Farewell Ken, Lord of the social pages
His death marks the end of an era in newspapers and theatre in Brisbane.
“I was called arrogant, difficult, impossible and a big-headed smart-arse. When I look back, I suppose I was all of those things from time to time.”
So said Ken Lord, who died on March 5 at 93 — an age that may surprise some people, since he always seemed younger than he really was.
One reason for this was the fact that he constantly reinvented himself.
Many may remember him as the king of the social pages — the man who wrote the clever, sometimes acerbic, comments accompanying the pictures of the A-listers and the wannabes who occupied a great deal of print real estate in The Sunday Mail in the 1990s and early 2000s.
But he had also been a writer, director, producer and star of the stage and small screen, a singer-songwriter, comedian and successful restaurateur, among other things.
My memories of Ken stretch back to my youth, seeing him on television — including in a revue which I think was called The Great Banana Split and included toe-tapping numbers such as It’s a Long Way to Burpengary.*
I later saw him on stage, including in variety performances with the late, great David Bermingham, and in the one-person play The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin.
But I got to know him best when we worked together at The Sunday Mail, where he was a long-time contributor.
I think it’s fair to say that Ken didn’t “get” journalists and many of them, including me at times, didn’t “get” him. One publicist told me she once had a discussion with him where he was shocked to learn how little most newspaper reporters earned.
When I was entertainment editor, we had some fun times and shared some excellent memories of, and gossip about, the showbiz people we both knew. One highlight was him performing a cheeky song that namechecked me, and other colleagues, at the launch of IE (Inside Entertainment) liftout.
While I appreciated what he was doing and was a fan of what he had done in the past, I came to take the view that the social pages were a relic of a different era. My thinking, and my observation, was that the people who loved having their pictures taken didn’t buy the newspaper (or advertise in it for that matter), and their appearance in the paper wasn’t the big selling point it had been in earlier times.
When he left the Mail — he outlasted me, so what do I know? — Ken continued to keep busy, including writing a book, Gallipoli: The War Nobody Won, which was a tribute to his father.
Ken Lord was a man of many parts, including loving husband to Margaret for more than half a century, and proud father. Many people from the theatre and society scenes will be raising a glass of bubbly in his memory.
*I originally wrote Indooroopilly, but I now think the song went “Goodbye Indooroopilly, farewell King George Square, it’s a long, long way to Burpengary, but my heart lies there.”
Ken and Margaret had a stint at 4BC, late 70s. Morning show timeslot. Ken also voiced a character ( Rowdy Rabbit) on Bert Robertsons breakfast show.