Colin Simpson (Australian journalist)

Simpson was born Edwin Colin Simpson in Petersham, a suburb in the inner west of Sydney. His parents were Henry Frank Simpson, a mechanic, and his wife Margaret Olive, née Langby, a nurse. Simpson moved with his mother to live in the small New South Wales gold mining town of Hill End, where he would spend most of his childhood. He attended the Kogarah Intermediate High School. ==Career as journalist==

His first job was as a copywriter in the advertising agency, Catts-Patterson Co. Ltd., and he then worked as a journalist, contributing to Sydney newspapers including Daily Guardian, Daily Telegraph, ''Smith's Weekly and the Sunday newspapers. were responsible for an article in The Sun'''s "Fact" supplement exposing the Ern Malley literary hoax. In 1944 he went to the United States to report on the founding of the United Nations organisation and to study American magazine publishing techniques. While there he conducted interviews with celebrities including John L. Lewis, Claire Booth Luce, Billy Rose, Frank Sinatra and Henry Wallace. For another documentary in the same year he joined the anthropologist Charles P. Mountford's American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land during which he taped Australian "Aboriginal rituals and songs never before heard on Australian radio..., along with Australian birdlife". ==Career as writer==

His employment with the Australian Broadcasting Commission came to an end in 1950 when his contract was not renewed due to budget cuts instituted by the Australian government's treasury department. The ASA established the annual Colin Simpson Lecture to commemorate "the journalist and author Colin Simpson, a founding member of the ASA, the driving force behind the introduction of Public Lending Right in 1975, and an accomplished travel writer and television host". A range of "illustrious... luminaries" from the Australian writing, publishing and journalism communities have delivered this lecture. ==Honours==

• 1981: Order of the British Empire (OBE) – for service to literature and journalism ==Personal life==

In 1938 Simpson married Estelle Maud "Claire" Waterman, a graphic artist who would during his career contribute illustrations to his published books. She predeceased him in 1976. He had two daughters, Julie and Vivien. He died on 8 February 1983 in Kirribilli Private Hospital. ==Bibliography==