Day Bob Hawke had Midday’s blue-rinse set moaning with delight

A segment involving a prime ministerial bladder infection was unlike anything the Midday Show audience had ever seen

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LAST week, following news here that Sue Pieters-Hawke was racing to finish a book on her father for Christmas, I extended an invitation to readers to send in their Bob Hawke recollections so that I might forward them to Sue for inclusion in her book.

It brought a small flood of “Bob brushes” which readers have kindly permitted me to publish.

One I’d like to publish this week comes from Doctor James Wright, a veteran of some 30 years on television’s famed The Mike Walsh Show — later Midday With Ray Martin.

Dr Wright was the program’s resident doctor from 1972 until 2000 and was on air while
Hawke was prime minister from 1983-1991.

Now a remarble 91, Dr Wright is sketchy on the year of his story.

“My job (on Midday was) to give comment or news items as they broke,” he wrote.

“Bob sustained an acute bladder infection. It broke on radio around 11am. Just before the Midday Show that day, the executive producer, David Price, decided to run with the story as his noon lead segment. Thus beating every one else — a real scoop at the time. Would I be involved?

Bob Hawke was everyone’s darling in the 1980s recalls the Midday Show’s resident doctor James Wright.

Yes, of course.

“So at one minute past 12 we had this very detailed blackboard picture of Bob’s penis ready to hit around two million TV screens around Australia.

“It was a sensation. The studio audience, essentially the older blue-rinse set (about 200 persons) moaned and groaned and clapped with delight. Never having witnessed such a show in their lives.

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“I drew all the illustrating blackboards (measuring around 18 inches by 12 inches) myself in school coloured chalks. My dad had taught me show-card lettering as it was called, at an early age when in primary school, so I was good at it.

“It left nothing to the imagination! All pure fact.

Dr John Knight was on the Midday Show from 1972 until 2000.

“At the far critical end, a Channel 9 gofer had found a fresh green fig leaf which was stuck to the very far end with Perkins Paste — used in all offices at the time.

“Was Bob’s penis thick and short, or skinny and long? Who had seen it? Well, nobody that I knew. That did not matter. We decided to make him look the guy he would have wanted him to look — thick AND long. VERY long.

Treasurer Paul Keating and Prime Minister Bob Hawke on the Midday Show with Ray Martin.

“It hit Midday at one minute past 12 — the opening segment to the show. Always a knockout. This was extra special as Bob was everybody’s darling at the time.

“The segment was certainly a success. So much so that Channel 9 national news bulletin that
night at 6pm re-ran the entire segment — in all its lurid detail, around Australia. To be repeated through out the evening on
short newsbreaks.

“The outcome? Well, very little. No stirring criticism. Only two days later a telegram at Channel 9 from the PM himself: ‘Thanks doc, and team. You got it right — Signed Bob’.

“The telegram possibly still sits in all its glory somewhere in Channel 9 Willoughby.”

Please keep your Bob recollections coming. Stories like these should be shared. Via [e-mail]