SCIENTIST Hans Brunner, who helped exonerate Lindy Chamberlain, died last week on Thursday, 25 April.
A large portrait, that he has referred to as representing “the other me”, has been entered in this year’s Archibald Portrait Competition.
The 95-year-old sat for the portrait for Frankston South artist Lulu Clifton-Evans in a project she said was designed to portray his significant contribution to Australian culture, science and yodelling.
Brunner and Clifton-Evans met with the now Chamberlain-Creighton in a Melbourne hotel last October to show her the portrait of Brunner with a microscope and his book on animal hair analysis that was written years before she was charged with the murder of her baby Azaria at Uluru.
Brunner was found by lawyers for Chamberlain-Creighton and gave evidence in 1986. He was able to prove with his scientific hair analysis that baby Azaria was taken by a dingo. It was previously thought hairs found were that of a cat, but Brunner conclusively proved they were of a dingo.
His story is documented in a 20-minute video called the Hans Brunner Portrait Story Part Two on YouTube which includes excerpts of his book The Identification of Mammalian Hair and other documents.
The video also features him yodelling with the Edelwyss Yodel Choir, his former employment with the Keith Turnbull Research Institute, then located in Frankston North, and his links with the Swiss Club of Victoria. In the video Brunner describes his portrait as “a picture with a thousand words” that would contribute to his memory and the Lindy Chamberlain case.
A former colleague at the Keith Turnbull Research Institute, Dr Ron Amor, worked with Brunner between 1970 to 1980.
“He was a good friend and very committed scientist and he was proud of the technical expertise he created,” Amor said.
Australian Swiss Cultural Society president Sylvia Hochuli said she had known Brunner – the man “with the golden voice” – for 60 years. “His yodelling was admired by people both in Australia and Switzerland,” she said. “He was a much-admired member of the Swiss community because of that golden voice – even performing on television.” Manuela Erb, honorary consul of the Swiss consulate in Melbourne, said Brunner was a respected and loved member in Melbourne’s Swiss community. “Nothing quite captured our hearts as when Hans broke out in song and yodelled often quite unexpectedly,” she said. “His yodelling transported us back to our roots.”
A member of the Edelwyss Yodel Choir and the Swiss Club of Victoria, Chris Thalmann said Brunner was a perfectionist and a professional when it came to yodelling. “Although Hans was the centrepiece of our choir he was always very unassuming,” he said. “Hans was unusual in that he was so considerate of others in the choir even though he was the centre piece.”
Brunner attended a reunion of the Keith Turnbull Research Institute in Moorooduc late last year and delighted his colleagues with an impromptu yodel.
Brunner was also a table tennis player and a long time member of the Mornington Peninsula Table Tennis Association.
He was a member of many environmental organisations and fought for a number of environmental issues. One of his passions was fighting for the protection and survival of the endangered southern brown bandicoot.
In 2014 he was named Environmentalist of the Year by the Australian Wildlife Protection Council.
First published in the Mornington News – 30th April 2024
