career in film, television and radio she has broadcast nationally, in Sydney, in country NSW and in Washington DC.

Angela enrolled at MLC School in 1957 into Nursery at the age of four and spent her entire schooling life at MLC School, graduating in 1971. For a brief time in the mid 2000s, Angela’s daughter Mimi was also a student before a relocation meant a new school. Of her time at MLC School, Angela said ‘while I didn’t know it at the time, MLC School was teaching me everything I know. Of course, I’ve learned a few more things along the way but MLC School made me the woman I am today. And so I’m very proud to call myself an Old Girl of this School.’

Today Angela is primarily known for her work on Simon Townsend’s Wonder World! and Australian radio: she has presented Mornings on Triple J, the National Evening Show on ABC Local Radio, and Breakfast on 702 ABC Sydney. During her time at 702 Sydney first presenting ‘Breakfast’, Angela achieved number one in the listener survey ratings in 2004 and ‘briefly knocked the Parrot, Alan Jones, off his perch’ as she humourously stated during her Welcoming Address at the MLC School 125 Year Gala Dinner.

Angela is also a podcaster, writer, interviewer, MC, facilitator, narrator and voice over artist. She presented a holiday season version of the Breakfast Show on 702 ABC Sydney with Australian humourist and broadcaster Wendy Harmer, which led to the highly successful podcast ‘Is It Just Me…?’. In April 2022, Angela Catterns and Ian Rogerson released ‘Suddenly Senior’, a new podcast series challenging ageism. A few years ago, Angela left Sydney for the northern NSW coast where she currently presents ‘Saturday Breakfast’ on ABC North Coast radio.

In 2003, Angela initiated the ABC 702 ‘Knit-In’ in collaboration with the charity Wrap with Love which became an annual ABC event for a decade. At her final ‘Knit-In’ event in 2012, Angela stated that it had been ‘the most beautiful event and one of the great highlights of my career, ever.’

In 2014, Angela was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) ‘for significant service to the broadcast media industry as a radio presenter, and to social welfare organisations’.

A message from Angela

I started at MLC School at the age of four – and learned pretty much everything I know there.

How to read and write and spell. How to swim and dive and be part of a team. How to arrange flowers and sew a hem. How to be kind and generous. How to be cool, calm and collected. To love music and art and literature. And eventually, how to be a rebellious teenager.

I’d like to pay special tribute to Mrs Gentle, my elocution teacher – hers was an extra-curricular subject I took because my friends were doing it. It led me to discover my calling in life and to a long career in radio. And I guess to my receiving this award.

Thanks very much.