Robert Raymond
Encyclopedia
Robert Alwyn "Bob" Raymond OAM
(7 July 1922 – 26 September 2003) was an Australia
n Logie Award
winning producer, director, writer, filmmaker and journalist. A pioneer of Australian television, he with Michael Charlton in 1961, co-founded the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
's flagship public affairs television program Four Corners, which is still running to this day.
, in south-eastern Queensland
, he was the youngest of five children (one brother and three sisters). His father, Joe, was country school master who spent most of his career in the outback and had an obsessive interest in bee-keeping.
In 1934, Joe died after a bout of pneumonia
at the age of 60. Raymond's mother, Ethel, decided to move to England where of his sibings were living at the time. There, he completed his secondary education at The Skinners' School
in Tunbridge Wells
and Henry Mellish County School
in Nottingham
. The outbreak of World War II
, however, made it impossible for him to take up a place which he had been offered at the University of Cambridge
in 1938.
where he started as a cadet on The Daily Sketch
in 1940. Unsatisfied, he moved soon after to London offices of the Sydney afternoon paper, The Daily Mirror
and then to the London arm of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
. However, after just 18 months he found himself back at The Mirror. He lived in London through the Blitz
and later, the V-1
and V-2
offensives, and in 1944, as a 22-year old and the youngest accredited war correspondent in Europe, took part in the D-Day invasion. After the war, Raymond remained in the U.K., writing for the Picture Post
, Illustrated, Everybody’s and The Daily Mirror, and between 1948 and 1952 his own column, a critical perspective on the press called ‘So They Say...’ appeared in The New Statesman and Nation
.
A short stint as Press Officer for the Volta River
aluminium project on the Gold Coast
, now Ghana
, began in 1953, and in 1957 he joined the personal staff of Prime Minister
Kwame Nkrumah
, with responsibility for the foreign press during the country’s independence festivities.
, with whom he wrote the newspaper strip Frontiers of Science
for the next 19 years, a major feature distributed all over the world in up to a dozen languages. Thus began one of the most distinguished careers in Australian television, current affairs and documentary history.
As producer and director of Four Corners during the first 3 years of the program’s life, Raymond brought events occurring all over the world into the homes of Australia’s first generation of television viewers. In 1963, he set up the Special Projects Division for the Nine Network
, establishing the first documentary unit in Australian commercial television. Between 1963 and 1968 he wrote, produced and presented over 70 one-hour documentaries, shot at home and abroad, including We, the Destroyers, with Alan Moorehead
, which established the conservation genre in Australian television. Life and Death on the Great Barrier Reef (1969), Shell’s Australia (1971-1975), Discover Australia’s National Parks (1978), Pelican’s Progress (1979), Out of the Fiery Furnace (1984) and Man on the Rim (1988) opened the eyes of all Australians to the world around them. His non-fiction books - from Australia’s Wildlife Heritage (1975) and Australia: The Greatest Island (1979) to Fifty-Two Views of Rudy Komon (1999) and his three volumes of autobiography, offer unique insights into the natural and cultural world of 20th century Australia.
for "service to the media and television industry, particularly as a director and producer of television documentaries and public affairs programs".
On 9 May 2003, he received an honorary
Doctor of Letters
degree from the University of Sydney
.
Raymond's last years were blighted by ill health. Raymond died on 26 September 2003. He left behind his wife, his two children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(7 July 1922 – 26 September 2003) was an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n Logie Award
Logie Award
The TV Week Logie Awards are the Australian television industry awards, which have been presented annually since 1959. Renamed by Graham Kennedy in 1960 after he won the first 'Star Of The Year' award, the name 'Logie' awards honours John Logie Baird, a Scotsman who invented the television as a...
winning producer, director, writer, filmmaker and journalist. A pioneer of Australian television, he with Michael Charlton in 1961, co-founded the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
's flagship public affairs television program Four Corners, which is still running to this day.
Early life
Born on 7 July 1922 in the small rural town of CanungraCanungra, Queensland
Canungra is a small picturesque rural township in South East Queensland, Australia. Its economy depends on tourism, being a popular destination for short drives from the Gold Coast and Brisbane. Canungra, also called the "Valley of the Owls", is situated in the Gold Coast Hinterland, west of the...
, in south-eastern Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, he was the youngest of five children (one brother and three sisters). His father, Joe, was country school master who spent most of his career in the outback and had an obsessive interest in bee-keeping.
In 1934, Joe died after a bout of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
at the age of 60. Raymond's mother, Ethel, decided to move to England where of his sibings were living at the time. There, he completed his secondary education at The Skinners' School
The Skinners' School
The Skinners' School , is a British grammar school for boys located in the town of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent...
in Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in west Kent, England, about south-east of central London by road, by rail. The town is close to the border of the county of East Sussex...
and Henry Mellish County School
Henry Mellish School and Specialist Sports College
Henry Mellish School and Specialist Sports College was a small, non-denominational secondary school in Bulwell, Nottingham, England, situated in an area of high social deprivation.-Early history:...
in Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
. The outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, however, made it impossible for him to take up a place which he had been offered at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
in 1938.
Journalism career
Determined to follow his brother, Moore, into journalism, Raymond headed for Fleet StreetFleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
where he started as a cadet on The Daily Sketch
Daily Sketch
The Daily Sketch was a British national tabloid newspaper, founded in Manchester in 1909 by Sir Edward Hulton.It was bought in 1920 by Lord Rothermere's Daily Mirror Newspapers but in 1925 Rothermere offloaded it to William and Gomer Berry The Daily Sketch was a British national tabloid newspaper,...
in 1940. Unsatisfied, he moved soon after to London offices of the Sydney afternoon paper, The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror (Australia)
The Daily Mirror was an afternoon paper established by Ezra Norton in Sydney, Australia in 1941, gaining a licence from the Minister for Trade and Customs, Eric Harrison, despite wartime paper rationing. In October 1958, Norton and his partners sold his newspapers to the Fairfax group, which...
and then to the London arm of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
. However, after just 18 months he found himself back at The Mirror. He lived in London through the Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
and later, the V-1
V-1 flying bomb
The V-1 flying bomb, also known as the Buzz Bomb or Doodlebug, was an early pulse-jet-powered predecessor of the cruise missile....
and V-2
V-2 rocket
The V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...
offensives, and in 1944, as a 22-year old and the youngest accredited war correspondent in Europe, took part in the D-Day invasion. After the war, Raymond remained in the U.K., writing for the Picture Post
Picture Post
Picture Post was a prominent photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months...
, Illustrated, Everybody’s and The Daily Mirror, and between 1948 and 1952 his own column, a critical perspective on the press called ‘So They Say...’ appeared in The New Statesman and Nation
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
.
A short stint as Press Officer for the Volta River
Volta River
The Volta is a river in western Africa that drains into the Gulf of Guinea. It has three main tributaries—the Black Volta, White Volta and Red Volta...
aluminium project on the Gold Coast
Gold Coast (British colony)
The Gold Coast was a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa that became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957.-Overview:The first Europeans to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese in 1471. They encountered a variety of African kingdoms, some of which controlled substantial...
, now Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, began in 1953, and in 1957 he joined the personal staff of Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Ghana
The Prime Minister of Ghana was the head of government of Ghana from 1957 to 1960 and again from 1969 to 1972.-History of the office:The country's first leader and Prime Minister was Kwame Nkrumah of the Convention People's Party...
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana...
, with responsibility for the foreign press during the country’s independence festivities.
Return to Australia
With those celebrations over, Raymond returned to Australia, joining the Talks Department of the ABC and, in 1961, founding Australia's longest running current affairs program, Four Corners, with Mike Charlton. In the same year Raymond began a collaboration with Professor Stuart Butler from the University of SydneyUniversity of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
, with whom he wrote the newspaper strip Frontiers of Science
Frontiers of Science
Frontiers of Science was a popular illustrated comic strip created by Professor Stuart Butler of the School of Physics at the University of Sydney in collaboration with Robert Raymond, a documentary maker from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1961. The artist was Andrea Bresciani...
for the next 19 years, a major feature distributed all over the world in up to a dozen languages. Thus began one of the most distinguished careers in Australian television, current affairs and documentary history.
As producer and director of Four Corners during the first 3 years of the program’s life, Raymond brought events occurring all over the world into the homes of Australia’s first generation of television viewers. In 1963, he set up the Special Projects Division for the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
, establishing the first documentary unit in Australian commercial television. Between 1963 and 1968 he wrote, produced and presented over 70 one-hour documentaries, shot at home and abroad, including We, the Destroyers, with Alan Moorehead
Alan Moorehead
Alan McCrae Moorehead OBE was a war correspondent and author of popular histories, most notably two books on the nineteenth-century exploration of the Nile, The White Nile and The Blue Nile . Australian-born, he lived in England, and Italy, from 1937.-Biography:Alan Moorehead was born in...
, which established the conservation genre in Australian television. Life and Death on the Great Barrier Reef (1969), Shell’s Australia (1971-1975), Discover Australia’s National Parks (1978), Pelican’s Progress (1979), Out of the Fiery Furnace (1984) and Man on the Rim (1988) opened the eyes of all Australians to the world around them. His non-fiction books - from Australia’s Wildlife Heritage (1975) and Australia: The Greatest Island (1979) to Fifty-Two Views of Rudy Komon (1999) and his three volumes of autobiography, offer unique insights into the natural and cultural world of 20th century Australia.
Awards
On 26 January 1998, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of AustraliaOrder of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
for "service to the media and television industry, particularly as a director and producer of television documentaries and public affairs programs".
On 9 May 2003, he received an honorary
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters is a university academic degree, often a higher doctorate which is frequently awarded as an honorary degree in recognition of outstanding scholarship or other merits.-Commonwealth:...
degree from the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
.
Personal life
Raymond married Marion and had two children, Robert and Candy. He and Marion were divorced after 25 years; his subsequent marriage in 1978 to Angela, the former wife of Clyde Packer, had been his great strength since they became partners in 1973.Raymond's last years were blighted by ill health. Raymond died on 26 September 2003. He left behind his wife, his two children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.