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Life Sentences: Ronald Grainer & Dr Who
Jade jewellery reveal vast trade arena
Slime-oozing fish sheds light on eyes
Judges overwhelmed by writers' energy
ANU announces new climate change adaptation centre
Garnaut addresses climate challenge

Life Sentences: Ronald Grainer & Dr Who

The Australian Dictionary of Biography is part of the History Program in the Research School of Social Sciences at ANU. The 17th edition covering Australians who died between 1981 and 1990 was launched late last year, and will soon be online at www.adb.online.anu.edu.au Below is an edited entry.

GRAINER, RONALD ERLE (1922-1981), composer, was born on 11 August 1922 at Atherton, Queensland, son of Ronald Albert Grainer, storekeeper, and his wife Margaret, née Clark, both born in Queensland. Educated at Mount Mulligan and Cairns state schools and at St Joseph’s College, Nudgee, Brisbane, Ron learned to play the violin, achieving success in regional eisteddfods and music examinations.
In 1939 while enrolled (for one term) in the faculty of science, University of Queensland, he took piano lessons with Percy Brier. His initial forays into composition began at this time and included a rhapsody written for performance at Brier’s piano master-class.

Enlisting in the Royal Australian Air Force on 30 December 1940, Grainer served in Australia as a wireless operator mechanic. After the war Grainer studied under Frank Hutchens and Sir Eugene Goossens at the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, graduating in 1949 with a diploma in performance. Back in Brisbane, he worked as a freelance musician. On 17 September 1952 he married 41-year-old Marjorie Boyce Adolphus, née White, a divorced businesswoman.

Moving to London, and again freelancing, Grainer found regular employment in a variety act. Work as a rehearsal pianist for television led to the opportunity to compose the theme for the 1960 series Maigret. Cleverly capturing the Gallic flavour of the series through unusual and evocative instrumentation that included banjo, harpsichord and clavichord, the composition won an Ivor Novello award in 1961. A second Ivor next year for his Steptoe and Son theme ensured regular commissions. At the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1963 he composed his most striking work, the enduring theme for the series Dr Who.

Grainer’s heavy work commitments began to affect his health. A bout of temporary blindness attributed to working in poor light prompted him to move to southern Portugal in 1963 in search of sunlight.

In 1964 he won a third Ivor for outstanding score for a stage musical with Robert and Elizabeth. Grainer continued to write music for television and for films, including A Kind of Loving (1962), To Sir With Love (1967) and The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones (1976).

Divorced in 1966, on 19 August that year at the Marylebone register office, London, Grainer married 21-year-old Jennifer Marilyn Dodd, a singer.

Survived by his son, he died of cancer on 22 February 1981 at Cuckfield Hospital, West Sussex, and was cremated. Despite early recognition and support, he had felt neglected by the Australian music fraternity.

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Jade jewellery reveal vast trade arena

Analysing the origins of jade used in ancient jewellery has revealed a trading arena that was active for more than 3,000 years and sprawled over 3,000km in Southeast Asia – possibly the largest such network discovered in the region to date.

An international research team led by ANU archaeologists used electron probe microanalysis to examine jade earrings excavated from sites all over Southeast Asia, and were able to pinpoint the origin of the precious stone to a source in Taiwan.

“People have noted the widespread use of jade in Southeast Asia since the early 20th century, so one of the big questions has been about where the stone was sourced and how it was distributed,” explained research leader Hsiao-Chun Hung, a PhD student in archaeology.

Archaeologists have long thought that the earrings were made from local jade by Austronesian peoples as they migrated and traded across Southeast Asia – but the researchers have now shown that much of the stone was sourced from Taiwan and then transported in raw form to places like the Philippines, Borneo, central Vietnam and southern Thailand – up to thousands of kilometres by sea from its source.

Ms Hung is studying the migration of Austronesian people throughout the region to Australia’s north between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago. The researchers say their work suggests that Austronesian people, who shared a common language and resembled contemporary Southeast Asians, had a vast, complex system of trade and transportation.

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Slime-oozing fish sheds light on eyes

A primitive fish that oozes reams of slime could help explain how the human eye evolved.

The scientists compared the eyes of the eel-like hagfish and its lamprey cousin to show that the eye gradually evolved over millions of years.

“The primitive hagfish diverged from our own evolutionary line around 530 million years ago,” said Professor Trevor Lamb, head of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science. “They behave as if blind, though they have a primitive eye-like structure beneath a patch on either side of the head.”

Professor Lamb and his colleagues discovered that the hagfish ‘eye’ has all the signs of being an evolutionary missing link. They argue that hagfish did not degenerate from lamprey-like ancestors, but are instead the remnants of an earlier sister group.

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Judges overwhelmed by writers' energy

A first-year international relations student is $6,000 richer after winning the first short story competition organised at ANU and sponsored by the Uni Pub.

Kirani Carlin was selected from a field of 155 ANU students who entered the competition.

The second prize of $2,000 was won by Stephanie Wang. Eight further finalists received $100 vouchers.

These generous prizes were provided by the owners of the eponymous pub on University Avenue, which also hosted a lunchtime presentation for all ten finalists and their guests at the Uni Pub on 27 November.

The competition was coordinated by the Office of the Dean of Students, Professor Penny Oakes.

The two winning stories for 2007 are to be published in The Canberra Times this year.

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ANU announces new climate change adaptation centre

ANU and the ACT Government have together committed $5 million in capital funding to press ahead with the formation of a climate change adaptation research centre at the Fenner School of Environment and Society.

The announcement means ANU can continue to work with the Universities Climate Consortium in its national effort in climate adaptation research.

Its establishment will further the work of the Universities Climate Consortium – a team of internationally renowned researchers from ANU, Monash University, the University of Melbourne and the University of New South Wales – after the group missed out on Federal funding for a centre.
“This is simply too important for Australia not to have some of the nation’s best scientists working together on climate change,” Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Chubb said. “A significant group of scientists formed the base for the original consortium and none of us want that energy and talent to dissipate.

“Adapting to the inevitable climatic changes impacting on Australia over the coming decades is one of the biggest challenges facing the nation. As the national university, we need to take the lead in producing the high-quality knowledge needed to underpin effective adaptation.”

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Garnaut addresses climate challenge

Australia stands to be a “disproportionate loser” from climate change because of its reliance on fossil fuel industries, but is also poised to be a world leader in clean and renewable energy technologies, an ANU economist has foreshadowed.

Professor Ross Garnaut from the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies was commissioned by the state and territory governments last year to conduct a review of Australia’s approach to climate change.

He presented some of his research-backed recommendations at the inaugural S T Lee lecture on Asia and the Pacific at ANU.

The economist warned that climate change is the inconvenient truth of current global prosperity – which he termed the Platinum Age.

“We are currently enjoying a Platinum Age, which has been great for alleviation of global poverty, for security in the Asia-Pacific region and for Australian prosperity. But sitting alongside that is an accelerated growth in greenhouse gas emissions,” Professor Garnaut said.

“The challenge is to reconcile the longevity of the Platinum Age with effective and efficient mitigation of climate change, and adaptation to the change already occurring.”

Australia’s reliance on the coal industry for its power was singled out as a major challenge for the nation. But Professor Garnaut said the country had much to gain from a comprehensive global emissions regime because it could turn its competitive engineering, geological and management skills base from the resource industries to an advantage in new energy technologies, which he described as “the key to the new economy”.

Professor Garnaut stressed that the solution to the climate change problem would only come from collective global action, so Australia should take a lead role in negotiating a new international agreement. He also said the nation should work with its regional partners to fight the problem.
The S T Lee lecture on Asia and the Pacific honours distinguished Singapore national Dr S T Lee, whose endowment to ANU will fund an annual address from various experts on the Asia-Pacific region.

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ANU Reporter 
Winter 2008