Was known as Mervyn until c.1940 although on his wedding certificate in 1944 he still signed his name with a “y”.

Merv was born 19 December 1922 in Perth, Western Australia. His mother was from Goulburn in New South Wales and his father was from Upper Hermitage in South Australia. Merv's father died when he was five years old and he and his brothers and three sisters were brought up by his mother in the bush near Bickley which is now a suburb of Perth.

The family was very poor, having no bread-winner in the family. His mother was a strict Seventh Day Adventist and the children were brought up in the faith. One of the earliest stories of his childhood concerned him and his brothers hunting in the bush for chickens which they caught and cooked without the knowledge of their mother.

The children were not affected by their poverty, which was probably widespread in the country around that time. Merv told stories of collecting bird's eggs and wild flowers, including orchids, in the bush near is home. Jillian has a a collection of bird's eggs that was neatly laid out and labelled by Merv in those early years.

Another adventure that the children enjoyed was jumping into the ash left in the hole in the ground where the trunks used to be after the giant Karri trees were burnt during bush fires. On one occasion Merv jumped into a hole full of ash that was still hot. He was severely burned on both of his legs and as a result had smooth, hairless legs for the rest of his life.

In 1936/37 Merv studied at a Seventh Day Adventist Missionary College in Carmel WA to second year High-school standard.

When World War II started Merv enlisted in the Air Force. Merv always claimed he was seventeen, but had to say he was eighteen to be accepted. This was not uncommon as the romance of travel and the opportunity to fight for one's country were appealing at the time. His official records show he enlisted 28 April 1941 when he was aged 19 and that his occupation at enlistment was Orchard Hand.

Merv attended the Air Training Corps in Ballarat where he studied navigation and was posted to a squadron that was based in New Guinea. This squardron was transferred to Mount Gambier in 1944 and it was there that he met and married Jean.

The squadron was transferred to Darwin in late 1944 and Merv toldan interesting story of a trip that he and some mates made down the Daly River. The group carried fuel in 200 litre drums on an old truck along with a boat from Darwin to the source of the river. They then travelled for three or four days down the Daly to the mouth encountering many crocodiles on the way and from all accounts this may have been the first journey down the Daly by white men.

In 1945 Merv was discharged from the Air Force and gained a scholarship to study mathematics at the University of Adelaide. During this period Merv and Jean lived in rented premises at 33 Alma Street Glenelg, Merv made money by working for his cousin Sandy Dunn driving milk trucks and tending Sandy's vegetable garden. He also went fishing with commercial fisherman out from Glenelg. Merv's love of growing vegetables and fishing prevailed. Merv was a founding member of the South Australian Sea Rescue Squadron in 1960 and was the 4th commodore in 1963-64. In the 1950s he built an out-rigger canoe based on canoes he had seen in New Guinea. The canoe was still in first class condition when he died, with a 25hp outboard motor depth sounder and radio, it was licensed to carry 8 adults in NSW where it was registered. In 1946 he obtained a job as a clerk with the oil company HC Sleigh as a country representative and travelled around the mid north of South Australia , he left Sleigh on 28 Nov 1952. On the 8 December 1952 he began working as a clerk for International Harvester and remained with them until 1/2/1954 when he began working as a sales organiser for Commercial Motor Vehicles.

During his time with Sleighs he became interested in tropical aquariums. He began to breed fish and propagate aquatic plants in his shed at the house at 70 Somers Street Brighton that they purchased in 1953. In 1956 he opened an aquarium shop on Anzac Highway, Glenelg. Glenelg Aquariums was run by Merv and Jean. Peter helped in the shop after school and with their exhibits at the Royal Adelaide Show and during this period they won many prizes for the Best Fish and Best Planted Aquarium at the show. The two girls,Maureen and Jill, were too young to work, but visited the shop after school each day.

In 1955 Merv joined the Chamber of Manufacturers as a Secretary/Court Advocate and in 1965 joined the Master Builders Association as manager of the Building Centre on South Terrace where he remained until 1968.

In 1968 the aquarium business had grown to such an extent that Merv could support his family on the income from the business. He had designed and built found four fully insulated aquarium houses inthe back yard of his home at Brighton. Over the years he had imported plants from Lotus Osiris in Brazil and the famous Shirley Aquatic Nurseries in England. In the late 1960s he was exporting the difficult to grow Cryptocoryne genus back to Shirley's and he made donations of some of the rarer species to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

In 1968 Bob Nicolle met Maureen. He was training as a radio technician with Department of Civil Aviation and was keen to start a business and with Merv's help he tried growing mushrooms in Merv's shed. This was not a success and Merv suggested that they could utilise the spare space above his aquariums to grow tropical orchids.

In 1969 Merv and Bob made numerous trips to Sydney to purchase phalaenopsis and cattleys from Juanita Nursery at Caringbah. The plants were bought separately and they each had their own collection. In May 1969 Maureen and Bob were married and Merv suggested it would be easier to combine the collections as by this time there were three lots, Merv's, Bob's and theirs. A company Valley Orchids Pty Ltd was formed.


At the Second Australian Orchid Conference in Melbourne in 1970 a seedling phalaenopsis was exhibited in the South Australian Orchid Club exhibit by Valley Orchids and it gained Grand Champion of the Show.

A problem with growing orchids in the aquarium house was that you could not use insecticides to control the mealy bug and garlic snails,without risk to the fish. A doctor in Sydney was growing orchids in a compost made to Dent's formula with hardwood sawdust and deep litter fowl manure. This mixture provided a cure to the snail problem,due to lack of voids in the mix, and also provided an introduction to Dr Bob Vandyke, one of the leading hybridists of cymbidiums at the time.

In 1970 Valley Orchids began advertising in the Australian Orchid Review with a full page advertisement listing mainly cymbidiums, but also cattleyas and phalaenopsis.

Merv and Bob expanded the cool growing cymbidium collection because the tropical houses were already full with the aquariums and about 10,000 cattleyas and phalaenopsis while the cymbidiums did well between the tropical houses. The cymbidiums were bought in sterile flasks from Dr Bob Vandyke in Sydney, deflasked in the tropical houses where they were grown for a few months then placed outside between the houses.

In 1970 and 1971 Maureen and Bob were stationed at Whyalla with the Department of Civil Avaiation and returned to Adelaide every weekend to work on the orchids. While in Whyalla Maureen and Bob purchased a 1.5 acre block of land at the base of Chandlers Hill, Happy Valley on which to develop a cymbidium farm. Valley Orchids was named after the Happy Valley block.

Around this time Merv was refining his design for a roofing system that was the culmination of his experience with light transmission in his aquarium houses, his knowledge of the sun's path, gained while studying navigation in the air force, and his time involved with the building industry. He obtained his first patents on his designs for a controlled light roofing system in 1972 and formed a company, Ritelite Pty Ltd, to build glass houses.

The Ritelite system became very popular and greenhouses were built throughout South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria. They were built for growers of vegetables, roses, carnations and, of course, orchids. A Ritelite house was built at Flinders University, Roseworthy College and for the Woods and Forest Department at Monarto.

In later years there were many new patents granted to Merv as the emphasis in Ritelite moved from green houses for plants, upmarket, to solariums for people. Merv had distributors in all states and New Zealand and a joint venture, Ritelite Corporation in the United States.

In mid 1972 Valley Orchids purchased the entire stock of Vandyke Orchids of Sydney, which at the time was the most modern collection of cymbidiums in Australia.

Dr Vandyke was the first to implement on a commercial scale the the new technique developed by Dr Donald Wimber of the United States to increase the ploidy of cymbidiums. Dr Vandyke, through his association and friendship with Alvin Bryant, was quick to begin development of the new albino cymbidiums after the laws governing their hybridisation were explained by Mr Bryant. Dr. Vandyke also was able to clone and breed with the best cymbidiums in the best collections in Sydney. All of this genetic material was part of the Vandyke collection.

The cymbidium collection had almost outgrown the property at Brighton and an application was lodged to build the orchid nursery on the Happy Valley property. The application was refused.

In March 1971 Bob and Maureen purchased a property on the southwest corner of Pimpala and Panalatinga Roads at Reynella.

A new Ritelite greenhouse, 15m x 15m, was erected on the new land and the cymbidiums were shifted from Brighton. A few months later when the Vandyke collection was purchased the Ritelite was extended to 30m x 15m and then doubled to 30m x 30m.

In 1972 Bob and Maureen built a house on the block and in 1977 Merv and Jean built a house and moved to Morphett Vale from Brighton.

Valley Orchids had very little capital and everyone worked very long hours to build the green houses, benching, etc. Merv was still growing tropical fish and plants and Bob was working shift work on the RADAR at the Adelaide airport. Some weekends building continued under lights until well after midnight. The plants were brought from Sydney to Adelaide in multi deck sheep transporting semi-trailers, five loads in all.

Part of the agreement with Dr Vandyke was that he would act as consultant to Valley Orchids for 12 months after the sale of the plants, Valley Orchids to fly him to Adelaide once a month. Bob can remember many late sessions with Merv and the Doc at Brighton where the conversation ranged over many subjects and, in particular, orchids.

Merv was a meticulous person with an open and inquiring mind. He prepared many huge pedigree charts on the known albino orchids and was easily able to understand the mathematics involved in predicting results in breeding programs with diploids and tetraploids.

He was quick to recognise the huge commercial potential of these orchids and he decided to call them pure-colour cymbidiums to disassociate them from albinos which were often perceived as weak. Merv also pointed out that albinos are normally white, whereas, pure-colours come in yellow, green and white. The name pure-colour was officially adopted for these orchids by the Australian Orchid Council.

Like Vandyke, Merv also saw the huge commercial potential in tetraploid cymbidiums. In the early 1970s practically every cymbidium grower had a reason why tetraploids were not as good as diploids.

Merv set off on a crusade in the 1970s to promote pure-colours, tetraploids and, in particular, pure-colour tetraploid cymbidiums. He lectured at local clubs and world conferences wherever cymbidiums were grown, whenever people would listen. Those who understood and bought the flasks have been rewarded. Pure-colour tetraploid cymbidiums were bringing the highest prices at auction. Today in the shows or at the flower markets diploids are never seen except as a curiosity.

It was Merv who placed most emphasis on colour. Merv was always insisting that they breed for more intense colour. Brighter reds,greener greens, etc. It was Merv who came up with the maxim “to be a good parent a plant must produce better progeny that itself, so breed on with the superier progeny”.

Merv's maxim became law a Valley Orchids, line breeding was the norm. Valley Orchids seldom bred back, and the policy paid dividends. Valley Orchids gained awards in Australia, the United States and England and had customers in over 40 countries.

Merv's active participation in the policies and the management of Valley Orchids continued until 1979 when he moved interstate to work full time for his company, Ritelite.

Merv Divorced Jean and Married Ann Robinson c.1980

From The Advertiser 25 Jan 1951
CAR OVERTURNS
Three men were uninjured
when a small tourer overturned
on Anzac Highway at the corner
of West terrace, earlv todav
alter a collision witn a pie cart.
Mervin Earl Dunn, 28, of
Alma street, Glenelg, was the
driver of the car.
The pie cart was driven by
David Peter Nicol, of Wright
street, Edwardstown.
Constable Matthew is making
a report.