Keith Dunstan

John Keith Dunstan (3 February 1925 – 11 September 2013), known as Keith Dunstan, was an Australian journalist and author. He was a prolific writer and the author of more than 35 books.

Early life Dunstan was born in East Malvern, Victoria, He was the United States West Coast Correspondent (1979–1982) for The Herald and Weekly Times. Later, he was a regular columnist and occasional contributor to The Age newspaper.

Author He 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 included The Paddock That Grew (1962) on the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which has now seen several editions and updates. He also wrote an autobiography, No Brains at All (1990). Other publications included The Melbourne I Remember (2004) and Moonee Ponds to Broadway (2006), a study of one of his friends and a 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 first president of the Bicycle Institute of Victoria (now known as Bicycle Network) from its founding in 1974 to 1978. He was a bicycle touring enthusiast who with his wife Marie cycled across the United States in the 1970s and through China in the 1980s.

Whilst living on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula he was an enthusiastic grower and maker of pinot noir wine.

Honours and awards In the 2002 Australia Day Honours, 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".

On 26 May 2009, he became Patron of the Prahran Mechanics' Institute.

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.

Personal life Dunstan and his wife Marie (daughter of Charles McFadyen) had four children. Dunstan died of cancer on 11 September 2013. Dunstan's son, David, reported that his father had written his own, self-effacing, obituary.

Books Published posthumously