Keith Dunstan

Keith Dunstan in 1987

John Keith Dunstan OAM, known as Keith Dunstan (3 February 1925 – 11 September 2013), was an Australian journalist and author born in New York,^[1] the son of William Dunstan VC and Marjorie Dunstan. He attended Geelong Grammar School and was a Flight Lieutenant in 1943–46 with the Royal Australian Air Force, stationed at Labuan in the Pacific. He was a prolific writer and the author of more than 25 books.

Journalism

In 1946 Dunstan joined The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, publishers of The Sun News-Pictorial and The Herald (since merged as the Herald Sun). He was Foreign Correspondent for the H&WT with posts in New York (1949–52) and London (1952–54). This period was followed by a position with The Courier-Mail for which he wrote a column "Day by Day". He returned to Melbourne and from 1958 to 1978 contributed a daily column, "A Place in the Sun" for The Sun News-Pictorial, the city’s largest circulating daily newspaper. During these years his popularity grew and he became a Melbourne institution.^[1]

From 1962 he wrote regularly for the Sydney-based weekly magazine The Bulletin under the pseudonym of Batman (after the city’s controversial founder, John Batman)^[2] and for the travel magazine Walkabout. In 1976 and 1977 he was president of the Melbourne Press Club, succeeding Rohan Rivett. ^[3] He was the United States West Coast Correspondent (1979–82) for the The Herald and Weekly Times. Later, he was a regular columnist and occasional contributor to The Age newspaper.

Author

He has published a quartet of books on Australian character: Wowsers (1968), Knockers (1972), Sports (1973) and Ratbags (1979) and many works of history on popular subjects ranging from wine to sport to retailing, and including an unfashionably critical study of the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly, Saint Ned (1980). His pioneering works of Australian sports history include The Paddock That Grew (1962) on the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which has now seen several editions and updates. He has also written an autobiography, No Brains at All (1990). Other publications have included The Melbourne I Remember (2004) and Moonee Ponds to Broadway (2006), a study of his friend and fellow Melburnian, the satirist Barry Humphries.

Other activities

In 1967 he became founding secretary of the Anti-Football League, a tongue-in-cheek organisation that pokes fun at the Australian rules football obsession. An enthusiastic commuter and recreational cyclist, he was the founding president of the Bicycle Institute of Victoria (1974–78). Whilst living on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula he was an enthusiastic grower and maker of pinot noir wine.

Honours and awards

In the January 2002 New Year Honours List Keith Dunstan was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) "for service as a journalist and author, and to the community, particularly as a supporter of the Berry Street Babies Home".^[4]

On 26 May 2009, he became Patron of the Prahran Mechanics' Institute.^[5]

On 11 October 2013, Dunstan was posthumously inducted into the Melbourne Press Club's Victorian Media Hall of Fame. He was told of his forthcoming induction before his death.^[2]

Personal life

Dunstan studied at Melbourne Grammar and Geelong Grammar. He served in the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II. He was married to Marie, and they had four children.

Dunstan died of cancer on 11 September 2013.^[6] Dunstan's son, David, reported that his father had written his own, self-effacing, obituary.^[1]

References

External links

• Keith Dunstan articles at The National Times