UON archivist Gionni Di Gravio OAM still has the card Ms Newton-John sent him in 2010, after he compiled video footage, photos and files for the Newton-John family about their patriarch's time at the university.

He joined in 1958 as an Associate Professor of German and Head of the Division of Arts when it was Newcastle University College in Tighes Hill.

He retired in 1974 as Deputy Vice-Chancellor and was still living in Newcastle in 1976.

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"He meant a lot to her," Mr Di Gravio said, before reading from the card she sent him.

"'Gionni, my nephew Brett forwarded on the DVD of my father Professor Brin Newton-John'," he said. "'Thank you so much for sending it to our family, we will treasure it.

"I saw Auchmuty Library and remembered my father talking of him [UON inaugural vice-chancellor James Johnston Auchmuty] very fondly. Thank you again, love and light' and it's signed by her."

Mr Di Gravio said it was addressed to Dr Di Gravio.

"I always say to people I got an honourary doctorate from the University of Xanadu, from Olivia Newton-John herself," he said.

He was shocked to hear the news of Ms Newton-John's death at the age of 73.

"She was a very lovely down to earth person from what I can gather and everyone who came into her orbit felt very special," he said.

"She's just one of those wonderful people who is very talented but at the same time very ordinary, it's not like you were dealing with someone who thought they were more special than you.

"You can see that in her father, her father was a very educated man but you never got the impression you were too stupid to talk to, he spoke to you like he spoke to anyone else.

"That's the impression you get of this family, very down to earth and straight-forward yet very cultured and educated, the way it should be.

"Education shouldn't be something you beat someone over the head with, it should be something that helps connect people and enable them to be placed in contact with these wonderful things that human beings have created."

Welsh-born Professor Newton-John had been commissioned in the Royal Air Force and seconded to the infamous top-secret Ultra project at Bletchley Park before he emigrated in 1954 with his wife Irene and children Hugh, Rona and Olivia, then aged six, to Melbourne.

Mr Di Gravio said the couple's marriage broke down in 1958 and Professor Newton-John was likely to have moved to the Hunter alone, although a young Olivia may have visited and stayed with him. She attended school in Melbourne.

Mr Di Gravio said he married for a second time in 1963 and a third time in 1983.

"He was full of pride for the success of his daughter, she became an international star," he said.

"His career was so incredible that once they got to talking to him they found out a lot of other interesting stories anyway without having to rely on what his daughter was doing.

"They were in different leagues, she was into popular music and he was more into popular music of a few hundred years ago, the classical music of our day... he spoke of her like they were very close."

Mr Di Gravio said Professor Newton-John was a singer and pianist, established the university choir in 1960, participated in student productions and helped start revues.

He once played Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 through a public address system to open a building at Tighes Hill.

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