It was the best of times

A few weeks ago I went to a celebration for a remarkable woman – Pat Ingram.

Pat was deputy editor of the launch issue of Australian Cosmopolitan in 1973 and Craig Osment was art director.

That’s Pat on the left, and Craig second from the right. They fell in love, got married and are still happily together all these years later, with Craig giving a very entertaining speech at her celebration.

Pat was editor of Cosmo from 1988 to 1996, then became its editorial director and finally its publishing director.

She gave me a job at Cosmo magazine when I was 24. And the rest of my magazine career was spent unaware that a glass ceiling existed because she made me believe anything was possible.

We worked together for almost 20 years. I joined the magazine during the supermodel cover era, which she loved, but she listened when I told her Hollywood stars were the new Cindys and Claudias.

She approved my trips to Los Angeles to interview everyone from Salma Hayek to Shannen Doherty, Portia Di Rossi, Christina Applegate and Alyssa Milano.

When I moved to Singapore to edit Cleo magazine, she remained my champion, backing my appointment as editorial director of the local edition of Harper’s Bazaar.

The morning after its launch, she took me to breakfast and asked me to return to Australia to edit Woman’s Day. She knew my celebrity news sense would serve her well there. And it did. We rode the Princess Mary wave, with circulation peaking at around 560,000 for the royal wedding.

I stayed in erratic touch with Pat after she left ACP Magazines and caught up with her at a wake to mourn Cosmo closing down in 2018.

I wrote a blog post about the gathering and called the men and women in attendance “the unsung Paper Giants“. There is no Asher Keddie-style mini-series about Cosmopolitan, but there should be.

As Pat noted to Mumbrella: “The magazine broke through boundaries, was not afraid to talk about the issues that affected them from career opportunity to sexuality, to making the best life for yourself.

“While Cosmo was sometimes criticised for its blatant appreciation of having a man in your life, it was essentially very feminist in its outlook in that it encouraged women to build careers, and empowered women to take stands on issues… You could think and wear lipstick at the same time!”

Little did we realise as we raised a glass at Cosmo’s wake that the magazine would be resurrected again in 2024.

But the landscape is much different now and I am glad I was there for the golden years when circulation raced past 400,000 copies and Hearst flew the whole team to Hayman Island for the weekend to celebrate.

A couple of my comrades from the Hayman trip were there the other night too, 25 years later!

I was awed to be in the room with just a few of the many talented people Pat nurtured.

I owe so much to Pat. She took my career to heights I could never have imagined as a teenager dreaming about editing Dolly magazine.

I was so painfully shy back then that my parents tried to talk me out of a career in journalism.

But Pat saw a spark in me and nurtured it until I was ready to run the second biggest selling magazine in the country, at a time when it was making more than $40 million a year in advertising dollars.

By the age of 35 I’d achieved every career milestone I’d ever dreamed about and more.

Thank you Pat. It was the best of times.

I must make sure not to leave it so long between catch ups.

As for my weekend, it was a quiet one. Dinner with DD, walks with friends, a casual Thai meal with our neighbours.

And this morning I left DD’s at dawn to watch the sun rise at Avalon Beach.

Hope you had a good one.

Song of the day: Helen Reddy “I am woman” (who won a Grammy for the song in1973)