Cheers for Two
A recent article about Susan and Ed DeLong who operate Ardrossan B&B in the beautiful Mudgee NSW wine country.
Away from their whirlwind high-profile careers, Susan and Ed DeLong, soak in
simple Mudgee life.
By Elizabeth Frias Blue Mountains Life. Mudgee Life Magazine.
Susan and Ed DeLong have both led full lives in decades of overseas postings, Ed as
a top calibre journalist of the formerly great wire service, United Press International
and Susan as the feisty Aussie broadcaster of Philadelphia's high-rated talk radio
station.
It is a perfect marriage for these two like-minded people, so when Susan Bray, an
Australian born in Hay, NSW, was coaxed by her family to move back home, Ed was
eager for the move.
They met at Susan's studio, she was to interview Ed who had just covered for UPI
the nuclear power station disaster in Pennsylvania.
I was interviewing him, and he was so wonderful that I kept him on for the whole
show, recalls Susan. Then we went for coffee and he walked me to my car and
cleaned the snow off my car. I thought, Oh, he's very nice!
Ed, now the media officer of the Midwestern Region Council and prior to that editor
and Chief of Staff of the Mudgee Guardian for three years, said he had no qualms
signing off on a prime career in the US to live in obscurity in a country town like
Mudgee.
I don't miss it at all, admits Ed of his fast-paced job as a UPI reporter and then
Vice President, who covered colossal beats that grabbed the world's headlines, such
as the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy in Dallas and the 1969 landing of the
first man on the moon.
I've ran UPI coverage of the astronaut program from the Gemini space flight era to
the Apollo moon landings and the Skylab space station. I lived with the astronauts,
trained with them and wrote about them.
In Washington, I ran UPI's worldwide coverage on the military from the height of
the Vietnam War through to the US pullout and UPI's energy and environment
coverage from the days of oil embargoes to the Three Mile Island nuclear accident.
Then I made the move into marketing and management with UPI.
But I would not trade anything in the world for living in Mudgee. I love the people,
the life and looking at these stunning views around us, he quips.
I grew up in the Appalachian mountains of America which was 3,500 feet or more
above sea level but had the same profile as Mudgee's valleys and mountains. Here, I
wake up every morning watching the colours from the sky, paddocks and across the
hills. I absolutely love living here.
Susan's top-rated radio talk show earned her the moniker, The Saucy Aussie ,
although her mum called her œThe John Laws of Philadelphia . During her years on
air in the US, first in Des Moines, Iowa and then in Philadelphia and Washington
DC, she grilled famous guests like US President Ronald Reagan on air, clogging the
airwaves with phone calls to the station.
It was during the 1980 caucus in Iowa and I was the only person to interview
Ronald Reagan there because he used to work at the radio station. The Washington
Post wrote a story about this Australian talk show host which was picked up by
newspapers all over the world, that I'd given Ronald Reagan a hard time. But no, I
didn't. I only asked him direct questions and because I was a woman, they expected
me to soft pedal and throw puff balls at him.
Before rising to fame in US radio, Susan began her career at 2MG in Mudgee at age
19. She left to become ˜the weather girl on CBN Channel 8 in Orange and radio
personality at 2GZ, then to 2CA in Canberra. Treading on the same risky hot spot
assignments as Ed, she covered the Vietnam War and other troubled Southeast Asian
countries including Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines at the height of the Cold
War.
She moved to US with her first husband, a UPI colleague of Ed's. They had two
children “ CK who lives in Sydney and Jason who lives with his wife and two boys
in Florida.
Susan and Ed have kept both their lives so utterly simple on their Ardrossan property
on Gulgong Road. He busies himself with Council and community activities that
included volunteering in the Rural Fire Service while she runs the home front and
Ardrossan Bed & Breakfast.
Admittedly, the contrast between Ed's new lease of life in Australia and his long
stint as UPI reporter covering world events is stark.
With the UPI the world was my community. You can't get a meaningful one on one
relationship with the world. You're detached. Whereas here, I am very much in touch
with people.
As editor of Mudgee Guardian, he believes he chased the best of local stories that are
close to his heart though incomparable to the world headlines he had by-lined. These
included the series of developments on the closure of the Mudgee abattoir that left
hundreds of locals jobless and at breaking point and on the lighter side, the birth of a
neighbour's foal that almost died from a feral animal attack.
From personal stories like that miracle foal to something big like the abattoir story,
I still feel that being a journalist is a rewarding job. I walk down the street and
people stop to talk to me. I saw the foal's owner the other day and she told me that
the foal is doing fine.
Susan, too, like Ed, is not in despair with life under a quiet country horizon.
Life goes on and it's so beautiful here, says Susan. œI used to go and interview
people from all over the world, but now people come to me from all over the world
so I conduct my talk show here at Ardrossan B&B with our guests!
Some people search but are incorrectly spelling
our name.. e.g. they are using Ardrosan, Androssan
and Adrossan. The correct spelling is Ardrossan
Mudgee.
Disclaimer: While every effort is made to
ensure accuracy, no representation is made as
to the accuracy of, and no acceptance or any
legal responsibility is taken for any errors,
omissions, misstatements, mistakes or opinions
expressed within the pages of this website or
on other websites which may be linked from this
site.
|
