Bob Hawke: some regret, lots of love and plenty of memories

In the end, Bob Hawke was ready to go. He was in pain. He was tired. And he was frustrated.

Former prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating at the 2016 Labor campaign launch. Picture: Getty Images

Bob Hawke was ready to go.

“To be quite honest, mate, I’d be quite happy not to wake up tomorrow morning or the next,” he told me in what was his last interview a few months ago.

He was in pain. He was tired. He was frustrated. He had lived a long life, just half a year shy of reaching his 90th birthday.

And he hadn’t exactly treated his body like a temple over the years.

Sitting with Hawke on the balcony of his sprawling multi-level home at Northbridge overlooking the magnificent Sydney Harbour on a bright sunny day, he smoked a cigar and sipped a strawberry milkshake.

Slumped in his chair and leaning forward, not able to get comfortable, he wore beige golf pants with a shiny tracksuit top over a white polo shirt.

His eyes were a duller blue than usual. His hair, once a luxuriant mane, was thinning, whiter and losing its distinctive curly shape.

He would rather be doing the crossword in The Australian, which he read every day, than ­answering yet another round of questions for a biography.

But this interview, one of more than a dozen over the past 15 or so years, was different.

Although brief in his responses, he was more reflective than usual. He had been thinking about his life. When asked about his parents, Clem and Ellie, or his two wives, Hazel and Blanche, or his children, he got emotional. And his eyes moistened talking about Paul Keating.

Hawke lifted his shrinking frame up in his chair when I asked again about his parents, especially his father. They had showered him with love and fostered the belief that his life was destined for a great purpose.

Gallery: Bob Hawke’s life in pictures

“He was a marvellous man, my father, he always looked for good in people and he was a very big ­influence on me,” Hawke said. “He was very keen to see that I made the most of what I had. I liked him. I loved him. He was my best mate.”

He spoke about how much he deeply loved Hazel and regretted not being a better father or husband. He acknowledged his infidelity and the impact the “demon drink” had on their marriage. He described his relationship with Hazel as “the most important in my life at that time”.

Hawke also deeply loved Blanche. He said she was “the best thing that ever happened to me”. He talked, somewhat awkwardly, about their intellectual, emotional and physical love for each other. She was the light in his life.

He had spent a lifetime trying to convince Australians that he was a simple, “dinky di” Australian but, in truth, he was complex. We all are. He did not see any difficulty loving both Hazel and Blanche.

In recent years, he had mended any lingering rifts with Keating. They were Australia’s greatest political duo. They were rivals, and sometimes had contempt for each other, but there was also mutual admiration and a warmth between them. They were like brothers.

Hawke’s eyes widened and he smiled when he told me how happy he was that he had seen Keating recently and enjoyed his company. “We had a marvellous time ­together,” Hawke said. “We did a lot of great things together. Affection is not an inappropriate word, now, for our relationship.”

Hawke had thought about ­becoming a farmer or a doctor when he was a kid.

At Oxford, and later at the ANU where he worked on a PhD, he was eyeing a career as an academic. But he had no regrets about dedicating his life to the trade union movement and to politics.

“I can’t imagine my life without going into the trade union movement,” he said.

“I was able to do some very important things for the trade union movement and beyond the trade union movement, and it was the basis for my entry into politics.”

When the end came, as he wanted it to, he was not interested in pushing a legacy or dwelling on regrets. As he was fading, he thought about those he loved and who loved him. He was at peace with himself and others. And now he is gone.

Troy Bramston is writing a biography of Bob Hawke that will be published by Penguin Random House