Ken Heard was born in Adelaide, the oldest child of Alice (nee Odgers) and Harold Heard, a merchant. He completed his secondary education in Adelaide, gaining the Exhibition in Chemistry in 1929. He had two brothers (Laurence and Colin) and a sister Jean (Cleland).

His ambition was to read mechanical engineering and work for Rolls-Royce, but the lack of work for engineers resulted in Ken’s enrolment at Adelaide University to read medicine as all medical graduates became employed. He lived in St Peter’s College and sport was a major interest. He represented Adelaide at lacrosse, baseball and lawn tennis until an attack of pulmonary tuberculosis at the end of third year resulted in his never playing competitive sport again. Throughout his undergraduate days he maintained a close relationship with Susan Badenoch, whom he had met at school.

His professional life began as an RMO at the Adelaide Hospital and he aspired to surgery. When his term there was finishing he was offered the resident’s position at the Mildura Base Hospital. He and Susan married and moved to Mildura. After six months they moved again to Omeo and then in September 1938 set off for a year with Ken doing locums throughout outback and rural Queensland, planning to travel to London in October 1939 to start surgical studies.

These plans were never realized as he enlisted in the AIF in September 1939 and developed cheiropompholyx on the palms of both hands soon after entering camp Kilo 89 in Palestine in May 1940. Throughout his time in the Middle East his hands were too tender and sore to be regularly scrubbed for surgery, and after returning to Australia after El Alamein, finding that his hands were as bad as in the Middle East, he gave up any idea of being a surgeon.

In March, 1941 he was with the 9th Division in Benghazi and for the last weeks of the retreat to Tobruk, he was in the “Last Car” with Colonel Joe Mann. As he recorded:

For the first few days I really didn’t know what was happening. It seemed there was total confusion everywhere, explosions close by as we passed detachment after detachment of sappers and on occasion, German forces ahead of us. But I started to realize that Joe Mann was orchestrating all this and that each detachment of sappers was awaiting us and was organized to overtake us as soon as possible and move to another pre-ordained demolition point ahead of us. I had few instruments or drugs and was almost supernumerary, but it was an experience that I would never forget.

He was Mentioned in Despatches for his contribution during the retreat.

Over six months under siege in Tobruk followed, and finally he returned home after the Battle of Alamein. Their only child, Andrew, was born during this period. After service in New Guinea and demobilization he joined the Veterans Administration at Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital. He worked towards specialization in pulmonary tuberculosis, the disease which had caused his mother's death. All of her three sons had suffered from it but recovered. He gained the MRACP in 1949.

This career path became financially uninviting when the Commonwealth Government took over the whole control of the treatment of tuberculosis and in March 1950 he joined the Toorak Clinic in partnership with Clive Steven, Towser Rex, Jim Smibert and John Zwar. He was to remain there for 36 years, retiring on his 75th birthday. The Clinic provided a very high-class medical service, 24 hours every day, to patients across a wide socio-economic spectrum ranging from the Toorak to Prahran. He was an Honorary Physician at Prince Henry’s Hospital for some years in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ken had stayed in the Reserve after the war and eventually became the Deputy Director-General of the Medical Services (DDGMS) and was promoted to Colonel. In the mid 1950s the opportunity arose to join the Regular Army as a Major-General and move to Canberra in the position of Director-General of the Army Medical Services however the family decided to stay in Melbourne.

By 1967 glaucoma that was not diagnosed for another five years had seriously diminished his vision in both eyes. Eight years later, an attempt was made to save some sight in the right eye through a surgical procedure to relieve the pressure on the optic nerve. Unfortunately he completely lost the sight in that eye and retained only very limited vision in the left eye which continued to deteriorate throughout his life.

Sue died in 1997 and Ken three years later from pneumonia, after suffering from dementia for the last year of his life. He was mourned by many past patients to whom he had delivered a very high standard of medical care at all hours of the day or night, always accompanied by his unfailing courtesy.