Celebrity cook Lyndey Milan’s soulmate John Caldon dies after 11-month cancer battle

A decade after the sudden death of her cherished son, celebrity cook Lyndey Milan has been dealt another blow, with her ‘soulmate’ John Caldon losing his battle with cancer.

Celebrity cook and food writer Lyndey Milan and her ‘soulmate’ John Caldon.

A decade after the sudden and tragic death of her cherished son Blair, celebrity cook and food writer Lyndey Milan has been dealt another blow with the death last week of her “soulmate” John Caldon.

Caldon, a well-regarded taxation lawyer who became a founding executive of the Macquarie Bank before, years later and inspired by Milan, reinventing himself as a TV producer and entrepreneur, died on Tuesday at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital following an 11-month battle with cancer.

Lyndey Milan and John Caldon in 2015. Picture: Belinda Rolland

Caldon’s partner of 14 years, Milan, and his two children, Patrick and Liz, were by his side when he died — his death coming two weeks after the businessman was hospitalised with a lung infection and a week after he suffered a stroke at home.

“I don’t need to tell you what an amazing person John was,” Milan informed friends and colleagues in an open and moving personal note.

“He was my soulmate, an astute businessman, steadfast friend, bon vivant, always thinking outside the square, looking for new approaches to business, never satisfied with the accepted ‘best’ way of doing things, always pushing the envelop and had a brain as big as a planet.”

Milan and her son Blair, in scene from TV series Lyndey and Blair's Taste of Greece.

The 73-year-old was also the man credited with helping Milan recover from the heartbreaking and shocking death of her 29-year-old actor son Blair in 2011 from acute myeloid leukaemia.

Milan had been on holiday in Sicily when her eldest child was diagnosed.

She rushed home to Sydney but by the time her plane landed her “vibrant and positive” boy, a child of her first marriage to Australian TV executive Nigel Milan, was in a coma from which he’d never recover. He died hours later.

Blair’s death came the year after he co-hosted a culinary travel TV show with his mother. Lyndey & Blair’s Taste of Greece, which screened on SBS, was a labour of love made possible by the backing, faith and entrepreneurial nous of Milan’s new partner, Caldon.

Caldon and Milan met in 2007 at a cooking workshop at the Sydney Fish Markets.

Milan, who was conducting the demonstration — how to cook paella — called the British-born investment banker a “wanker” after he told her he didn’t usually need to cook for himself because he had “people” who did that for him.

Milan with her beloved son in 1999.

Caldon was the yin to Milan’s yang.

Sparks flew and Caldon managed to extract the vivacious and fiery Milan’s number before the class ended.

The next day he phoned to ask her out. The pair fell in love — friends last week describing John as the yin to Lyndey’s yang: “He was the unassuming quiet finance genius who worked diligently in the background eschewing the limelight while she was the professional frontwoman, charismatic, practised and enthralling who shines when a camera is pointed at her.”

By 2010, the Cambridge-educated Caldon, who joined PwC following his migration to Australia in 1973, later making his name at Macquarie Bank before becoming chairman of Rail Services Australia and later mining company Haddington Resouces, was working alongside Milan on a series of new passion projects.

Among them was production and distribution company, Flame Media, the Sydney Studio Kitchen facility and an internet business.

“That is what John wanted. He was sharing new ideas with me until the last few days in hospital,” Milan said.

Plans for a celebration of Caldon’s life are still being formalised.

In lieu of flowers, it’s asked that donations be sent to The Blair Milan Memorial Fund, which Caldon and Milan co-founded, or The Garvan Institute.