• Staff, alumni and community mourn the passing of a Charles Sturt University academic who educated to enrich the soul and spirit, and taught about love, joy, jest and loss, community, family and belonging

Tributes have flowed for a respected and loved, retired Charles Sturt University academic who died suddenly last week after a brief illness.

Staff and alumni of Charles Sturt University in Bathurst are deeply saddened by the death of Mr William ‘Bill’ Douglas Blaikie, OAM, (21 April 1947 ─ 29 September 2023) a long-serving former theatre media academic.

A graduate of Bathurst Teachers’ College, one of the University’s predecessor institutions, Mr Blaikie (pictured) enjoyed a long career in education and more than three decades as a lecturer in the then-School of Communication at the University’s campus in Bathurst.

Commencing his academic tenure with Mitchell College of Advanced Education (MCAE) in 1976, Mr Blaikie guided hundreds of Mitchell College and Charles Sturt students in their understanding and appreciation of theatre, as both an art form and as a practical educational tool in their careers, and he did so with creativity, erudition and humour.

Mr Blaikie’s retirement from the University in 2007 was celebrated by a cabaret at the Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre (BMEC) in July that year.

In June 2022, in what was to be the last of the Queen’s Birthday Honours, Mr Blaikie was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the General Division ‘for service to the performing arts’, which was conferred at Government House in Sydney on Tuesday 11 October last year.

This reflected his decades of teaching, firstly at Mitchell College and later Charles Sturt University, and his involvement in numerous theatre productions in Bathurst, as well as touring productions to schools in regional NSW and as part of overseas development projects, particularly in Timor Leste.

Mr Blaikie subsequently noted to the local Western Advocate newspaper, “ … it’s not an award just for me, it’s an award for all of the people who were involved in all the productions – the crews and the designers and the cast and the writers”.

Addressing the gathering after Mr Blaikie’s funeral his daughter Anthea cited Greek philosopher Aristotle as epitomising her father’s approach to life and education.

“Aristotle said, ‘Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.’ That was Dad,” Anthea said. “A student of life, a passionate learner, he was a voracious reader, deep thinker, but also an eternal optimist and wonderfully sentimental.

“Dad believed passionately in the power of education, the opportunity it provided to bring people together, to make change and to bring joy and positivity to the world.

“All of us here learnt from Dad, and all of us know that part of his education of us was linked to what he saw as enriching the soul and spirit, teaching us about love and joy and jest and loss, community and family and belonging, as well as the destructiveness of their opposites.

“That was why he loved Shakespeare, and Greek tragedies, and Italian playwright, actor and theatre-maker Dario Fo, and others. They challenged and confronted, and they educated the heart. That was Dad.  Always teaching, always bringing people and ideas together.”

Mr Blaikie was highly respected by his academic peers and revered and much-loved by his theatre media students, now illustrious alumni of the University contributing to a world worth living in.

A long-time colleague and now Newsroom and Content Coordinator in the Charles Sturt School of Information and Communication Studies, Dr David Cameron said, “Bill’s sudden passing brings a wave of love and loss to our Communication family.

“Former colleagues and graduates will remember Bill as a brilliant educator and mentor who challenged us all to think critically and act creatively with bravery and compassion. Bill had a twinkle in the eye and a heart the size of Wahluu. He will be deeply missed.”

At the gathering following Mr Blaikie’s funeral, theatre media alumnus Mr Liam Nesbitt said, “Bill’s approach to education and life changed the way I look at the world, how I approach challenges, how I explore opportunity, and how I find and share joy.”

Fellow alumnus Mr Stefan Elbourne said, “Bill taught us things that our own fathers might not have been able to teach us.”

In concluding, Anthea again quoted her father’s appreciation of Aristotle; “‘Without friends (and family), no one would want to live, even if he had all other goods’, and in the words of Dario Fo, ‘Know how to live the time that is given you’. That was Dad.”

Mr Blaikie is survived by his wife of nearly 50 years, Lia, children Douglas, Lachlan, and Anthea, and five granddaughters and an extended family.