the times | Saturday May 28 2022 85
Readers’ Lives
composers had worked with the same
instruments, such as flutes and
violins, and Peter now found himself
commissioned to create, for example,
the sound of birds’ wings for the
opera Golem by John Casken. Twice
he collaborated with the electro-Durham music lecturer at the start of electro-acoustic composition
acoustic composer Barry Truax at
Simon Fraser University, British
Columbia, on two works influenced
by the soundscapes of Lumsdaine:
Loch Eriboll and In Memoriam CPR,
about the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Peter started to teach courses in
music technology and electro-
acoustic composition, as well as arts
administration. In 1985 he published
the first of four editions of Electronic
and Computer Music. In 2020 he co-
wrote Inside Computer Music, which
focuses on nine composers of
electronic and computer music. A
kind and attentive figure, Peter was
made dean of arts and professor in
1996, and he retired in 2015 as one of
the longest-serving staff members.
Peter’s early influences were in
church music. He was the youngest of
two, born in 1948 in Hampstead,
north London, to David, who taught
English as a foreign language abroad,and Winifred (née Stanley). From the
age of eight Peter sang in Hampstead
Parish Church, once performing
Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols
during a surprise visit by the
composer himself.
He went to University College
School Hampstead and in 1967 won a
choral scholarship with the Durham
Cathedral choir and a place to read
music, specialising in early music, at
Hatfield College.
When Lumsdaine arrived, Peter
opted to do a PhD in electro-acoustic
music under his supervision. He had
always been of a scientific bent, and
worked closely with the university’s
applied physics department. With
Lumsdaine he collaborated on
granular synthesis, which deals in
sounds a thousandth of a millisecond.
While an undergraduate he met a
fellow music student, Liz Locke, and
they married in 1971. Peterencouraged her to complete her PhD
and she became an assistant director
at the Open University. They had two
children: Clare, a facilities manager at
the BBC, and David, an accountant.
They lived in Cornsay, a village in Co
Durham, for 23 years.
Community was important to Peter
and he liked to connect the university
to the wider world. He was chairman
of the music panel of Northern Arts
and of the Contemporary Music
Network in London and with
Lumsdaine set up Musicon, a
Durham University concert series
that turned 50 last year.
A softly persuasive ability on
committees served Peter well. He had
learnt early on that the more societies
he started at the university, the more
funding he would receive, and new
composers were ever grateful to him
for finding the funds for the
performance of their compositions.The basement room in Durham
University’s music department was a
ramshackle affair when the
postgraduate music student Peter
Manning stepped into it in 1973. He
was at the time only dimly aware that
the airless and unprepossessing room
would soon be in the vanguard of
electro-acoustic composition. In the
centre of the space, which would
become one of the first electronic
studios in the country, stood a single
VCS 3 analogue synthesiser.
Working with the Australian
composer David Lumsdaine, who had
arrived at the university in 1970 as
head of composition, Peter was given
the vague-sounding title of “senior
experimental officer” and tasked with
researching and creating new sounds
on the synthesiser. For centuries
Peter Manning, 73
Peter Manning was made dean of artswent to Woldingham School, Surrey.
Anna followed Simon to St
Bartholomew’s, qualifying in 1990.
Catherine worked as secretary to the
managing director of Reuters before
tragically passing away from anorexia
nervosa in 1984.
John and Maureen divorced in- The following year he married
Gillian Smith, who owned a small
chain of pharmacies. By this time
John was managing director of Betec,
a rivet manufacturer. He resigned in
1992 and returned to his former Saudi
employer, Olayan, leading their
European investment operations
before retiring in 1999.
Unfortunately, his best-laid plans
for retirement — running, skiing,
tennis — were halted by a back
operation. He consequently
spent much of his time travelling
with Gillian and enjoying the
company of his children and
several grandchildren.
he had made in London. Instead, he
took a job as technical director of
management services for Whitbread.
After three years he moved to
become European vice-president for
the defence contractor Litton
Industries, also in London, and in the
late 1960s he pioneered the first
machines to read banknotes and
credit cards and helped to develop
and launch the original automatic
ticket machines for London
Transport.
The recession in the mid-1970s
forced John to sell his entire property
portfolio. He decided employment
abroad was the only way he could
support his family and was offered
the post of managing director at an
Australian company, but opted to join
the Olayan Group in Saudi Arabia
instead. The basic living conditions in
Saudi Arabia were anathema to him,
but John had no choice.
John and Maureen had four
children. Their two sons, Simon and
Richard, went to Douai School in
Berkshire. Simon qualified as a doctor
from St Bartholomew’s Hospital
Medical College in 1984. Richard was
manager of a real estate business in
his twenties before becoming a
European sales manager for FedEx.
Their daughters, Catherine and Anna,John Dunbar with his family in 1972 and, left, in the late 1950s after his National Service in Trieste, Italyfor accountancy
exams at night
school in 1952
was promoted to
the audit team.
During his
subsequent two
years of National
Service his rugby
career was curtailed
by a leg injury while
playing for his regiment.
He was posted to Trieste, Italy,
as a second lieutenant, where he
commanded 100 men and 40 vehicles
and was promoted to captain.
John met Maureen Harris in 1955
at a meeting of the Catenian
Association, a Catholic lay fraternity.
They were married at the Brompton
Oratory in Knightsbridge, west
London, in 1958. Maureen
accompanied John to Buenos Aires,
where he worked for Alpargatas
Industria, a large textiles company
employing 20,000 workers.
By this time IBM had set up
operations in Britain. John returned
from Buenos Aires to become a
prolific salesman for IBM, but turned
down an offer to manage its
operations in the northwest because
of family commitments and to keep
an eye on the property investmentsJohn Dunbar, an only child, was aged
eight at the outbreak of the Second
World War. His mother, Margaret
(née Probin), had recently died from
pneumonia at the age of 31 and his
father, George, had rejoined the Royal
Navy. Each night, at his grandparents’
house in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, John
would have an early meal with his
cousins before running out to the
Anderson shelter as the air-raid sirens
sounded. His uncle had built a
wooden floor, but only four of the six
of them could lie down to sleep at
one time.
Forty-one years later John became
the managing director of British Steel
Corporation Industry (BSCI), a
subsidiary dedicated to finding new
jobs while British Steel was closing
mills and making many hundreds of
thousands redundant. In his six years
there, John oversaw the creation of
more than 50,000 jobs, and presented
his ideas on regeneration and small
businesses to a House of Commons
select committee. In 1986 he
was appointed OBE for services
to industry.
During his time at BSCI he also
served as the first finance director of
the Prince’s Trust, assisting young
people in launching their own
businesses. In addition, John helped
to launch the Seeing is Believing
campaign, which focused on tackling
avoidable blindness and visual
impairment across Asia, Africa, the
Middle East and South America.
John was educated at St Margaret
Mary’s Catholic Junior School,
Liverpool, before moving to St
Sport-loving
director who
saved jobs in
steel industry
Edward’s Grammar School. In 1944
his father then sent him to Belmont
Abbey, the Catholic Benedictine
monastery in Herefordshire. During
his first term John was unhappy but
soon began to enjoy school life. This
was in part due to making it
to the first team for
rugby and cricket at
the age of 15, and
also because the
school was
situated near the
Bulmers cider
factory, where
John and his
friends often
managed to buy a
bottle on cross-
country runs.
John passed his
exams at 16 with
distinction and moved to
Prior Park College, Bath, for
the sixth form, finding its choice of
subjects suited him better. While
there, he represented the rugby and
cricket first teams, was selected for
the Liverpool Schools football team,
which he represented in the holidays,
and went on to play rugby for
London’s Wasps, joining in the 14th
XV and rising to the 1st XV.
John’s sporting skills extended to
tennis, and he reached the final of the
Lancashire under-18 tennis
tournament, having learnt by hitting
balls against a towel hanging in his
aunt’s backyard. On leaving Prior
Park, he turned down a place at
Cambridge, deciding that his father
had already invested too much in his
education. In 1949 John was taken on
by the Metal Box Company in
Walton, Liverpool, and after studyingJohn Dunbar, 90
Remembering loved ones
Johnfor
ex
sc
w
thsu
ye
Serv
caree
bby a leg
playing fo
He was posted
asasecondlieutenantmaking ittved to
Bath, for
ingitschoiceofIf you would like to commemorate
the life of a relative, friend or
colleague, call 020 7782 5583 to
discuss the content and cost, or
email: [email protected].
thetimes.co.uk/static/terms-and-conditions