The night Bob Hawke lost the Labor leadership 20-odd years ago, I was a tender recruit to the Canberra press gallery who found myself, fortuitously, marooned at the Prime Minister's office door whilst the Labor caucus was dispatching the occupant. Mistaken by security guards -- then hastily clearing nearby corridors -- as a Prime Ministerial staffer, I was left to witness Hawke's return to his office and his waiting family as an ex-Prime Minister, at that time the only one to be rejected by his own party. Hawke came striding out of the caucus room, chin forward, moist eyes straight ahead, a clutch of dejected staff trailing behind. At the same moment his office door opened and out burst his then-wife, Hazel, sobbing. Either she 'd been expecting the worst or, more probably, there had been a phone call telegraphing it. She flung herself at her husband. Hawke gathered her up, telling her Do n't cry, do n't cry. And as he disappeared into his office, he barked: I need a bloody cup of tea. If the humiliation of that evening's historic rejection winded him, Hawke did n't show it. Soon afterwards trolleys of liquor were rolling along the corridors of Parliament House and Hawke hosted a wake that went for hours, open to all comers. He angered, in my sight, only once that night; he rounded on a particular reporter who had showered him with sympathy but who, in Hawke's view, had been