Williams, Robyn 1944-

views updated

WILLIAMS, Robyn 1944-

PERSONAL: Born January 30, 1944, in High Wycombe, England; immigrated to Australia, 1964; son of Gwyn (a union executive and journalist) and Ray (a translator; maiden name, Davis) Williams; married Pamela Traylor (in broadcasting), June 10, 1966; children: Tom, Jessica. Ethnicity: "British." Education: University of London, B.Sc. (with honors), 1968. Politics: "Frequent."

ADDRESSES: Home—Balmain, New South Wales, Australia. Office—Australian Broadcasting Corporation, GPO Box 9994, Sydney 2001, Australia; fax: 612-9333-1412. E-mail—williams.robyn.science@abc. net.au.

CAREER: Worked as a temporary clerk for Decimal Currency Board of Australia, c. 1960s; appeared in British television programs, including Monty Python's Flying Circus; broadcaster for Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio and television programs, including The Science Show. President, Australian Museum Trust; president of ANZAAS Congress, Brisbane, Australia; deputy chair of Commission for the Future.

AWARDS, HONORS: Appointed AM, Australian Bicentenary Honours list, 1988; honorary D.Sc. from University of Sydney, Deakin University, and Macquarie University, all 1988; fellow, Australian Academy of Science, 1993; Reuters fellowship, Oxford University, 1994; LL.D., Australian National University.

WRITINGS:

The Uncertainty Principle (nonfiction), ABC Enterprises (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 1991.

And Now for Something Completely Different (autobiography), Viking (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 1995.

This Is the Science Show (nonfiction), ABC Books (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 1995.

Normal Service Won't Be Resumed: The Future of Public Broadcasting (nonfiction), Allen & Unwin (St. Leonards, New South Wales, Australia), 1996.

2007, a True Story Waiting to Happen, Hodder (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 2001.

Author of introduction to The Florey: The Story of the Sheep Hilton by Tim Hewat, Angus & Robertson (North Ryde, New South Wales), 1990; and Outside the Square: Inspirational Science and Tales of Extraordinary Australians by Hugh Morgan, Clunies Ross Press (Parkville, Victoria, Australia), 1993. Contributor of articles to periodicals, including UNESCO Courier and World Press Review.

SIDELIGHTS: Robyn Williams is one of Australia's best-known radio and television broadcasters. Dealing most of the time with scientific subject matter, he is perhaps best known for his work on the radio series The Science Show, with which he has been affiliated for over two decades. Williams has also penned several books and articles related to both science and broadcasting. In 1995 he provided his fans and other interested readers with the story of his life and career in the book And Now for Something Completely Different.

And Now for Something Completely Different describes how Williams was born in England in 1944 to parents of distinctive callings. His mother was Jewish and came from London's East End, distinguishing herself in her youth playing netball. His father came from Wales and was an avowed communist. Williams obtained his early education in many English schools, including Tooting Bec Grammar, but he also spent a few years in Vienna attending a German language school.

Williams also includes in And Now for Something Completely Different excerpts from his travel diary as a young man, in which he outlines trips he made with friends hitchhiking throughout Europe and Asia. When he was twenty he went to Australia for the first time to work; among other positions, he served as a temporary clerk for that country's Decimal Currency Board. He also met his wife, Pamela, in Australia, and after he married her, Williams brought her back to England with him for a few years. While back in the country of his birth he studied science at the University of London and supplemented his wife's broadcasting income by making appearances in British television series, including the popular Monty Python's Flying Circus. In fact, the title of Williams's autobiography is also the title of a Monty Python film.

During the 1970s he returned to Australia, and in And Now for Something Completely Different Williams relates incidents from his subsequent career in broadcasting with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). As John Curtain noted in the Australian Book Review, "He shows us that broadcasting is a job—an iceberg similar to other jobs with commuting, community, budgets [and] bureaucracy … and only the tip is program presentation." Curtain added: "It is Williams of the ABC that we know best, and he discusses the institution and its people as a committed and critical member." The critic praised Williams's autobiography as a whole, and concluded, "I enjoyed the journey with Robyn Williams."

Williams has also written about aspects of his career in This Is the Science Show and Normal Service Won't Be Resumed: The Future of Public Broadcasting. His 1991 book, The Uncertainty Principle, is a collection of interviews with important Australian scientists.

Williams once told CA: "Broadcasting in Australia is at a turning point. It is not being led, politically, by a vision of what the future could hold for this country. We are, instead, blundering forward, buffeted on one side by the politics of spite, on the other by commercial expediency. It is time, as John Ralston Saul has written, to think of the public interest."