Ron Grainer

Ron Grainer was one of the outstanding composers of music for British television. He was born in a small mining town called Atherton, Queensland, Australia on 11th August 1922, where his father owned the local milk bar. His mother played piano and Ron was on the keyboard from the age of two and considered a child genius, playing concerts for the local community by the age of six. He also showed the first sign of his versatility at the tender age of four when he began to learn the violin, practicing for two hours before and after school. In order to develop this talent further, he also studied the piano to such a level that, by his early teens he was a proficient performer on both instruments. He was never allowed to play any games which might injure his fingers so led a pretty lonely life. During these years he was an excellent scholar who also had to complete homework assignments. Maths was his special subject, which helped enormously in his orchestrations later on. Before the second world-war, he studied music under Sir Eugene Goosens at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, but this was interrupted by World War II. He was called up to serve in the army on the islands after Japan invaded and Australia sent forces to monitor planes flying over. It was there that a barrel crashed against his leg when he was travelling in a truck and they had to drive over open ground very fast. He managed to get one leg over the tailgate but the other leg was crushed. There were no doctors at the base and he was in terrible pain and unconscious for several days before he was given medical treatment, by then ostiomialitus had entered the bone marrow. They wanted to amputate but he couldn't have survived the anaesthetic, so he did not lose his leg but was in and out of hospital for years and received an army disability pension. He returned to Sydney Conservatorium when the war ended but he gave up the violin to concentrate on composition. During this time he rented a room from Margot who became his wife. She had her daughter living with her who had an aversion to meat and so she and Ron bonded as Ron had become total vegetarian during his treatment. The couple decided to move to England, as a means of raising his international profile.

However, on arriving in 1952, with Margot, he initially found regular work as a pianist in light entertainment, touring as part of a musical act - 'The Alien Brothers & June' - with other acts such as Billy Daniels, Guy Mitchell, Frankie Laine, Al Martino and Billy Eckstine. Playing in such exalted company, he was rewarded with no less than three appearances at the London Palladium and also gained something of a reputation as a piano accompanist, often helping out at charity shows organised by Record & Show Mirror proprietor, Isodore Green, the brother of the well-known jazz critic, Benny Green. During this period, Grainer made his first recordings, albeit as an accompanist, backing Irish folk-singers Charlie McGhee and Patrick O'Hagan, and was also heard on a Christmas record by Shari. He became fascinated with the sound produced by the antique instruments he had started to collect, and soon developed this interest by writing works for some of them. The virginal, the heckle-phones, the shaums, the tenor comporium, as well as the more modern ondes martinet were amongst those he successfully tackled, and one of these early works was an ambitious jazz-ballet score. After Grainer had divorced Margot, and married his second wife, Jennifer, he settled in Roehampton. He began to act regularly as musical adviser to many gala programmes produced by Associated Rediffusion TV, including those featuring Tito Gobbi and Maria Callas. His 'bread-and-butter' work, however, still lay as a pianist and he was much in demand at the BBC TV rehearsal rooms, which eventually opened a number of important musical doors for him. From this vantage point he was asked to write music for a number of television plays, including 'The Birthday Party', and also accepted the job as musical adviser to a Julie Andrews series.

He made such a strong impression on executive producer Andrew Osborn, that he was commissioned to write both the theme and incidental music for a new detective series - Maigret (1960) - based on the books written by Georges Simenon. In using harpsichord, banjo and clavichord, Grainer perfectly captured the Gallic atmosphere and, in doing so, contributed enormously to the ultimate success of the series. This proved to be a major landmark in Grainer's own career.

His work on Maigret, which began in 1960 with Rupert Davies in the title role, was directly responsible for him securing his first recording deal with Warner Bros. , who issued both a single and e. p. featuring musical extracts from the BBC series. Bandleader Joe Loss also recorded the theme and perhaps surprisingly it was his single which reached number 20 in the charts. Over the next few years, a succession of TV themes and scores followed, many for the BBC.

The first of these was 'Happy Joe' in 1962, the theme to Comedy Playhouse (1961) - a series designed to give 'try-outs' to pilots for potential new comedy series. This cheerful sounding melody became extremely familiar with its catchy whistling, encouraging 'Pye', Grainer's new record company to issue it on a single.

One of the first Comedy Playhouse pilots to get its own series was Steptoe and Son (1962), which starred Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett as the feuding father and son rag and bone men. Grainer was invited to compose the theme, which he named 'Old Ned' - a reference to the horse which in the opening sequence was shown pulling the cart along. Helped by the enormous success of the series, the theme to Steptoe and Son was recorded by many artists although this saturation coverage spoilt the chances of any one version charting. 'Old Ned' won for Grainer his second successive Ivor Novello Award, following success with Maigret the previous year.

While Grainer worked on the score for the feature film, Some People (1962), he encountered 'The Eagles', an instrumental group which hailed from Bristol, where the film was being shot. If not actually Grainer discoveries, they were certainly his protégées.

They eventually re-recorded a plethora of Grainer originals, and at one time even shared his new home! Their recording of Oliver Twist (1962), for example, written by Grainer for the BBC's adaptation for children's television in 1962, is to this day the only recorded version.

In the same year further film work ensued in the form of Trial and Error (1962), A Kind of Loving (1962) and Live Now - Pay Later (1962), while the following year he was assigned to write the music for The Mouse on the Moon (1963), a comedy written by Michael Pertwee and directed by Richard Lester. Despite these credential and an excellent cast which included Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody, Bernard Cribbins and Terry-Thomas, the film failed to live up to expectations. Grainer's theme was covered by 'The Countdowns', who are actually an orchestra under the direction of John Barry.

Producer Ned Sherrin was impressed with Grainer's ability to create themes for such a wide variety of programmes and in the same year commissioned him to compose the theme for the ground-breaking satirical BBC TV show, That Was the Week That Was (1962) and its successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life (1964). Lyricist Caryl Brahms provided the words sung by Millicent Martin. Around this time, Grainer started experiencing eye problems. Fortunately, prompt treatment helped alleviate blindness with doctors attributing the condition to excessive working under artificial lighting. Despite this obvious handicap, Grainer's output continued apparently unabated.

One of BBC's very first cooking programmes, 'Fanny Craddock', transmitted in 1963, also benefited from a Grainer theme, as did 'Giants Of Steam', The Flying Swan (1965) & The Old Curiosity Shop (1962) in the same year.

Also in 1963, Grainer was asked to provide a theme for a new children's BBC's science fiction series entitled Doctor Who (1963). Despite some changes to the arrangement, this theme is still being used over 40 years later, as the series enjoys renewed success! The very first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast in November, on a day when television was dominated by the news of the shooting of President Kennedy, so tended to pass almost unnoticed, but soon became one of the most popular children's programmes of all time.