Indonesian explorer Lorne Blair dies at 49

Indonesian explorer Lorne Blair dies at 49

JAKARTA (JP): On June 6th, while recovering from a broken leg
in a Bali hospital, Lorne Blair suffered a fatal heart attack.
His death, at the early age of 49, removes from the Indonesian
scene one of its most distinguished chroniclers, and a popular
resident of Bali for the past twenty years.

Lorne Blair was as Englishman in the tradition of Livingstone
and Wallace, whose curiosity about our world led him to explore
its remotest corners with a fine disregard for risk.

As an author, lecturer, photographer and film-maker, Lorne
will probably be best remembered for Ring of Fire, a book co-
authored with his brother Dr. Lawrence Blair, and later made into
a television film series under the same title. Assembled over ten
years in the face of dire physical hardship and the slenderest of
purses, this award-winning documentary earned worldwide
admiration for its insights into Indonesia's least known regions.

Lorne's film Lempad of Bali, co-directed with John Darling,
has a permanent place in the ethnography of Bali. In 1991, a
record of an arduous foray into the interior of Kalimantan, with
photographer Rio Helmi, was published under the title River of
Gems - A Borneo Journal. In the last few months of his life Lorne
was putting the finishing touches to his latest Bali film, Cycles
of The Soul.

Born in England, his upbringing was in Mexico. At the age of
14 he joined an expedition to an almost unexplored area of the
country. Lorne Blair's professional career started as an
assistant to Bob Cundy, an independent ethnographer who produced
adventure films shot all over the world. This hair-raising
experience led to a position with the BBC, where his filming
techniques were refined.

In 1972 he left London to embark on his exploration of
Indonesia, the country that was to become his home for the rest
of his life. Numerous profitable career opportunities were
offered once Lorne's work achieved recognition. He turned them
down, preferring to remain in his eccentrically organic cottage
near Dewa Batuan's community of artists in Pengosekan, where he
was surrounded by Balinese friends.

His brother recalls that Lorne's first report, from a French
boarding school at the age of four, consisted of two words, folle
independence, which translates roughly as "independence to the
point of lunacy." A fitting epitaph perhaps to this genial giant,
with the unkempt beard and signature monocle, whose humor and
daring enriched the lives of his friends.

Lorne leaves a daughter Xenia and her mother Sophie. He is
survived by his mother Lydia, who first introduced him to
Indonesia in the 1960s, and his brother Lawrence.