BIOGRAPHY Australiana
- 314 p. ; 24 cm. #191024 First Edition
Growing old is an aspect of human experience only thinly covered in literature and the author when he reached seventy decided to write all about it. He writes about being home alone when his wife is hospitalised, on being a grandparent, long-term marriage, his cancer treatment and the proper attitude and attire for a man of his age.
Obituary:
The rueful antipodean reflection – “how come the best Australians were often born Kiwis?”- might have been coined for my friend and mentor Frank Devine, who has died aged 77.
The “laughing cavalier of Australian journalism”, who parlayed an international career as editor of Reader’s Digest, the Chicago Sun-Times, New York Post and the Australian into a distinguished retirement as a respected and much-loved national commentator, was born in Blenheim, New Zealand, but became a naturalised Aussie in his 70s after 50 years on his chosen side of the Tasman sea.
His sole attachment to the land of his birth was a fierce pride in his native All Blacks; in all other respects he was a convinced sports-loving Australian who declared, mistakenly, from the Sydney hospice where he died: “I think I have one more Ashes series in me.”
Frank loved language, literature and lunch, and I was lucky enough to share his meal table on many occasions during 12 months as his deputy during the time he edited the Australian in 1988-89. Our noisy arguments on taboo subjects – sport, religion and politics – sustained a friendship of opposites. Frank cared deeply for his many friends, lavishing praise and bolstering spirits when they were down.
An avowed conservative, with an unshakable Catholic faith since his days as an altar boy, Frank became the bete noire of the Australian left: he took pride in prime minister Paul Keating’s sneering description of him as “that old fart”.
Fortune often smiled on Frank’s early career; leaving New Zealand for a planned trip to Britain he took a job, instead, on the West Australian in Perth, where he fell for the charms of a women’s page reporter, Jacqueline McGee. They married in 1959.
Later, during his many globe-trotting years as an international correspondent in Britain, America and Japan, he scored several notable exclusives: he was in Joe Louis’s corner during a world championship fight and, covering race riots in Alabama during the 1960s, found himself seated aboard a plane next to Martin Luther King. The resulting interviews went around the world.
A bon vivant to the end, Frank shunned hospital food in favour of Sydney rock oysters, caviar and pâté delivered to his bedside by his devoted daughters Miranda, Rosalind and Alexandra. Frank is survived by his wife, daughters, five grandsons and a granddaughter.