All available information indicates Ron Grainer was most likely born at the Audley Private Hospital Atherton North Queensland and his parents returned with him to Mount Mulligan a month or so later.
Audley Hospital was run by Dr Leslie Nye described in his obituary as "a pioneer in Australian medicine. As superintendent of Atherton District Hospital from 1918 to 1924 he introduced blood transfusions and x rays to Australia". [Canberra Times.24 February 1976 p8]
In his recently published memoirs Dr Nye said "When I first went to the district most confinements were undertaken by untrained bush midwives who were very jealous of their reputations and managed to get their patients through without calling on 'young inexperienced doctors'. As a result there were many severe post natal problems and at every operating session there was at least one major repair" ["Two Enquiring Minds" G E Grundy Express Print 2014 p45]
"Much of obstetrics as was practised then was meddlesome. Doctors with busy programs tended to hurry births along with unnecessary trauma to mother and infant. I adopted the practice of leaving the birth as much as possible to nature" TEM p45-46
"In 1922 I bought a block of land next door and built a private hospital. This was a building built entirely of cedar which had previously been a hall in Atherton's [gold rush era] Chinatown" TEM p44
"I considered it wrong to mix obstetric cases with surgical and medical cases and,for that reason, the hospital was kept exclusively for mid-wifery" TEM p44
Mt Mulligan township 1920s
Photo shared from Lost Cairns and District Face Book page
Mt Mulligan photos from Cairns Historical Society collection
For anyone interested in the physical and social environment in which Ron's parents and then he and his sister Margaret lived in their early years the following book is essential reading
Peter Bell "If Anything Too Safe - The Mt Mulligan Mining Disaster of 1921 " Townsville, Qld. : Dept. of History and Politics, James Cook University of North Queensland, 1996.
"It was reprinted as "Alas It Seems Cruel" in 2013
VIDEO
"Too Young To Die" is a 1971 documentary about the 50th commemoration of the Mt Mulligan mine explosion uploaded to YouTube by the director Stefan Sargent.
Ron's future father Ron Albert Grainer was post master at the time so was at the front line of the communities suffering. Eight days after the disaster he married Margaret Clark in Cairns. Ron Erle was born 11 months later.
The video has a brief but memorable image where the violent movement of a coal trolley during the tunnel blast recalls the Dr Who TARDIS travelling through time and space in the TV series opening credits
"Too Young To Die" video full length
Hexacopter Drone video of Mt Mulligan today
ONLINE HISTORY Ron Grainer "The Australian Years"
See Part Three "EXPLOSION" & Part Four "OUTBACK"
<Ron's First Mention in the Press>
A book of considerable interest to Grainer researchers is Mike Rimmer's “Up The Palmerston - Volume One" Glovers Printing Works Bundaberg 2004 which contains, on p209, Mary Wardle's description of watching young Ron Grainer's first public performances at Mt Mulligan in the 1920s.
> MARY WARDLE<
In 2016 the author of this blog was given access by JCU library to over ten hours of taped interviews with Mt Mulligan personality Mary Wardle. The tapes were donated by the interviewer North Queensland school teacher Mike Rimmer and held in the special collections section at the James Cook University library.
Mary was a prominent local personality for 35 years [1916 - 1951] during and after the Grainer family lived there and, as a classically trained singer and pianist, organized and performed in the towns concerts and musical evenings.
One of Mary's most interesting statements was that her husband John Wardle taught a young Ron Grainer the violin. Previously a 1960 Decca artist profile claimed Ron had been taught the instrument "by an old Welsh miner".
A 1923 Cairns Post article about a grand concert and dance at Mt Mulligan appears to confirm this indicating the Newcastle On Tyne born John and his wife were both music teachers. "The display given by the school children was really the gem of the evening which reflects credit on Mr and Mrs Wardle who were responsible for the training of the young performers".
Later newspaper write ups in the 1930s and 40s indicate the Wardles were also accomplished performers and orchestrator's. Mary on piano, John on violin. No wonder Mary recognized Ron's abilities and talents early "He was only about three or four and used to play the piano with his tiny feet straight out in front of him he was so small he couldn't reach the pedals and he would tell you what he was playing". [Mike Rimmer interview tapes circa 1970].
Going on various Cairns Post articles it appears that not only was John Wardle a talented music teacher, performing violinist, music arranger and orchestrator he could also, when needed, give practical community help as an ambulance car mechanic, an acting colliery manager, a working miner [with back scars from a rock fall to prove it], a butcher shop owner and an ice cream manufacturer. An ideal role model for someone destined for a music career where they had to identify with and appeal to people from a wide range of social backgrounds.
Mary said the aboriginal groups at Mt Mulligan used a "bull roarer" a piece of wood attached to a twisted piece of rope and spun in the air making a whirring sound that swooped through various audio frequencies and it does not take a big leap of imagination to imagine the swooping melody of Ron's 1963 Dr Who TV theme being influenced by it.
An interesting YouTube video on making and playing a Bull roarer [in Spanish but its easy to follow]
LA BRAMADERA [instrumento sonoro prehistorico] THE bullroarer
>JCU Library article on Mary Wardle<
>The Mutilated Obituary<
Ron's unexpected death in 1981 was written up by the Sunday Mail newspaper in his parents then residential city of Brisbane but something mysterious happened to the copy in the editors room. The headline says boldly "Composer Lumped Coal" indicating that some previously unrecorded grit and grime labouring aspects of Ron's early life at Mt Mulligan were revealed by his mother in the interview she gave to a journalist but the published article has no mention of "coal lumping" activity.
Nor does it talk about any experience, presumably the tough times in England before his success with the Maigret theme, that could be considered an "early fight," as one paragraph was entitled. This situation suggests the original article was much longer and was drastically cut at the last minute before headings could be changed or removed. An injustice to Ron's memory which allows some ridiculous online legends about his childhood personality to be regularly repeated.
>Last known newspaper reference to Grainer family at Mt Mulligan "... the music was voluntarily supplied by mesdames Grainer ..." <
<There Goes The Neighborhood>
On 25 April 2015 the Cairns Post reported the old Mt Mulligan township site had been sold to millionaire tourism tycoon Chris Morris for development into "a haven for celebrities and cashed-up tourists ... keen to splurge on an outback experience ... in a hellicopter accessed boutique resort of five star cabins ... The resort, 30 minutes from Cairns by helicopter, would cater to a maximum of 30 people." [cp 25.4.15 ]
There is hope that basic camping facilites for less affluent visitors who take the four hour drive from Cairns will eventually also be catered for.
