Paul Comrie-Thomson had an expansive personality and a sharp mind

PAUL COMRIE-THOMSON, 1948-2014

When a former editor of Quadrant magazine, Paddy McGuinness, was ailing in 2006 he asked Paul Comrie-Thomson to orchestrate Quadrant’s 50th dinner in Sydney. Everyone who knew "Comrie" was delighted. The evening was bound to crackle with general bonhomie, generate a flood of anecdotes and deliver rivers of good red. And so it did. McGuinness also offered Quadrant’s editorship to Comrie-Thomson, which he astutely declined.

In 2007, Comrie-Thomson joined journalist Michael Duffy as co-presenter on ABC Radio National’s Counterpoint – a perch he delighted in and on which he remained for more than six years. Here he was able to explore every passion he possessed: philosophy, jazz and rhythm and blues, film, economics, language, religion and society. His radio conversations with a cavalcade of political pundits, economists, philosophers and writers reflected his natural curiosity, his generous spirit, his incisiveness, his grace and his passion for reconciling apparently conflicting ideas.

Comrie-Thomson was born in Sydney on March 26, 1948, son of Eric Comrie-Thomson and his wife, Sylvia (nee Somerville). He and his sister, Sue, grew up in Greenwich and he went to St Igatius College, Riverview, where, as his classmate Philip Sharp put it, several of the teachers were impassioned educators and occasional eccentrics. One was Tony Gallagher, a university medallist in the classics and a founder of Gleebooks, who would encourage his class to mull over a single Greek or Latin poem for an entire week.

While studying at the University of NSW in the late 1960s, Comrie-Thomson was one of the editors of the student journal Tharunka, which aimed to irritate authority figures at large and succeeded mightily. After graduating, he worked as a copywriter for the Endeavour Advertising Group then became a part-owner and editor of Rolling Stone magazine’s Australian edition. He also retained an interest in the Australian band the Saints until 1990 and Sydney filmmaker Michael Robertson fondly recalls the rock concerts – Frank Zappa and the Rolling Stones – they frequented at this time.

When journalist Mark Colvin spoke at Comrie-Thomson’s funeral, he mourned the loss of his lunching companion. "I stand here as just one representative of a group … who have been meeting Comrie for lunch every month or so for a decade or more … It’s really Les [Gock] who should be up here with a guitar and amp, peeling off licks from the rock and blues guitar greats. Comrie knew the blues and its roots."

Comrie-Thomson knew about other "blues" too. There were losses in his life that friends suggest marked him significantly. One was the sudden death of his first wife, Henrietta Resler, who had a congenital heart problem, and the other was the drowning of a friend at Freshwater where they were surfing as teenagers.

After he and his second wife, Susan, parted ways in 2000 and while he was running his own advertising consultancy, Comrie-Thomson enrolled part-time at the University of Sydney. In 2003, he was awarded a master of philosophy. Later, his daughter Elizabeth traced his footsteps and was awarded a bachelor of philosophy. He was incandescent with pride.

When Comrie-Thomson parted ways with Counterpoint, he began writing essays for The Spectator and Financial Review. One of his most memorable was on misogyny – or not – in "Dead white men have last word", where he moved from Botticelli to Shakespeare to The Adventures of Barry McKenzie without missing a beat. It was wise, it was funny, and very tongue in cheek – a perfect expression of how Comrie-Thomson approached real life as well as the imaginative world. Another essay, on Mick Jagger and Margaret Thatcher, diverted him so successfully that he began planning a book around these figures – a warp and weft of social and musical history in Britain.

Comrie-Thomson had an expansive appetite for ideas and for conversation, a warm heart and his generosity was legendary. He was always the first to arrive at a friend's front door with a vintage champagne or a well-chosen CD to celebrate a triumph. His friends can hope there will be a rhythm and blues group playing on his appearance at his next venue.