Secret life of Olivia’s dad
Brinley newton-John was born on March 5, 1914, in the new Market Tavern in Hayes, Cardiff, the son of Oliver John and Daisy newton.
His mother had a fine singing voice and performed with the royal Welsh ladies Choir. ‘Brin’, as he was always known, attended Canton High School in Cardiff, under the headmastership of elwyn James, who had introduced German and Greek, as well as choral singing, to the curriculum.
Brin played violin, sang in the school choir and was awarded a rare scholarship to Gonville and Caius, one of the oldest of Cambridge University’s colleges.
He achieved a double first class degree in the modern and medieval languages Tripos in 1935 and became an assistant master at Christ’s Hospital the following year.
He married irene Born during his second year there. irene was a daughter of German Jewish physicist and mathematician Dr Max Born, who later became a nobel laureate.
in 1938, Brin moved to Stowe School in Buckinghamshire. The war interrupted his career as a schoolmaster when he was commissioned into the rAF in September 1940.
His fluent German took him into intelligence and he was seconded to Mi5 where he was a successful interrogator of captured German pilots. His urbane, relaxed manner, coupled with his impeccable German and his ability to wine and dine his captives, proved very successful.
He was one of the Mi5 officers who interviewed rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, after his extraordinary landing in Scotland in May 1941.
The Government Code and Cipher School had transferred from london to Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire in August 1939.
Brin’s background in Mi5 and his fluent German made him an ideal candidate for a role there and he transferred in 1942.
He was a member of the small team of analysts who supplied Montgomery with essential intelligence of rommel’s infantry and armament deployment and his supply lines across the Mediterranean in the runup to the Battle of el Alamein in late 1942.
There was a thriving musical and theatrical life among the staff at Bletchley Park.
There was a stage at one end of the large briefing hall, just inside the imposing main gates, and it was no coincidence that a number of professional musicians were employed at Bletchley — musical notation and codebreaking can easily go hand in Musical genes: Olivia and father Brin hand. in his spare time, Brin acted on stage and performed in opera. He played the part of Mr Darcy in Pride And Prejudice and sang the part of the count in The Marriage Of Figaro. He was also a keen vocal member of the cast of many variety shows.
Once war was over and he was demobbed, Brin successfully applied for the headmastership of Cambridge High School for Boys where he remained until 1954.
He then took his family to Australia, to Melbourne in Victoria, and to Ormond College where he was appointed Master. Four years later he became Head of German at newcastle University College in new South Wales, where he would remain for the rest of his professional life.
in retirement, he spent much of his time studying and listening to classical music.
He died of cancer on July 3, 1992, and his remains were cremated. He had been married three times; by his first marriage to irene he had three children, the youngest being Olivia. By his second marriage he had a son and a daughter. He married for a third time in 1983.
Despite his many academic achievements and his extraordinary wartime successes, he was proud, in later life, just to be known as the father of Olivia newton-John. Ian Lowry, Bletchley Park Guide,
Reading, Berks.
QUESTION
Watching the birds in my garden, I notice that pigeons drink with their heads down, rather than tilting it back in order to swallow. Do any other birds do this? THe ‘dip-and-tilt’ is by far the most common avian drinking method. The bill is dipped into the water and the head raised with the bill tilted slightly upward to allow the water to run down the throat and be swallowed with the aid of rapid tongue movements. This is the method exemplified by common fowl and passerines.
The suction drinking method is one of the defining characteristics of the Columbidae family, about 300 species of pigeons and doves. They use a ‘double suction mechanism’ in which capillary action is responsible for bringing water between the slightly gaping tips of the beak and then the tongue acts as a piston to pump the water into the pharyngeal cavity.
Columbidae are not entirely alone in using this method. The mousebirds of the namib desert rarely need to drink, their diet of ripe Salvadora berries usually produces enough moisture.
However, when they do, they utilise a sucking mechanism, as does the Blue waxbill, another African bird.
Birds with narrow tubular tongues, such as hummingbirds, can also drink by sucking. Until recently it was believed that they used capillary action to take up nectar and water in this manner.
recent research, using high-speed film, has determined that hummingbird tongues act as elastic micropumps, allowing the birds to pump nectar and water at rapid speeds.
Maggie Thwaite, Dursley, Glos.
QUESTION
Shannon Hale’s dedication for her book Austenland, reads: ‘For Colin Firth — You’re a really great guy, but I’m married, so I think we should just be friends.’ What other irreverent book dedications are there? FUrTHer to earlier answers, Payton’s Proper names (a dictionary of proper names) is dedicated by its author Geoffrey Payton: ‘To Mary, without whose constant encouragement and advice this book would have been finished in half the time.’
Ben Schott’s dedication for Schott’s Original Miscellany states ‘the following people deserve their share of the blame: Jonathan, Judith and Geoffrey Schott (then a long list in alphabetical order, followed by)...to them my thanks are due for suggestions, advice, encouragement, expert opinions and other such things. if glaring errors exist within this book, it’s probably their fault’.
Geoff Mundin, wigston, Leics.
QUESTION
In the opening credits of Father Ted you see a stranded wreck of a ship. Is it real? If so, what is its story? FUrTHer to the earlier answer, my young brother, John lennon, served aboard HMS Juliet (later MV Plassy) when she was an escort in the royal navy during the war. What a sad end to such a brave little ship.
Jane Carr, Sunderland.
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