Career
Blyton, a nephew of children"s author Enid Blyton, showed a talent for science from an early age, and did not switch to music until he contracted polio and, as he was recovering, began taking piano lessons in 1948 at the age of sixteen. Blyton is primarily known as a miniaturist, composing short orchestral scores for live performance. He produced some well-regarded and often humorous pieces including Return of Bulgy Gogo (a tribute to composer Peter Warlock), Up the Faringdon Road, Mock Joplin which was written for piano and saxophone, and Saxe Blue written for the same instruments.
He also worked as a music editor and in this capacity assisted Benjamin Britten.
Blyton also wrote incidental music for the British Broadcasting Corporation Doctor Who television series. Between 1970 and 1975, a period during which Dudley Simpson was the programme"s usual composer, he provided three scores for the series with Doctor Who and the Silurians in 1969/70, Death to the Daleks in 1974 and finally Revenge of the Cybermen in 1975.
In these scores – particularly the first and the last – he made substantial use of unusual instruments. Crumhorns were used in Doctor Who and the Silurians as a theme for the reptile men and in his final score for the series, Revenge of the Cybermen in 1975, he made use of serpents and ophicleides whenever the Cybermen appeared.
He died in 2002 from cancer and post-polio syndrome, aged 70.