By Suzanne Edgar
Madoline (Nina) Murdoch was born at North Carlton,
Melbourne. The family moved to Woodburn, New
South Wales, where Nina grew up. She began writing
while at Sydney Girls' High School. She taught at
Sydney Boys' Preparatory School. In 1913 she won the
Bulletin prize for a sonnet about Canberra and in 1915
she published a book of verse Songs of the Open Air.
She became one of the first women general reporters on
the Sydney Sun.
In 1917 Nina married James Brown. They worked
together on the Sun News-Pictorial, Nina often using the
pen-name 'Manin'. She was the first woman allowed to
cover Senate debates. An independent woman, in 1927
she travelled alone in England and Europe, developing a
lifelong obsession that she expressed in travel books,
beginning with Seventh Heaven, a Joyous Discovery of
Europe (1930). She followed it with a novel, Miss Emily
in Black Lace (1930), the first in a trilogy.
In Melbourne in 1930 Nina and other married women
were retrenched from the Herald because of the
depression. She gave travel talks on the wireless and,
from the inception of the Australian Broadcasting
Commission in 1932, managed Children's Corner at
3LO. She formulated the idea for, and as 'Pat' began
running, the Argonauts' Club. Its pledge epitomized her
style: 'I vow to stand faithfully by all that is brave and
beautiful; to seek adventure, and having discovered
aught of wonder or delight, of merriment or loveliness, to share it freely with my comrades'. Members were
known by the name of a Greek ship and their number in
its crew; their original creative contributions were read
over the air. It was novel children's programming which
introduced cultural content to an area previously
dominated by bunnies, kookaburras and birthday calls.
She believed in treating children 'as intelligent young
people'.
Brown moved to Adelaide to work for News Ltd in
1933 and Nina followed next year, so having to leave
the ABC. The club ceased but was revived along similar
lines in 1941 and ran very successfully till 1972.
Nina was in Europe in 1934-35 and wrote She Travelled
alone in Spain (1935). On her way home she journeyed
down the Amazon. She was abroad again in 1937. She
loved the Austrian Tyrol but wrote for the Australian
press warning against Nazism. Murdoch published two
more travel books and undertook war work and some
broadcasting in Adelaide before returning to Victoria
about 1942. She was a member of the Lyceum Club, the
Incorporated Society of Authors (London) and the
Fellowship of Australian Writers.
In 1948 her last book appeared, Portrait in Youth, a
biography of John Longstaff.
Source: Suzanne Edgar
http://www.200australianwomen.com/who.html
