First Hinde now Mr Gormsby?

Following the death of John Hinde, Crikey carried an item flagging the somewhat pungent obituary of New Zealand newspaper proprietor Ray Smith.

It opens with:

Ray Smith, the newspaper owner who died in Rotorua on Sunday aged 85, was an austere man, who went through life with a perpetual scowl...

and then becomes really frank. Worth a read, if only as a studied exercise in how to speak ill (and therefore honestly) of the dead -- could Smith have been the real life Mr Gormsby? You also wonder what Phil Campbell, the journalist who wrote the story, would have done with the Kerry Packer obituary.

Golden Hinde

Amidst all the stories of turkey slapping at ten and boning by the management of the Nine Network, news broke today of the death of ABC veteran John Hinde.

One of Australia's first foreign correspondents, TV presenter and movie critic, John Hinde has died in Sydney aged 92.

ABC Radio's AM program today paid tribute to Hinde, who filed a report for its first bulletin.

Mr Hinde began his career at the ABC in the news department and was a correspondent in the Pacific during World War II.

Apart from his war work and hosting the first AM broadcast in 1967, Hinde found fame as the ABC's avuncular film reviewer and presenter. This report on the national broadcaster's website features a good summary of Hinde's self-depreciating appeal :

David Stratton... says Mr Hinde was a lovely man who was a pleasure to talk to.
He says he had a roguish look on TV and always presented with wit, perception and style.

"It was something to do with his innate good humour and wit I think, and he would always focus on very often on small details, on whimsical little things that appealed to him, and convey them so beautifully to the listener or the viewer in his television introductions," he said.

Just how good humoured was Hinde? Well, that's Libby Gore in the photograph with him dressed as Superman. Little Mr Square Eyes seems to recall the only other person at the ABC who voluntarily got that up-close-and-personal with Gore was David Hill, but that probably had more to do with Network Nine-style management techniques than anything else.