Heaven, Hell and Canberra - a critique

| The Ghost of Ghost Creek | Ghostly encounters | Heaven, Hell & Canberra | Monte Christo - Australia's Most Haunted House | Protecting the NFSA |

Contents

1. Raising the Dead
2. Brownrigg's hit piece
   
3. Ghostly encounters
4. Have you actually read the book?!!
5. References
   

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1. Raising the dead

On 17 December 2021 a book entitled Heaven, Earth and Canberra was published by Dr Jeff Brownrigg, a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University, Canberra. For twenty years he had been holder of various senior positions at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, likewise located in the nation's capital. These included Head of the Research and Information Division. The book dealt with the past history of the building and the presence of ghosts. It opened doors to expose skeletons in closets, and raised what was once thought dead, namely aspects of the often intense bureaucratic and at time personal battle during the 1970s and 1980s to create a national film and sound archive for Australia, and to place such an institution alongside the other national cultural heritage institutions, both physically and in the minds of the public, but most importantly as an equal. This was small task, and a noble one at that. At the heart of Brownrigg's book, and as pointed out by Dr. Richard Read in his introduction, was the author's assertion that the trauma associated with the surgical removal of the film and sound archival collections from their 'home' within the white marble walls of the National Library of Australia gave rise to a 'raising of the dead' in regard to the spirits which hitherto had lay dormant within the confines of the former Institute of Anatomy building. As a sort of retribution, those spectres would, from 1984, haunt the premises and terrorise the young and old archivists as they went about their business of protecting, preserving and promoting the nation's audiovisual heritage. Woe to any staff would would roam the building after hours, or linger in the darkroom or the former morgue area where bodies were stored, and cadavers carved.

To those arriving from outside the city of Canberra and the no-shape shaped Australian Capital Territory (ACT), with its ragged boundaries and slice cut off at the top, it is a strange place - not ghostly, but a place that, to the present writer, always seems somewhat artificial, like a film set, and, to a degree, misplaced. As the Aboriginal name of its capital suggests - Canberra, a place between - it equates to the Catholic purgatory - a halfway station between heaven and hell for saints and sinners. Apparently it owes its upside down pear-shaped boundaries to water, and the planners plan during the 1920s to collect as much of that as possible for a future populous. A wise decision, as it turned out.

Canberra was an artificial town, built during that decade for two reasons: (1) its location approximately halfway between Sydney - the Emerald City of Oz - and Melbourne - the city which felt that the nation's capital was its birthright; and (2) the fact that Australia needed a site for its federal parliament building. This piece of land, located between two hills (can:ber:ra) out in the middle of nowhere, neither coastal or Outback - the two idylls of Australian culture - was cut through by the Molonglo River. It was an ideal argument settler.

None of this explained the Burley Griffin circular streets and highways - brilliant, nevertheless - which require a modern GPS to navigate for the visitor and tourist, and the post-apocalyptic sensibility of the grand buildings circling the town centre, with un-peopled spaces between, filing up with time. For example, the Parthenon-like National Library of Australia building stands alone by the side of the Molonglo, with the latter transformed into the picturesque Lake Burley Griffin. It is all white marble and rectangular footprint, next to, but not close to, a similar set of buildings in the form of the High Court and the National Art Gallery, all serious and bunker-like, with the not-so-serious Questacon for the kids, inbetween. These modern landmarks exist as both useful and iconic, with a practical function in addition to serving as Disneyland-like tourist attractions - a bureaucratic theme park, if you will - where visitors come to stare at artworks, and books, and people in suits, funny wigs and gowns.

The National Film and Sound Archives of Australia building, in contrast, is located on the opposite side of the city to the National Library of Australia, next to a sprawling university campus landscape, with no grand presence like the aforementioned lake-side landmarks. It is similarly iconic, to a degree, and in its heyday from the 1930s through to the 1970s was a major tourist draw-card, second only to the white-walled original Parliament House. Both now stand more as heritage items, throwbacks to an earlier, earthier time when, for example, on 11 November 1975 Norman Gunston stood by incredulous, on the steps of Parliament House, with microphone in hand, as Prime Minister Gough Whitlam proclaimed: "God save the Queen! because nothing will save the Governor-General" and stepped down from his throne. The NFSA building takes us back to the early 1930s and a time when Art Deco was something in Australia, and buildings expressed character and an eclecticism that spoke of artistic eccentricity. In that instance it was reflected through the concrete koalas on the interior courtyard facade and the grey granite, rather pompous exterior reminding one of the American White House - though not very white at all - and Fort Knox bunker like, rather than an Australian centre of excellence in whatever happens to be excellent at the time, and Australian.

National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, Canberra, 2 August 2022.

In addition to the aforementioned ideological and geographical quirkiness of Canberra, it should be mentioned that the town is a bureaucratic hub (or is that hive?) and the people largely bureaucrats and relations of bureaucrats, either resident or fly-ins and drive-byes, with the most prominent being the politicians as the veritable kings and queens of the castle, and their Blackadder-type entourage of schemers, sycophants and true bluers (not dog-faced Blueys!) in train. Politics dominates, as does the flag atop the newish Parliament House on the hill, half buried in the dirt beneath a green lawn but also, like the National Library of Australia's exposed edifice, a white marble ode to Greek civilisation and the birth of democracy Downunda, welcoming one and all to the light on the hill..... Well, it was welcoming, once, until a brief period during the late 1990s and early 2000s when the citizenry stormed its battlements and the 9/11 event put the fear of God and terrorists in politicians worldwide. The drawbridge was thereafter raised, metaphorically at least. But that's another story, and has nothing to do with ghosts, or William Shakespeare for that matter. Back to the book.....

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2. Brownrigg's hit piece

Australian musician and artist Jeff Brownrigg had a number of albums, but never a hit, only ever achieving #37 on the Australian Top 100 chart with the 1978 I Can See It In Your Eyes. He died in 2024. Brownrigg's non-musical namesake's 2021 publication could be said to seek the same, in the form of a literary hit piece. The 327 page wanna-be tome brings together the eternal (ghosts) with what some considered the infernal (the formation of the National Film and Sound Archive). It was published by Debbie Lee of Ginninderra Press, and, as befitting the setting, is strangely, but nevertheless rather grandly in a word-salad way, titled Heaven, Earth and Canberra: Shakespeare and the Ghosts of Australia's National Film and Sound Archive.

"Is this book about ghosts, or an institutional history, or both?" the casual bookshop browser wonders, as he, she, they or whatever, holds up close to their face the off-white, grey and deep red cover bearing John Case's 1588 engraving of Elizabeth I and a representation of a Ptolemaic universe, with a text in Latin which reads, in English translation:

The Sphere of the State / Elizabeth, Queen of England, France and Ireland / Defender of the Faith / The Star Chamber of Noble Heirs and Councillors / Mercy / Eloquence / Abundance / Immovable Justice.

What is the relevance of this image to the book's content? "Is the book I am now holding in my hands dispassionate or passionate, academic or gossipy, a page turner or turgid tome wherein references and endnotes are the highlight?" the browser contemplates, deciding whether to fork out hard earned cash or swipe a piece of plastic and take it home. Published in traditional paperback and a COVID-19 friendly online Kindle edition befitting the times, its back page blurb described the book as in a trailer for a film, with setup, enticing action, and riveting cliffhanger, leaving the itinerant browser wondering "Who Done It?" - the noble antagonist, or Canberra's "wretched hive of scum and villainy," to quote George Lucas's Merlin-like Obi Wan Kenobi. But then perhaps Macbeth's "Fair is foul, and foul is fair," is more appropriate in this instance if we are to stay with The Bard and adopt what the present author considers the Brownrigg perspective, as outlined in the following blurb:

In 1984, after a somewhat acrimonious move out of the National Library of Australia, the newly minted National Film and Sound Archive took up residence in the old Institute of Anatomy in Canberra. From the first day, it seems, living archivists were not the only occupants of the building. The place had a colourful history associated with human and other animal remains, including racehorse Phar Lap's heart and what was thought to be Ned Kelly's skull. The fine art deco Institute building was mostly cleared of soft tissue war-wounds floating in jars of preservative, as well as articulated skeletons, standing tall in elegant display cases. Within a year or two, as the beginner-archivists settled in, struggling with issues of identity and management, limited funding to preserve the nation's sound and moving image heritage, workers began to see and to hear things. An accusation persisted that film and sound had been 'deceitfully' ripped out of the National Library. Also, sound and moving image seemed incompatible bed-fellows. Could that have been a cause of disturbances at the Archive? People saw pestering spirits on balconies and in shady corridors. Incomprehensible voices hung in the air. There was nothing in the Occupational Health and Safety Manual that covered accepted behaviour and best practice in haunted buildings. But the author found Shakespeare helped. The Bard's works provided, perhaps, the largest catalogue of paranormal occurrences to compare and contrast with the encounters archivists described. Before long the National Film and Sound Archive was being touted as Australia's most haunted building. This book presents stories from that haunting. Investigating likely causes, it offers a tentative explanation as to why ghosts seemed to arise to bother the living.

Straight off the bat we see a rather antagonistic tone by Brownrigg or his editor, though most likely the author, aimed towards archivists, with its assertion that, following the creation of the National Film and Sound Archive in 1984, and almost immediate occupation of the former Institute of Anatomy building, ....the beginner-archivists settled in, struggling with issues of identity and management .... In its stead, the text should have read: .... the mix of experienced and enthusiastic, young archivists settled in, keen to create a strong identity for the institution [which they did!] and professionally manage the collection. This was next to the rather strange scene-setting statement that .... sound and moving image seemed incompatible bed-fellows. Such a statement, to a would be or working archivist, revealed a complete misunderstanding of the diversity of media and material types typical of the role and operation of the professional archivist and archival institution. But this was not the worst of it, for amidst this obvious ignorance from one who was said to have served two decades as a senior manager at the NFSA, came the sentence:

An accusation persisted that film and sound had been 'deceitfully' ripped out of the National Library.

Innocent enough, you may say? A good hook to get the reader in? Or perhaps an initial volley by Brownrigg in defence of his alma mater? Well, no, not actually. It is in fact opening the door to the closet full of skeletons, to the gossiping ghosts and those still smarting at the break with the National Library of Australia, as though they had a personal stake in the issue, and one which overrode professional and national cultural heritage imperatives. For within the body of the book, Brownrigg goes about criticising, with some venom, those individuals and "beginner-archivists" who helped to surgically remove the archive from its National Library of Australia temporary residence, where it had been housed in the decades since creation as the National Film Library in the 1930s. The battle lines had been drawn by Brownrigg, and he knew exactly what he was doing.

But herein lies the problem - the book's heart of darkness - and it is a significant problem at that, for the fight for an independent, Australian national film and sound archive was a natural, noble one, and one which had previously been fought in numerous countries around the world, and by the majority of the major Western nations. It was a natural progression, a natural step in the maturity of a nation and in recognition of the importance of this aspect of Australia's cultural heritage. By the 1980s both government and the arts sector realised it was time to put the preservation of the nation's film and sound heritage on a professional footing. The national collections did not belong in a library, managed by librarians; they belonged in an archives, managed by professional archivists. So also it was, with the creation of a post-graduate university course in archives administration and management at the University of New South Wales during the late 1970s, under the stewardship of Peter Orlovich and Anne Pedersen, that Brownrigg's concern over "beginner-archivists" could be put to rest. Sent out into the world under the guru-like guidance and inspiration of archivist-philosophers such as American Theodore Roosevelt Schellenberg (1903-1970) and British Hilary Jenkinson (1882-1961), with a modest amount of bland records management thrown in for good measure, the graduates - which in 1984 would include the present writer - would stand their ground in defence of the three noble truths - protection, preservation and promotion of the archival material placed in their care. Like those actors in Australia's first large-scale cinematic production - Soldiers of the Cross (1900) - they would fight the good fight of liberation and freedom.

Whilst some may question whose side Brownrigg was on, if any - the librarians or the archivists; the National Library of Australia, or the National Film and Sound Archives, it would seem to the present writer that it was the former, rather than the latter. If not, he was at least prepared to let the skeletons of the former run free. And why? Surely he sought to be even-handed, non-committal, seeking only to tell a story, present a narrative, with plot twists and interesting characters, or is that caricatures? In answering these questions, along with others such as: "Why Shakespeare?," it is perhaps wise to face head-on the issue of the ghostly possession of this former bastion of science, where spirituality and the paranormal would undoubtedly have been denied entrance whilst ever the scientists went about their work of dissection and display in the physical realm.

Skeletons displayed in the Australian Institute of Anatomy’s exhibition hall in the 1930s. Image: Science Photo Library.

Like a scene out of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, the above 1930s photograph of the inside of the Institute of Anatomy building, with its collections of human skeletons and disembodied skulls, is creepy to say the least. No wonder the spirits were hanging around, likely waiting for burial and rest in peace!

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3. Ghostly encounters

In The Canberra Times of 14 July 1990 there appeared a story by Robert Macklin in which Jeff Brownrigg was interviewed on the subject of ghosts:

Archival encounters of a ghostly kind

National Film and Sound Archive management and staff are quite matter-of-fact about it: there are ghosts abroad in the National Film and Sound Archive building. Not once or twice but many times have they made their presence felt as staffershave gone about their business, particularly late at night. The most common phenomenon is two women talking in one of the basement corridors. Their words are unclear, but the fact that a conversation is taking place is beyond doubt. "They've been heard plenty of times," said Dr Jeff Brownrigg, head of the Archive's research and information division. "Usually they're in the killing-room corridor near the rejuvenation bath. (Such terms will be explained in due course.) Experiences of this kind are so common we've thought of developing a regular ghost tour through the building. We might still do it — once a year on Halloween."

Dr Brownrigg's own experience with ghosts is perhaps the most striking of all. "And I am not a believer. I do not believe in ghosts," he said. Yet early last year he had been working late. "You can't help yourself," he said. "It's not a nine-to-five job. There's a level of commitment whichreally keeps you at it. I was probably over-tired; that's the only rational explanation I can give." For as he rounded a corner heading through the foyer toward the front door, suddenly he was confronted by a crowd of men, all in winged collars like visitors from the turn of the century. Some of them werewearing bowlers hats. "My first thought was, 'How the dickens am I going to get through them to go home?' I wasn't alarmed, just surprised. "You see, the building is quite benign; there's no sense of threat." So how did he get through the milling crowd? "Actually, I stepped back behind the corner for a moment and when I returned they were gone. But it was very powerful. I believe what I saw."

As most Canberrans know, the National Film and Sound Archive, selected as one of our Top Ten Buildings, was formerly the Institute of Anatomy, once the home of Phar Lap's heart. What is less well known is that it is probably Australia's finest example of Art Deco architecture extant. Such, at least, is the view of the Heritage Commission. Built between 1929 and 1931, it arose from a gift to the nation by Sir Colin MacKenzie of his comparative anatomycollection. Sir Colin also contributed to the building and the nearby residence where he lived as the institute's founding director. The residence is now used as the corporate-services headquarters of the archive, though the archive's director, Graham Gilmour, would dearly love to re-institute the practice of on-site living. "I don't expect this to happen in my tenure," said Mr Gilmour. "We are so overcrowded it just isn't practical at this stage." In fact, more than half the archive's staff are housed in portable offices in the grounds while approval is sought from Cabinet for an extension to the main building. But this, too, is unlikely to occur quickly — the proposal has been before Cabinet at Budget time every year since 1985 but so far without result.

Sir Colin and his cohorts would never have stood for such shilly-shallying. This indeed might explain some of the ghostly activity within the old building's confines. Sir Colin retains a presence there: his ashes are gathered in a container behind a commemorative plaque in the foyer. And what's more, two of the six facial representations of eminent anatomists — also on the walls of the foyer — are taken from death masks. Perhaps the spirits of the two men, Drs Hunter and Simpson, find their way to the killing room in the basement. This was the area where between 1931 and 1980 many thousands of animals — and not a few human bodies — were carved into their constituent elements for purposes of study. In a lovely irony, it now houses the rejuvenation bath, a highly sophisticated machine which transfers and enhances old nitrate film to modern stock that will last indefinitely. The process is a piquant metaphor one ghostly image makes another; the illusion finds a new reality.

In 2016, ABC radio journalist Penny Travis published an account of the ghostly tradition at the NFSA building, the former Institute of Anatomy. She uncovered the following:

Did you know the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) building in Canberra served as the Institute of Anatomy for more than 50 years? It housed human skeletons, animal specimens and artefacts, and was the site of scientific experiments. It is this history of death and dissection that has given it a spooky reputation. "The NFSA building is regarded by many ghost hunters or paranormal aficionados as not only one of the most haunted in Canberra, but also one of the most haunted in Australia," cryptonaturalist Tim the Yowie Man said. "It's not because it houses spooky movies. The ghosts that are reported in the building stem from the period when it was the Institute of Anatomy."

The building was commissioned in the 1920s to be the entrance to a national museum of zoology, as envisioned in Walter Burley Griffin's blueprint for Canberra. Leading the grand project was Sir Colin MacKenzie. "He was kind of like the Dick Smith of his day; he was a pastoralist, philanthropist, he had big visions and big ideas," the NFSA's Cris Kennedy said. "While he was hoping his idea for the zoo would get up, he started collecting live things and dead things. "He collected skeletons and artefacts and he housed the living things at his family property in Victoria, which is now the Healesville Sanctuary." The zoo grounds were to cover much of the current Australian National University. But not long after work started on the building, the Depression hit and the federal government's coffers ran dry. MacKenzie was tasked with reimagining how the building could be used, and it opened to the public as the Institute of Anatomy in 1931.

Over the years the collection included Phar Lap's heart, Ned Kelly's skull and a mummy from Papua New Guinea. Mr Kennedy said it was a popular tourist destination. "Those were big-ticket items in their day," he said. "When you came to Canberra with your family on holiday in the '30s and '40s, you went to Parliament House and then you'd come to the Institute of Anatomy." MacKenzie served as the institute's director for seven years before his death, after which the government moved the department of health into the top floor of the building. The museum remained opened, and the Department of Health drew on the collection for scientific research and experiments. "During the '30s most of the research was on childhood nutrition; during the '40s when the war came that evolved to general nutrition, nutrition for the troops," Mr Kennedy said. "In the '50s and '60s there was a liver dissection section and animal testing laboratory." By the late 1970s, interest in the Institute of Anatomy was waning and the idea for a national museum was born. The institute's collection formed the basis for the National Museum of Australia and the building was left empty for a few years.

In 1984, the National Film and Sound Archive was formed and moved into the building the following year. "So one of the former exhibition halls that used to have human skeletons and animal skeletons now had displays of Australian films like Crocodile Dundee," Mr Kennedy said. The foyer of the building is lined with nine busts of famous Australians, including two death masks. MacKenzie's ashes are stored in the wall behind a plaque that reads: "Si monumentum requiris circumspice." "Which translate as, 'If you are looking for a monument to me, you are within it'," Mr Kennedy said. "It's a double meaning — if you're looking for a monument to him, it's here, this is his tomb, he built his own tomb and here you are walking in it."

Tim the Yowie Man said there had been a number of reported sightings of MacKenzie's ghost. "It's one of the more extraordinary apparitions," he said. "It's been described by some people like a genie out of a bottle. "They're in the building in the late afternoon and they see an outline of an elderly man, dressed well, come out of the wall near where his ashes are. "He just appears there, doesn't move much, and then suddenly sucks back into where the ashes are behind the wall." Another of the commonly reported ghost sightings is that of a little girl that would pop out through a grate in the old theatrette and make visiting school students laugh. There have also been reports of poltergeist activity, particularly where the dissection laboratories used to be. Since the NFSA moved in, that space has been used as an office with two sound recording booths. "Quite often staff would have meetings in that room, and they would hear noises coming from the [recording booths] and they would see things flying around in there," Tim the Yowie Man said. "All these tapes had fallen out of anti-gravity tape decks, which can't happen unless someone or something had forced them out." A group of ghost hunters from the New South Wales south coast stayed overnight at the building last year. "They set up their equipment and it all went crazy," Mr Kennedy said. "One of the things ghosts or spirits apparently do is suck energy, so they'll suck the life out of batteries. "They had six of these pieces of equipment set up in a row, and we all watched all of the batteries drain from full down to empty at the same time, which was pretty creepy." Most of the reports of spooky activity come from NFSA staff, with an employee who worked there in the 1980s coming forward with an experience just last week. "In the Film and Sound Archive it seems you don't need to be a true believer — you can be a sceptic, or sitting on the fence — to have an experience there," Tim the Yowie Man said. "There just seems to be a higher-than-normal proportion there of really credible eyewitnesses seeing things they can't explain."

That last comment by Tim the Yowie Man points to the serendipity of ghostly encounters and those with any sort of paranormal activity. We are all like a portable radio - some radios are powerful and can pick up a wide variety of stations; others are less so, and only tune in to a few. The present author is aware of one individual who worked in the building for almost two decades and did not encounter anything abnormal, though did comment that it was a creepy building when working back at night.

When a series of ghost tours of the building by Tim the Yowie Man was announced during February 2024, they quickly sold out, reflecting not only interest in the subject by the public at large, but also a widespread knowledge of the reputation of the building in regard to its ghostly residents. Another report on the ghostly aspect of the buildings was published in 2017. Jordan Haynes, an ABC journalist, spent an evening in the building with Tim the Yowie Man and outlined the creepiness as follows, in a first person narrative aiming at sensational cheap thrills rather than rational, "Just the facts, sir" journalism:

I'm standing in the sub-basement of what is now the National Film and Sound Archive: A cramped, claustrophobic space known as the Blood Room. The name comes from a time when the building housed the Australian Institute of Anatomy, and its basement level was home to a morgue. There are channels chiselled into the concrete floor of the Blood Room, which once collected fluids from draining cadavers. I'm holding a large TV light which will come in handy when it's time to take pictures. Right now it's a makeshift torch. Then, as our guide Annie directs me to a spot known for paranormal activity, the light extinguishes without warning. In the near-darkness, I flick the switch on the back a few times — nothing happens. I'm told this phenomena is common at the building, which for years was home to hundreds of human and animal specimens. Joining us on our tour of the building is Canberra folklorist Tim the Yowie Man, who runs tours about the building's supposedly supernatural history. Tim the Yowie Man, in a tattered Akubra hat, in front of a mirror. He tells me that when he takes visitors to the Blood Room some feel faint, and others ask to leave, complaining of an uneasy feeling. And it's not the only room here known for odd happenings. Further along the corridor, half a level up from the Blood Room, is a meeting space with a sloped floor. Again, Tim says, this has to do with draining blood. It's another mortuary. "[In this room] they're not actually seeing the classic ghost," he said. "They're more seeing the effects of an uneasy spirit in there. An electrical contractor was pinned up against the wall by an unknown force." Tim pretends to be pinned against a wall. Tim acts out the supposed incident on the spot where the man is said to have been pinned. As the Australian Institute of Anatomy, the building housed 150 human skulls, including that of Ned Kelly, before it disappeared. Disembodied and disfigured body parts and a mummified woman were also on display. "Right up until the 60s and 70s, people came here to look at this gory stuff," Tim said. "This history of the building being the Institute of Anatomy, that's what the building has a reputation of not only being one of Canberra's, but one of Australia's most haunted buildings. "Many claim that they've had brushes with the supernatural." Our guide Annie MacKay says children who frequent the Film and Sound Archive would sometimes see another young girl in an impossible place. As children attended excursions in the building's theatrette, some would become distracted, and begin waving at something beneath the stage. They'd report a little girl's face behind a grate — in a spot directly above the morgue. Annie says staff at the morgue have become accustomed to lights switching on and off, doors opening and closing, and a helpful elevator that will come without being called. "From the moment I was interviewed in the morgue, I knew that anyone who works here is probably signing up for a few weird things," she said. "A lot of the staff who work here, especially the staff who've worked here for a while, just take it in their stride that there's a strange history to the building. As we toured the building, another strange thing took place. The door to the Blood Room, which Annie insists she locked the last time she left, has been tampered with. We find the padlock used to keep the door secure hanging open and useless from the handle. "Whatever you think the forces at play here are, whether they're explicable by natural phenomena, or if you think there's some more spiritual activity in the background, there's not much report of anything nasty going on," Annie says. "It all seems to be in the beneficent category." So is it haunted? For all his ghost stories, you'd be forgiven for thinking Tim's a true believer when it comes to ghosts — but that's not quite true. "Am I believer or not? I'm actually not, I'm not a complete sceptic, I'm more sitting on the fence," he says. "I guess I'm sceptical rather than a sceptic." And what about my own spooky experience with the camera light? Once we were back in the florescent-lit safety of the stairwell outside the Blood Room, ABC cameraman Ian Cutmore gave me an empirical explanation. It seems as I held the light against my chest, I somehow turned a fader switch on the back of the light, dimming it to darkness. Not so much creepy, as clumsy.

The most recent promotions of the buildings ghostly heritage appeared in the December 2023 edition of Australian Geographic, with a piece by Esme Mathis. It read as follows:

The National Film and Sound Archives in Canberra is housed in a building with stripped classical architecture and Art Deco elements. But look closer and you’ll see wombat faces peeping through roundels, goannas carved on the heads of columns, frill-necked lizards framing the front entrance and a skylight in the foyer featuring a stylised platypus. These details are a window into its past as the National Museum of Australian Zoology, later renamed the Australian Institute of Anatomy. The institute was founded in 1931 by Sir William Colin MacKenzie, an orthopaedist and anatomist with a passion for Australian fauna and comparative anatomy. He believed that native fauna was destined for extinction, so spent his career collecting animal specimens. Controversially, MacKenzie also believed studying animal anatomy could improve human health. In 1910 he developed a shoulder splint for children suffering from infantile paralysis, or polio, using knowledge gained from dissection of koalas. Later, during his tenure at the Military Orthopaedic Hospital in London, he adapted the splint for use on soldiers wounded in World War I. After the war, MacKenzie focused more on animal research, converting a house in Melbourne into a laboratory and museum which he named the Australian Institute of Anatomical Research. In 1920 he relocated to a larger property and hired technical assistants. By 1924 the institute boasted 2000 items – from anatomical drawings to ‘wet’ and mounted specimens – gifted to the government to create the National Museum of Australian Zoology. A new public building, designed by W. Hayward Morris, was commissioned in the ACT to house the collection. The building was completed in 1930, and featured auxiliary research stations and plans for future zoological gardens. It was renamed the Australian Institute of Anatomy in 1931. Opening at the start of the Great Depression, the institute suffered a lack of funding in its early years. Its collections expanded to include ethnographic material, casts of hominid skulls, and human remains. The latter – including Ned Kelly’s skull and death mask, and body parts from wounded soldiers preserved in formaldehyde and donated by the London Royal College of Surgeons – earned the institute its macabre reputation, which continues today, and the epithet of Canberra’s ‘most haunted building’. It also displayed ‘exceptional’ objects, including anatomical anomalies and curiosities, such as Phar Lap’s 6.35kg heart displayed beside the heart of an average thoroughbred. The institute also received First Nations artefacts donated by professional and amateur collectors. These would form the National Ethnographic Collection which in the following decades comprised more than 20,000 items, including hunting weapons and tribal regalia. The institute also held Aboriginal remains collected by amateur anthropologist George Murray Black, a civil engineer and pastoralist from Gippsland. Between 1929 and 1950, Black ransacked Aboriginal burial grounds across New South Wales and Victoria and sent the skeletal remains of about 1600 individuals to the institute. When the Australian Institute of Anatomy was disbanded in 1985, these collections were transferred to the National Museum of Australia (NMA). The NMA’s repatriation program has been returning ancestral remains and sacred objects to First Nations communities for the past 20 years.

These three articles, or two of them at least, obviously inspired Brownrigg to go down a similar path, though this time adding in his own first-hand and second-hand (as in gossipy) knowledge. The background background would turn on its head the dispassionate, though eminently accurate and academic description of events contained in the University of Canberra thesis of 2011 by the former founder of the NFSA and internationally renowned film and sound (audiovisual) archivist, Dr. Ray Edmondson. Would he be noble antagonist or scum and villainy in Brownrigg's descent into heaven, hell and Canberra, with Shakespeare by the writer's side to enhance the dramatic ennui of the tale? The present writer is unable to answer that, as he is yet to read the book..... Stay tuned.

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4. You haven't even read the book!

29 June 2024: The present author walks through the bronze-like IN door at the National Library of Australia and turns left towards the bookshop.  After a brief look around, including of the Canberra section, the woman serving at the counter is approached. "Do you have Heaven, Earth and Canberra, by Brownrigg?" A search is carried out in silence, then the staffer walks over to the aforesaid Canberra section and begin her search. Meanwhile, the writer had followed her and quickly (of course) see the book - three copies "hidden" amongst the other Canberra-related tomes. He pulls the best one out, and make the purchase. Amidst all this, a feeling of disappointment arises upon the realisation that the book is one of those modern print-on-demand publications you can order off Amazon, with a soft, laminated cover and perfect bound glue binding. Opening the book, the text is revealed to be rather small, there are no illustrations, and the cover - not being hard or stitch-bound - is an off-white, pale pink colour, and the print quality such as tending to mute and slightly blur the interesting historic engraving which features. Meanwhile, the rear cover features a blurry picture of Brownrigg down in the basement of the NFSA, and in the background a hooded apparition lingers. A ghost? Who knows. The decision has been made to actually read the book, and as soon as possible...... "Lead on, McDuff!"

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5. References

Australian Studies Institute, Dr Jeff Brownrigg, ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra.

Coady, Serena, We tried: a ghost tour of the National Film and Sound Archive, The Canberra Times, 5 November 2018.

Edmondson, Ray, National Film and Sound Archive: the quest for identity. Factors shaping the uneven development of a cultural institution, PhD thesis, University of Canberra, 2011, 480p.

-----, Time for another visionary moment at the NFSA, Inside Story [Blog], 23 July 2021.

Friends of the National Film and Sound Archive [website], Canberra, 2022.

Hayne, Jordan, I spent Halloween in one of Australia's 'most haunted buildings,' ABC News, 31 October 2017.

Macklin, Robert, Archival encounters of a ghostly kind - National Film and Sound Archive, The Canberra Times, 14 July 1990.

Mathis, Esme, The history of Canberra's 'haunted' NFSA building, Australian Geographic, 6 December 2023.

National Film and Sound Archive, Annual Report 2020-21, Canberra, 8 October 2021.

-----, NFSA Ghost Tours Sold Out!, NFSA [webpage], Canberra, 2024.

Organ, Michael, Protecting the National Film and Sound Archive [blog], 2 August 2022.

Shirley, Graham, Ray Edmondson and Audiovisual Archiving in Australia, Australian Media Oral History Group [website], 28 July 2021.

Travers, Penny, National Film and Sound Archive one of Australia's 'most haunted buildings', ABC Radio, Canberra, 1 April 2016.

Wade, Marg, Why was the National Film and Sound Archive building investigated by ghost hunters?, This Is Canberra, 20 June 2022.

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Last updated: 18 June 2024

Michael Organ, Australia (Home)