Kay Lanceley, one of our dearest friends, has died.

She was 87. On the morning of her death she phoned my life-partner Judith White to tell of plans to travel to the South Coast and then northwards to see us and other friends on Bribie Island and the Glass House Mountains in Queensland. She was excited and so were we.

Judith received another message that same evening to say Kay was in hospital after a bad fall. Her brain was bleeding. We were apprehensive, to say the least.

Judith woke me late that night to say she had received a message from Kay’s son, Felix. Kay was dead.

Kay smoked cigarettes and drank French wine to the very end. I believe she introduced Judith and me to Sancerre.

She is survived by Felix who followed cricket and current affairs with the same passion as his late father, the artist Colin Lanceley. Kay and Colin shared much in their life together, but Colin rarely smoked or drank with the same gusto as Kay. Colin’s great passions were his children and grandchildren, his painting, drawing, teaching, collecting and mentoring. Kay dealt with many tragedies in her life but she acquired a massive number of friends from all walks of life.

Many years ago, I promised readers that I would write exclusively about the arts, culture and politics. I break that pledge today because my overnight emails are often filled with terrible news about more deaths of friends we once knew.

The day after Kay’s death would have been the birthday of my youngest brother, Jeffrey Bernard Mitchell, who was born May 10, 1943, and died on 13 November 2023.

There were no kids in Brisbane or Townsville who were given the middle name of Bernard. My mother, Mrs Lucy Mitchell, told family, neighbours and anyone who would listen that Jeff was given the middle name of Bernard to celebrate the great Irish writer and political activist George Bernard Shaw.

One of Shaw’s most memorable gifts was founding the anti-Marxist Fabian Society which spread like wildfire around the world, especially Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific, and America, North and South. Jeff was not a Marxist in any sense of the word, but he was a socialist, always voted Labor and was always passionate about theatre.

Today my thoughts turned back to Saturday, 12 August, 2017, when a stellar crowd of family and close friends gathered at Lucio’s Restaurant in Sydney to welcome Mrs Lanceley into the gracious company of octogenarians.

I remember her style as she rose to the occasion and she was our Joan of Arc – courageous and bold. Kay was in her element. There was much laughter, but Kay made certain that all the guests enjoyed themselves as well.

Kay was the widow of the acclaimed artist Colin Lanceley who died in January 2015. Kay started planning the Lucio’s event to celebrate Colin’s life as an artist, collector, teacher, mentor and painter. She drew up a guest list of just six people. That was never going to work. Before long the guest list grew to 32. Such is Kay’s ability to make lifelong friendships with former workmates, chance acquaintances and people in the arts world, the media and politics, it was a miracle there weren’t 150 guests.

I said a few words to pay homage to Kay and began by saying she had led an “exotic life which deserved a TV mini-series. It would make Game of Thrones look like Home and Away.”

 Before she was Kay Lanceley, and the quintessential Eastern Suburbs celebrity, she was Kay Morphett from Sydney’s Western suburbs. As a girl growing up on the fringe of Sydney, Kay dreamed huge dreams. On Monday she wanted to follow in the footsteps of Joan Sutherland and perform at Sadlers Wells. On Tuesday she dreamed of becoming a doctor or a lawyer. On Wednesday she daydreamed about following Dawn Fraser to become an Olympic champion. On Thursday she had her heart set on being fullback for the Parramatta Eels. But by Friday she wanted to be a journalist and travel the world.

Kay’s appetite for excitement and adventure was fed by her Scottish grandmother who provided her with a constant supply of novels, the literary classics. As she consumed them, she existentially roamed the world, especially Britain and Europe. At school when teachers asked the class to improve their reading with children’s books, Kay sat in the corner with her head buried in the Bronte sisters, Conrad or Dickens.

She married unhappily … and then met Colin Lanceley who had a passion to become a successful and notable artist. Thus began a partnership in which they shared a creative and courageous objective.

Early in 1963, my flatmate in Paddington, Laurie Oakes, a former editor of Honi Soit, took me to a gallery opening where I first met Colin, the youngest among a group of artist heavyweights, including Russell Drysdale, John Olsen, Donald Friend and others. Colin was on his way to London to escape the arid, blinkered culture inflicted on Australia by Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies and his Cabinet of philistines and forelock-tuggers. Three years later I paid $200 to buy a berth on P&O’s Oronsay. I would join the Lanceleys who had established a family home of immense warmth in Notting Hill, west London. My ticket was clearly marked “one way only”.  

I quickly learned another aspect of Kay’s character: she was a superb home-maker. I recall the Lanceleys moving into residences where she turned the kitchens into an extension of dining rooms. In no time at all, she used to create places where there were three central objectives – eating, drinking and debating.

With my former partner Joy Pinnock and our two children, Laura and Lachlan, living first in Cambridge Gardens and then Ladbroke Grove, Christmas meant lunch at the Lanceleys. Guests dropped in, ate, drank and disappeared. Other people arrived – artists, MPs, writers, lawyers and ex-pats just off the boat from Oz. More food miraculously appeared from the kitchen, more bottles of red were opened. Then the cheese board, homemade paté and locally baked bread appeared.

At times it was like Don’s Party on steroids. When the Queen’s speech came on television we hurled subversive abuse at the screen and swore that the first thing we’d do when we returned home was to campaign for an Australian-born president of an Oz Republic. Malcolm “I am a strong leader” Turnbull, later to become the Liberal MP for the uber-wealthy seat of Wentworth, was never part of our Republican Push.

What was unique about Kay and Colin in London was that while they were loved by Australian expats, many of their friends were British or European. They travelled to France, Holland, Germany, Italy, Spain; they didn’t lose their Australian identity, but they became European in their outlook, culture and preference.

Back in Oz in 1986, Judith and I were invited to an opening at the Art Gallery of NSW. It was a moment of serendipity – we found ourselves standing at the back of the main foyer next to Kay and Colin. It was a reunion of such excitement that a long dinner followed. Subsequent visits to their place on Moore Park Road confirmed my long-held view that Kay was the ultimate home-maker. It had a giant dining room, a spacious courtyard, an endless supply of mouth-watering nourishment from a local European deli and, of course, French wine. They introduced us to Sancerre from which my liver has never fully recovered.

Kay was never happy unless she had a project. In the 1980s it became building the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. She twisted arms, lobbied, coerced and schmoozed Sydney’s boardrooms and then went to Wollongong, “Steel City”, to persuade BHP workers to fabricate the metal infrastructure for the pavilion. John Menadue, CEO of Qantas and a dear friend who had once worked for Gough Whitlam, eagerly supported the project and offered cargo space on his aircraft. Transfield boss Franco Belgiorno-Nettis was a tougher nut to crack. Kay recruited me to give Franco some uplifting publicity in The Sun-Herald to secure his support.    Then Premier Neville Wran and Cabinet Minister Laurie Brereton gave Transfield the huge tender to build the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, a perfect example of how business and culture were done in the Emerald City. The Biennale was a huge success; the Australian pavilion was attended by thousands of visitors and the reviews were sensationally positive. It was another behind-the-scenes victory for Kay.

While researching Kay Lanceley’s amazing life, I came across many messages giving us support at the time my younger brother, Jeffrey, died from a massive heart attack. It followed the recent deaths of my oldest brother, James Gilbert Mitchell, and second brother Anthony John Mitchell. Jimmy, Tony and Jeff were three of the four sons of Lucy and Jim Mitchell, who lived in Brisbane, Townsville, Southport and Koala Park near Tallebudgera.

After a 50-year career as a reporter, and enduring many life-threatening moments as well as copious long lunches, I genuinely believed it would be a scientific and medical triumph if I lived longer than 50 or 60. But things have proved otherwise.

I am still standing – with the help of a wheelie-walker – and living, writing, walking, gardening, shopping and cooking. I live in regional Oz with my life partner Judith Mitchell, née White. We try to stay connected to our local community, particularly First Nations people. They were subjected to furious insults, ignorance and pure racism during the 2023 referendum which would have given them the right to advise Federal Parliament on issues affecting their lives.

Jeffrey, born 10 May 1943, died 13 November 2023, was a thoughtful and talented younger brother. Heather, his ever-loving life partner, was devastated by his unexpected departure. His passion was the stage and he produced, directed and acted in many plays staged by the Brisbane theatre company that he helped to rebuild.

Apart from the stage, Jeff was keenly interested in his children, three boys: Alex, Cameron and Simon, grandchildren, classical music and food served with lashings of good beer, wine and cocktails. He also followed Federal and State politics in great detail and I phoned him regularly from my desk at Sydney’s Sun-Herald.

To attend one of Jeff’s weekend parties was like entering a world of utter hedonism. Guests never felt like going to work the next day, or they called in sick to sleep it off.

When Manchester-born Judith and I returned to Australia in 1986, I discovered that Jeff had “adopted” my oldest children, Laura and Lachlan, and given them magical holidays which they never forgot. Indeed, my whole family welcomed us. The experience brought home to me the great importance of family, and taught me a life-changing lesson: don’t ever take your family for granted.                                                                     

Jeff was named Jeffrey Bernard Mitchell in honour of George Bernard Shaw who, in his early days, was a strong socialist. Shaw’s most famous play, Pygmalion (1913) used comedy to ridicule Britain’s class system and show that a woman from the working class could climb to the top of society if she spoke right! One of Shaw’s most famous sayings was:

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

(GB Shaw, born Dublin in 1856 – died Hertfordshire in 1950.)

Jeff would agree with Shaw’s saying, not because he (Jeff) liked people who changed their views at the drop of a hat or their trousers. No, he felt that everyone should feel free to change their opinions when new circumstances arose. He believed that was how they “grew”.

My favourite story about Jeff occurred almost 60 years ago, shortly after I arrived in Sydney to work as a reporter on Sydney’s Daily Mirror, a tearaway tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch but now defunct.

Just as I felt that I had reached the pinnacle of sophistication, Jeff and his first wife, Lenore, née Garland, arrived on their honeymoon. To impress them I used all my Mirror contacts to book a table for dinner in the Silver Spade Room at the Chevron Hotel, Sydney’s swishest hotel in Potts Point. The table was far from the orchestra which was playing like mad and preventing guests like us from hearing each other over dinner. As I studied the wine list which was pages and pages long, I heard Jeffrey say in a very loud voice, “Could you bring us a bottle of claray?” The bemused wine waiter asked, “Which wine, sir?” Jeff boomed again, “I said claray, a bottle of claray.” As diners at neighbouring tables shook their heads and rolled their eyes, I hissed to the waiter, “It’s claret. He means claret.”

After dinner, Jeff picked up his finger bowl and drank it to the last drop. The whole room seemed to freeze and I conceded through gritted teeth, “Okay, you win. I’m not a city slicker.”

Then Jeff said with a note of triumph: “I was acting a part. I was teaching you a lesson. Never take yourself too seriously.” I have never forgotten the dinner nor the lesson he taught me.