Hubert Kestell Cornish, known to many as Hugh Cornish: the first face on television in Queensland, and ultimately Queensland's last living link to the genesis of our TV industry in the late 1950's and early 1960's sadly passed away on December 11, 2024 at the age of 90.
Hugh's career in the television medium was one that began, with the introduction of the first filmed news footage for Queensland television (Princess Alexandria on her way from Canberra to Brisbane for Queensland's centennial celebrations), and ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, both in on-air and off-air roles, before exploring new frontiers in the arts sector throughout the 1990's, before becoming the elder statesman of Queensland's TV industry for twenty years until his passing.
But like every great story, Hugh's has it's beginnings somewhere.
(Thanks to Hugh's autobiography "Funny You Should Ask", for the help about transcribing his life up until 1996. If you ever stumble on it at Brisbane's Lifeline Bookfest or somewhere else, it is a great read.)
Hubert Kestell Cornish was born in Killarney in Queensland's southern Darling Downs on Feburary 6, 1934, into a family with deep Anglican roots: Hugh's early childhood was spent going from parish to parish with his family, Killarney, then to Stanthorpe, Nundah (alongside a brief evacuation to Wondai in the early parts of the Second World War) and ultimately: Ipswich. Hugh's family from a very early age encouraged him and his brothers: Vernon and Gerald to speak with clarity, and get into music (after all, Hugh's parents were a strong believer in the Eisteddfod concept, establishing numerous events in the parishes they served in: the longest living is the Ipswich Junior Eisteddfod, set to turn eighty in 2025): Hugh's lifelong love for the piano began in his youth, and he ultimately graduated Ipswich Grammar School in 1951, before a internship with CSR, and a stint in National Service, leading to a permanent move from Ipswich to Brisbane, before taking two opportunities up: a appearance at a Australia's Amateur Hour recording at the Rialto Theatre in Brisbane, which ultimately led to a talent contest that Hugh won (the prize being a solo paid performance, which by sheer coincidence: ended up being part of the first Brisbane performance for Johnny O'Keefe (not yet a rock and roll pioneer: but had the knack to impersonate hit parade regular, Johnny Ray).
It was at that time, Hugh got the showbiz bug.
Radio jobs at 4IP (long before it's push into Brisbane) and 4BH followed, in a era where the station's most notable presenter (Bob Rogers: who passed away earlier this year at the age of 97) was about to leave to make it big elsewhere (the first top 40 format in Australia at Sydney's 2UE), while Bob's replacement Bill Gates, would ultimately discover a Cribb Island family band: what became the Bee Gees.
4BH was literally henpecked when television kicked off in Brisbane: with both Seven and Nine getting the station's prime announcers: Seven got Brian Tait... Nine got Hugh Cornish. Hugh would ultimately win that race to get on air first, on August 16, 1959 at 6:30pm: after a short stint at QTQ's CBD office right flush, with Barry and Roberts on Queen St: (due to parts of the studios not yet being completed: most notably seeing QTQ on Mt Coot-tha running off a temporary toilet setup (not too dissimilar to parts of suburban Brisbane prior to Lord Mayor Clem Jones's push toward adding many more homes and businesses to the council's sewer network in the 1960's) until a septic tank, ultimately connected to Brisbane's sewers was installed), while the first transmitter, was a telegraph pole, until the first permanent QTQ tower was finished in 1960 (The first QTQ tower today forms part of the array of transmitters at Mt Tamborine, behind the Gold Coast, after being replaced with the current tower in the 1980's).
Hugh's early years in television were a patchwork quilt: newsreading work (famously fashioning a crude autocue from a sewing machine motor), as well as early variety products, led by Brisbane Tonight, a product that ultimately struggled thanks to the energy of Brian Tait at Seven, and a surprise recruit to Seven: George Wallace Jr, and the Theatre Royal juggernaut (not before the most famous bit of black and white footage QTQ ever produced: something you wouldn't get away with today, Hugh, Max Blake (as the chief) and Brian Joyce (as a witchdoctor) in blackface miming to "My Boomerang Won't Come Back" in 1961 (which was lost after significant replay): and was ultimately remade in 1969 for QTQ's 10th birthday, with Hugh playing his role from '61, and Brian Cahill playing the witchdoctor and Ron Cadee playing the chief (which is often replayed on significant occasions for QTQ... and is likely the reason the network has not bothered with the traditional docos post-50th for QTQ), as well as a early organizer of telethons in Brisbane (which all had their seeds in a appeal run over TV's first Christmas in Brisbane: one to raise money for television sets for the Royal Children's Hospital at Herston), whose talents were later called on in the 1970's, twice in twelve months (national efforts for first, Brisbane's Australia Day flood in 1974, and then Cyclone Tracy in early 1975).
Hugh's career in the television medium was one that began, with the introduction of the first filmed news footage for Queensland television (Princess Alexandria on her way from Canberra to Brisbane for Queensland's centennial celebrations), and ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, both in on-air and off-air roles, before exploring new frontiers in the arts sector throughout the 1990's, before becoming the elder statesman of Queensland's TV industry for twenty years until his passing.
But like every great story, Hugh's has it's beginnings somewhere.
(Thanks to Hugh's autobiography "Funny You Should Ask", for the help about transcribing his life up until 1996. If you ever stumble on it at Brisbane's Lifeline Bookfest or somewhere else, it is a great read.)
Hubert Kestell Cornish was born in Killarney in Queensland's southern Darling Downs on Feburary 6, 1934, into a family with deep Anglican roots: Hugh's early childhood was spent going from parish to parish with his family, Killarney, then to Stanthorpe, Nundah (alongside a brief evacuation to Wondai in the early parts of the Second World War) and ultimately: Ipswich. Hugh's family from a very early age encouraged him and his brothers: Vernon and Gerald to speak with clarity, and get into music (after all, Hugh's parents were a strong believer in the Eisteddfod concept, establishing numerous events in the parishes they served in: the longest living is the Ipswich Junior Eisteddfod, set to turn eighty in 2025): Hugh's lifelong love for the piano began in his youth, and he ultimately graduated Ipswich Grammar School in 1951, before a internship with CSR, and a stint in National Service, leading to a permanent move from Ipswich to Brisbane, before taking two opportunities up: a appearance at a Australia's Amateur Hour recording at the Rialto Theatre in Brisbane, which ultimately led to a talent contest that Hugh won (the prize being a solo paid performance, which by sheer coincidence: ended up being part of the first Brisbane performance for Johnny O'Keefe (not yet a rock and roll pioneer: but had the knack to impersonate hit parade regular, Johnny Ray).
It was at that time, Hugh got the showbiz bug.
Radio jobs at 4IP (long before it's push into Brisbane) and 4BH followed, in a era where the station's most notable presenter (Bob Rogers: who passed away earlier this year at the age of 97) was about to leave to make it big elsewhere (the first top 40 format in Australia at Sydney's 2UE), while Bob's replacement Bill Gates, would ultimately discover a Cribb Island family band: what became the Bee Gees.
4BH was literally henpecked when television kicked off in Brisbane: with both Seven and Nine getting the station's prime announcers: Seven got Brian Tait... Nine got Hugh Cornish. Hugh would ultimately win that race to get on air first, on August 16, 1959 at 6:30pm: after a short stint at QTQ's CBD office right flush, with Barry and Roberts on Queen St: (due to parts of the studios not yet being completed: most notably seeing QTQ on Mt Coot-tha running off a temporary toilet setup (not too dissimilar to parts of suburban Brisbane prior to Lord Mayor Clem Jones's push toward adding many more homes and businesses to the council's sewer network in the 1960's) until a septic tank, ultimately connected to Brisbane's sewers was installed), while the first transmitter, was a telegraph pole, until the first permanent QTQ tower was finished in 1960 (The first QTQ tower today forms part of the array of transmitters at Mt Tamborine, behind the Gold Coast, after being replaced with the current tower in the 1980's).
Hugh's early years in television were a patchwork quilt: newsreading work (famously fashioning a crude autocue from a sewing machine motor), as well as early variety products, led by Brisbane Tonight, a product that ultimately struggled thanks to the energy of Brian Tait at Seven, and a surprise recruit to Seven: George Wallace Jr, and the Theatre Royal juggernaut (not before the most famous bit of black and white footage QTQ ever produced: something you wouldn't get away with today, Hugh, Max Blake (as the chief) and Brian Joyce (as a witchdoctor) in blackface miming to "My Boomerang Won't Come Back" in 1961 (which was lost after significant replay): and was ultimately remade in 1969 for QTQ's 10th birthday, with Hugh playing his role from '61, and Brian Cahill playing the witchdoctor and Ron Cadee playing the chief (which is often replayed on significant occasions for QTQ... and is likely the reason the network has not bothered with the traditional docos post-50th for QTQ), as well as a early organizer of telethons in Brisbane (which all had their seeds in a appeal run over TV's first Christmas in Brisbane: one to raise money for television sets for the Royal Children's Hospital at Herston), whose talents were later called on in the 1970's, twice in twelve months (national efforts for first, Brisbane's Australia Day flood in 1974, and then Cyclone Tracy in early 1975).
Variety waned for Nine Brisbane, due to the dominance of Theatre Royal on Seven, although Nine made some canny hires in the early sixties (Barry Whalen: the original Veritas, became QTQ's publicity director: with one caveat, Whalen continued his work for the Brisbane Sunday Truth, while never letting on his role at QTQ, and QTQ employees were sworn to secrecy about the fact Veritas was on QTQ's payroll (with Barry famously coining "Hughie the Beaut" as a nickname for Hugh, and "Twink" for Seven's Brian Tait (short for "Twinkletoes" after Tait had been found taking dancing lessons... with QTQ's choreographer) to use in Veritas columns), Gerard Kennedy, the QTQ set painter who wound up winning two Gold Logies as a actor: and Logies Hall of Famer Kerry O'Brien: who began his journalistic journey as a cadet at QTQ in the mid 1960's.) However: a new commercial station in town, and a continually struggling QTQ (despite new ideas, like partnering up Don Seccombe and Melody Welsh as a newsreading duo, the first male/female pairing in the country) led to Hugh being given a magnificent opportunity in Feburary 1967: a appointment as the head programmer for QTQ. That role would last until the start of the 1980's, with Hugh being the experimental type: one example was seen with his own version of CBS's rural purge, in October 1974, instead of cancelling every show with a tree in it like Fred Silverman did in 1970... Hugh cancelled every local primetime gameshow QTQ was making at the time (inc. one Hugh hosted himself) in favour of stripped repeats of Gomer Pyle at 7pm (the slot those gameshows were in), and succeeded dramatically. And, it wasn't just canny repeat schedules that made Cornish the "prince of programmers": but made some significant names in QLD's industry in the process, as the march to colour took hold: Jackie McDonald replacing Jim Iliffe doing childrens television, the recruitment of Paul Sharratt (who broke into his own in the mid seventies, inc. one famous episode of his Studio 9 program on August 31, 1976: the last hurrah for cigarette advertising, with QTQ having the honour of the last cigarette ad to run in Australia at 1min to midnight) and made his own bit of history: QTQ being the first station in the world to run US sitcom Happy Days as a stripped product (just utilizing 39 episodes from the first two seasons, famously rerun several times in a row after ratings spiked on the first set of reruns) in 1975: five years before the US caught on, when the first seasons of Happy Days began it's syndication run.
But the loss of Jackie Mac (ultimately to 0 (and 9 Sydney/Melbourne), something Hugh surprisingly protected the rights of TVQ to market Jackie as a local personality five days a week: in not taking Hey Hey it's Saturday on relay until it's primetime debut in 1984) and hiring of Fiona McDonald (who passed away in September 2024) kept Hugh on his toes... that is, until a chance recruitment in 1978: one that would ultimately set the course for six years of competition.
For starters, 1980 had the first of five transactions that saw Brisbane stations change hands between 1980 and the end of 1984, Fairfax (owner since 1959) selling QTQ to AWA, while keeping some management: and not long after, the "prince of programmers", who turned down a offer to become Nine's lead programmer nationally, was elevated to the most senior role at QTQ, the general manager for the station upon the retirement of founding QTQ GM, Jim McKay in mid 1981: and suddenly, Hugh became the big target for Seven. Hugh, began to market his piano music at the same time, rolling out several albums (although getting a nasty shock on a Asian vacation in the mid 1980's, when finding out that one of his piano albums had been pirated... while in a elevator), and saw it a relief from the stress the head of a station like QTQ would face. The last regular variety product Hugh presented, was a talent quest: Stairway to The Stars. We now present to you two full episodes from the 1981/82 season, of this QTQ early eighties staple... rescued by one FLEMISHDOG.
Hugh, as GM heading into the Commonwealth Games year, got a golden opportunity come September 1982: a royal command performance, at Brisbane's Her Majesty's Theatre (whose days were numbered) on the newly opened Queen St Mall. Hugh finally got to live his dream, that he had since his twenties to meet Queen Elizabeth the 2nd, and put on a spectacular function fitting for royalty. The good news continued to roll for Hugh, with a AM honour bestowed in the 1983 Australia Day honours list, but stormclouds began to form for QTQ not long after, as the Queensland regionals ultimately flicked their relays to Seven, and Hugh had to do something in response: luring Frank Warrick from BTQ's news, and ultimately planned to crown him the heir to Don Seccombe's chair. At the same time, however: QTQ had lost the touch: with Seven now a dominating force in Brisbane, and in Queensland as a whole. Hugh took two big gambles in his final years at the top at QTQ. The first came in early 1984, right at the start of the silver anniversary year for QTQ.
In fact, Hugh built the entire year around the milestone... from Ekka merchandise, to a significant retrospective, held on a Sunday afternoon in mid-August 1984. It was at this retrospective, Hugh looked toward the future of television, toward that distant year of 2009 (not just as Hugh the first face in QLD, and the longest continuously serving personality on television in Australia at that time but Hugh the station manager, likely gearing up for a change in the weather in the industry).
The second big gamble, would begin after the last of the Join The Party promos aired. QTQ attempted to embrace Brisbane much like Seven had done successfully since 1982 with the Love You Brisbane campaign. However, not long after the first promos hit the screens... the sale of QTQ from AWA to Alan Bond would be finalized... and Bond, decided to ultimately put in his own management (inc. a complete new board of directors) at QTQ.
In fact, Hugh built the entire year around the milestone... from Ekka merchandise, to a significant retrospective, held on a Sunday afternoon in mid-August 1984. It was at this retrospective, Hugh looked toward the future of television, toward that distant year of 2009 (not just as Hugh the first face in QLD, and the longest continuously serving personality on television in Australia at that time but Hugh the station manager, likely gearing up for a change in the weather in the industry).
The second big gamble, would begin after the last of the Join The Party promos aired. QTQ attempted to embrace Brisbane much like Seven had done successfully since 1982 with the Love You Brisbane campaign. However, not long after the first promos hit the screens... the sale of QTQ from AWA to Alan Bond would be finalized... and Bond, decided to ultimately put in his own management (inc. a complete new board of directors) at QTQ.
The moment, the Hugh Cornish era at QTQ ended: Wednesday, March 20, 1985, when Hugh tendered his resignation to the new QTQ board, after a significant event: QTQ losing it's 22nd ratings survey on the trot, and a highly controversial last ditch attempt to show his worth to Bond, by completely blowing up QTQ's 6-7:30pm lineup (a remake perhaps of his 1974 effort)... which sent Today Tonight to spend it's final months on air, at 9:30pm at night.
The shock move by Seven to offer a hand to it's former nemesis a month after his departure from Nine was a statement maker for it's time. It gave Hugh a lighter schedule, and tried to diversify Seven's efforts in Brisbane beyond television (something the station had already begun long before Cornish's switch to Seven). A three year run with Seven followed, both in corporate development and once Christopher Skase bought the network: greenlighting new childrens television content (although Hugh privately hoped that Skase would make him their lead programmer for the network), alongside another icon, in Dina Heslop. One key memory Hugh had of that near three year run at Seven was a interesting piece of procurement. Picture this: you are developing a EKKA showbag to market BTQ at it's prime. Each year it had to have a different bonus... 1987 led with a watch that did a eight bit instrumental of the Love You Brisbane campaign. The big problem: the China-made watches looked great... but the batteries in them were mostly flat by the time the '87 EKKA rolled around, hence a mass recall to replace the batteries inside.
However: some niggling issues from his final days at QTQ resurfaced in mid 1988: with Hugh facing up as a witness (recounting his last days with QTQ, inc. having to compile a report concerning SEQEB strike coverage on QTQ... only to have a Bond-aligned lawyer produce a similar report before he had a chance to produce his own) to a Australian Broadcast Tribunal inquiry concerning whether or not Alan Bond was fit and proper to hold a broadcast licence after a $400k payment by Bond to Sir Joh Bjelke Peterson was leaked to the public.
Highlights of Hugh's testimony into the Alan Bond inquiry by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, 19/5/1988, The West Australian.
However, in late 1988: TVQ began negotiations with several talents both off and on-air at BTQ (most significantly, Hugh, BTQ announcer Chuck Hobler, promotions exec Gary Linaker and weather presenter Noel Stanaway). 10 offered a deal that sounded great on paper (a five year contract to read weekend news), and Hugh took it, and on Feburary 6, 1989 (his 55th birthday no less): Hugh was done with Seven. On Feburary 11, 1989: Hugh (alongside another acquisition: Pam Tamblyn) began reading TVQ's weekend news (with Noel Stanaway as the weather presenter) for the best part of a year.
We now take you back to February 11 1989, the last days of Darling Downs Television owning TVQ, with the lead story that night... being staringly familiar to viewers of today.
The Hugh Cornish resignation from QTQ made front page news in Brisbane.
What Hugh did next made page 3.
(CM front page 21/3/85 and CM page 3 11/4/85)
What Hugh did next made page 3.
(CM front page 21/3/85 and CM page 3 11/4/85)
The shock move by Seven to offer a hand to it's former nemesis a month after his departure from Nine was a statement maker for it's time. It gave Hugh a lighter schedule, and tried to diversify Seven's efforts in Brisbane beyond television (something the station had already begun long before Cornish's switch to Seven). A three year run with Seven followed, both in corporate development and once Christopher Skase bought the network: greenlighting new childrens television content (although Hugh privately hoped that Skase would make him their lead programmer for the network), alongside another icon, in Dina Heslop. One key memory Hugh had of that near three year run at Seven was a interesting piece of procurement. Picture this: you are developing a EKKA showbag to market BTQ at it's prime. Each year it had to have a different bonus... 1987 led with a watch that did a eight bit instrumental of the Love You Brisbane campaign. The big problem: the China-made watches looked great... but the batteries in them were mostly flat by the time the '87 EKKA rolled around, hence a mass recall to replace the batteries inside.
However: some niggling issues from his final days at QTQ resurfaced in mid 1988: with Hugh facing up as a witness (recounting his last days with QTQ, inc. having to compile a report concerning SEQEB strike coverage on QTQ... only to have a Bond-aligned lawyer produce a similar report before he had a chance to produce his own) to a Australian Broadcast Tribunal inquiry concerning whether or not Alan Bond was fit and proper to hold a broadcast licence after a $400k payment by Bond to Sir Joh Bjelke Peterson was leaked to the public.
Highlights of Hugh's testimony into the Alan Bond inquiry by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, 19/5/1988, The West Australian.
However, in late 1988: TVQ began negotiations with several talents both off and on-air at BTQ (most significantly, Hugh, BTQ announcer Chuck Hobler, promotions exec Gary Linaker and weather presenter Noel Stanaway). 10 offered a deal that sounded great on paper (a five year contract to read weekend news), and Hugh took it, and on Feburary 6, 1989 (his 55th birthday no less): Hugh was done with Seven. On Feburary 11, 1989: Hugh (alongside another acquisition: Pam Tamblyn) began reading TVQ's weekend news (with Noel Stanaway as the weather presenter) for the best part of a year.
We now take you back to February 11 1989, the last days of Darling Downs Television owning TVQ, with the lead story that night... being staringly familiar to viewers of today.
Not long afterward, Hugh, had to deal with a big story of 10's own making: the ditching of the TVQ chopper off Moreton Island.
But the big issue we noticed is that Hugh's news reading in 1989: was too slow paced, for a era where the average intro to a story was snappy. Not to mention the visible issues for a presenter who last read a news bulletin in the 1960's, trying to adapt to 1980's style news presentation, including concepts like banter (what late American news executive Al Primo called "happy talk") with others on the desk, as Hugh tried to pull off on the closure of his first bulletin with 10: the excitement of a promotional event at New Farm Park the next day... and electronic weather graphics (especially as Hugh last read news regularly in a era of physical maps on screen for weather presentation).
Our belief is 10 wasted Hugh on the news desk: TVQ in 1989 had the three best TV marketers that Brisbane had in the 1980's all under the one roof (Cornish, Linaker (imported from 7) and Mike Lattin, fresh off his Expo 88 triumph). Why the trio weren't used to develop a strategy for the network as a whole (instead of Frank Lowy paying big bucks for American executive Bob Shanks, who thought gameshow overkill were the solution for 10's ills, when you could have just asked your Brisbane weekend newsreader to do some programming work for you during the week) is one of the biggest what-ifs our industry has.
Ultimately, at the end of 1989, Hugh's TV career was over with TVQ (now having gone through it's third owner in that time span: Broadcom, after Darling Downs TV first sold TVQ to Northern Star in mid-June 1989, then Northern Star sold TEN, ATV and TVQ to Broadcom in September 1989), and he fell back on a consulting business and his music throughout the 1990's recession. It was then, in 1993, Hugh was appointed the head of corporate development for the Queensland Arts Council, (while publishing his autobiography in 1996) a role that would lead into a similar position with the Queensland Orchestra... but in 1999 one simple decision melted away a fifteen year gulf with QTQ since his resignation as GM in 1985. The station turned forty, that year with a promo that ended with the following lines.
"We've cried, hurt and laughed:
Our lives, hopes and fears...
Queensland, and Channel 9...
Together for forty years...
(Closing shot, Bruce Paige, Heather Foord and Hugh Cornish)"
It was at this point, Hugh Cornish, became the Queensland TV industry's elder statesman that people were seeing as far back as the late 1980's (when Hugh first considered leaving Seven), and took another decade to fully realize. And, it was a role he relished in.
The 2000's saw the loss of people who played significant parts of QTQ's and our industry's story: Ron Cadee in 2004, Jim Iliffe in 2005, Seven's Brian Tait in 2007 and right before QTQ's fiftieth in 2009, Paul Sharratt, and increasingly Hugh became a true survivor, and named a Queensland Great in 2004, although he moved into retirement living in the early 2010's at Renaissance Victoria Point (performing for residents, even taking part in a charity calendar), he became the face that symbolized our great leaps: digital switchover in May 2013, and that moment we'd felt for just one night that we went back thirty years: to when Hugh was QTQ GM and ruled Mt Coot-tha with a iron fist was just one of those moments.
The last public appearance Hugh made, was for QTQ's sixtieth in 2019, at a Brisbane CBD function, attended by many luminaries, just months after a stroke. The steps Nine took in the twenty years post-1999 to repair and renew the relationship once thought long broken with Hugh after the way he was treated by Alan Bond in 1985 (once so bad, when Hugh was working on state government advertising for the 1989-1992 QLD daylight saving trial's commencement in late 1989, while still doing weekend news for TVQ: Nine refused to air it, to the benefit of Seven, Ten and the QLD regionals), was nothing more than remarkable. By the time Hugh passed away: he had outlived many people he nurtured in television, many former ABQ, BTQ and QTQ employees that began their careers as part of the 1959 club and many of the founding fathers of the Australian television industry as a whole.
However, away from the screen, Hugh brought up a fine family with wife Joyce, although some setbacks happened: in 1986, one of his sons, Robin was electrocuted, and ultimately was paralyzed after emerging from a lengthy coma, the early nineties saw daughter Sandrene face a breast cancer fight that she ultimately lost in 1997 (and was interred in the memorial garden at St Margaret's Girls School at Ascot), and just before Christmas in 2013, the loss of the patriarch that held the glue of this family together Joyce, with the funeral being held where Hugh and Joyce married in 1958: St Augustine's Anglican Church in Hamilton in early 2014, and just four months later: in April 2014, Hugh lost his last living sibling: Gerald (a Anglican missionary) at the age of 75.
Tentative details for Hugh's funeral (a event which will likely be the biggest Brisbane media funeral since Billy J Smith's in 2019, easily eclipsing the recent funeral of Sir Frank Moore on October 30, 2024 and will have significantly more media coverage) from places such as R.A.T.S Brisbane (a fellowship organization for retired TV, radio and advertising professionals, whose regular lunches Hugh often attended in his later years) that it will likely be held sometime in January in 2025: with hopes amongst many, including ourselves, that it is made into a state funeral due to the role Hugh played in shaping Queensland's television industry from it's beginning, as well as his status as a Queensland Great.
It is fitting, that we end this obituary, with the song used for the bridal waltz (although, as Hugh said in his book, it was actually a foxtrot) of Hugh and Joyce in 1958, that Hugh then used as his personal theme when performing with the piano and ended up recording his own version of this particular track on one of his albums.
The track... is Blue Moon.
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