Writer

Over seventeen years, as Secretary and Warden of Adelaide University Union, then as General Manager of the Parks Community Centre, Ralph Middenway wrote a diverse range of reports, minutes, submissions, brochures, articles for newspapers and journals, press releases and so on.

Among these were study leave reports on visits to Canada and the United States, Britain, Germany and Scandinavia, covering student unions, student housing and student welfare, and university performing arts venues and programmes.

Over twenty years, as (sometime Chief) Music and Opera Critic, writer and book reviewer for The Advertiser, with a short spell at The Australian, he wrote hundreds of pieces and covered a variety of events, notably the opening of the Sydney Opera House.

He contributed occasionally to newspapers and magazines in Britain and North America and reported back on musical events in Europe. In addition to his journalistic work in the performing arts, he contributed to several educational journals on a variety of subjects.

For the Wagner Society he contributed two essays to a book with the title The Enigma of Parsifal.

In his spare time, he wrote three novels dealing with corruption in Australian politics, entrenched ethnic prejudice and the effects of climate change: Future Perfect (2003), Future Imperfect (2004) and Midsummer Nights (2010). They were “fables for the twenty first century”.

He also wrote plays for senior school students to read: Pros and cons (2003), Out of tune (2003) and Sound and fury (2004).