Echo co-founder, author and avid chess player, David Lovejoy, died with dignity and on his own terms last Wednesday, October 2 at his home in Mullumbimby.
His children held his hands as he slipped peacefully – and willingly – into unconsciousness.
He was 80, and had been suffering from throat cancer that had recurred over many years. He called the tumour ‘Donald’ and when he was given his most recent diagnosis he declared that he would live to 80, and to see Donald Trump a convicted felon. He achieved both of those goals.
While most long-term locals would know of David’s contributions as owner, manager, editor and journalist at The Echo, his life before starting the independent newspaper with Nicholas Shand in 1986 was equally unique.
Born March 23, 1944 in war-ravaged England, David was the first of three children to Ivy and Charlie Lovejoy. His younger sisters are Sally and Pam.
Their mother Ivy had fought bravely as a firefighter during German bombing raids over London, while Charlie navigated large Lancaster bomber planes over Germany.
David developed a ferocious reading habit from a young age, and he also later developed a keen passion for poetry.
Chess was also a passion for David throughout his life, he won many tournaments and was at one point Queensland champion. He learned how to play at a young age with his equally chess-obsessed cousin Peter.
Diving into life
In the swinging ’60s, David attended Oxford University on an Arts scholarship, yet admitted that he didn’t take it all that seriously. He ‘played too much bridge’ and boozed up with his friends while hooning around in fast Jaguars.
He then discovered LSD through connections via Aldous Huxley’s nephew, Francis.
David said in his autobiography that LSD was the ‘gateway to the long voyage of self-discovery, propelled by meditation and eastern mysticism’.
After being taught the meditation techniques of Maharaji, David and his friends embarked on a journey by bus across several continents to arrive in India in 1970, to be at the feet of the 13-year-old guru named Maharaji (now known as Prem Rawat).
David continued alone onto Australia with virtually no funds, while his travelling companions returned home.
Upon arrival in Darwin, his first encounter was with a budding young trade unionist and future PM, Bob Hawke, who handed beers out randomly on the beach where he was sleeping. ‘This is the country for me’, David wrote in his autobiography.
After settling into a Sydney ashram devoted to meditation and the teachings of Maharaji, he met artist and musician Wendy Avery, and the two fell in love. They had two children together, Hans and Claire.
David eventually became responsible for Maharaji’s Divine Light Mission (DLM), an organisation which expanded to Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane.
‘In just over two years Maharaji’s knowledge had spread widely in Australia and New Zealand. We had about 5,000 members with centres in every state capital’, he wrote.
By 1976, David’s connection to DLM waned, yet he always remained connected to fellow disciples of Maharaji, and the practice of mediation.
The birth of The Echo
David worked as a typesetter, way before Apple desktop publishing, and ran a small typesetting and commercial art company in Brisbane, before moving to Wilsons Creek, behind Mullumbimby, in 1985.
From there, David met the enigmatic Nicholas Shand, who was in need of a typesetter and production manager for his fledgling new newspaper. With both men being similar in age, intellect, humour and being British-born, they soon became inseparable.
From David’s autobiography: ‘[Nicholas’s] motivation for starting a newspaper was the behaviour of the police when they searched the valleys for marijuana crops. In the early ’80s, there had been many blatant civil rights abuses committed by the police during these raids, but Nicholas found it impossible to get the local media to report them’.
The Echo’s beginnings were made possible by the financial support of Nicholas’s wife Jane, and the tireless contributions of committed staff.
Contributors
Some of those early contributors and staff members were his wife Wendy, Dorothy Mullins, Carol Page, Geoff Williams (who designed the masthead), Donny McCorrmack, Michael McDonald, Sandy O’Keefe, Jeff Taylor, Jeff Dawson, and Tuppy Lang.
Freelancers included Derek Harper and John Macgregor. Later additions to the staff were Julian Martin, Deb Tinker, Careena Hooper, Christina Harvey, Alan Lloyd, Joel Bohm, Janet Price, Mandy Thane, Felicity Gaze, Jenny Verroen, Jacklyn Wagner, Richard Conrad, Eve Sinton, Lilith Rochas, Mandy Nolan, the irreplaceable Simon Haslam and the mighty Mungo MacCallum. And that’s just a few of the very large number of contributors.
First issue
Three thousand A4 black and white copies of the first Brunswick Valley Echo were printed by local printer Andrew Bradley on June 11, 1986.
From the very beginning, the paper was committed to unflinching political reporting and published libertarian free speech views, which upset conservatives.
David wrote, ‘Over the years, I was responsible for more litigation against the paper than Nicholas. Partly this was because he was wiser than I, and partly because I was more pugnacious and less diplomatic than he.’
David found a voice as Edward Herring, a fictional journalist thrust into a parallel universe of Byron Shire, and the instalments were beautifully illustrated by Stephen Axelsen. David also added humour to the paper with a fake TV guide synopsis.
The Echo soon gained traction as a valuable source of information and advertising for the community, and as the paper grew, along with it did long boozy nights and the infamous Echo awards.
The small Echo team also achieved technological advancements.
As defacto IT admin, David, along with an American friend, Marty Landa, moved The Echo’s antiquated pre-press production to Macintosh computers in 1990, and David claims to have beaten large publisher Fairfax to it by a matter of months.
And with the help of IT whiz Jonno in 1996, he says The Echo was among the first newspapers in the country to have a website.
With growing advertising revenue, The Echo courageously spread itself to Lismore by starting another paper in 1991. It was sold to the employees a few years later after discovering that Lismore is not Byron.
In 1993, The Echo expanded to a B4 size, similar to tabloid size, and David, Nicholas and Michael McDonald devoted their energies into covering local politics with gusto.
On October 27, 1996, Nicholas died tragically in a car accident, leaving David, the Echo team, and the community, heartbroken.
Along with new staff and longtime drudges, David continued to produce excellent newspapers until his retirement, navigating through the GFC and various political and financial turmoils.
He spent his final years travelling, playing chess tournaments, cuddling cats, and reading and writing numerous poems and novels.
David’s novels include Heresy, Gods & Heroes, Yellowstone Butterfly, White Horses and Dark Knights, Hypatia’s Legacy, and Moral Victories. You can read David’s recollections on how The Echo came to be at: www.echo.net.au/echo-history-articles.
He is survived by his son Hans, daughter Claire, daughter-in-law Paula, son-out-law Scott and three grandchildren: Emily, Sunny and Ivy. Rest in peace David.
You are invited to join family, friends and Echo drudges past and present to celebrate David this Sunday at the Civic Centre in Mullumbimby from 1.30pm.
If you have any thoughts you’d like to share about David we’d love you to comment on this story.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
