For three decades, Glenn A. Baker and I shared a private joke

July 31, 2026 — 2:24pm

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You always knew when Glenn A. Baker was in the room. In the early days it was because a fez appeared above the crowd like a periscope scanning for mischief. Over the years, the fezzes became more ornate but progressively shorter, yet Glenn’s presence never did.

I first met Glenn – who died this week, aged 74 – in 1994 just after I’d become PR manager at CountryLink. He was standing drinking Coke at a travel writers’ lunch in Newtown. After having worked with many celebrities under Max Markson, I expected someone with Glenn’s reputation to have a rather large ego. Instead, he was incredibly approachable. We hit it off and later he wrote a piece for me on the Tin Trail to Condobolin for Off the Rails, an anthology of train travel.

I then moved to head up PR at Malaysia Airlines and we travelled far and wide – sometimes I was on the trips, sometimes I just organised them. Back then, Glenn, along with his great friend John Borthwick, had decided to transform........

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