HE LIVED, LOVED AND TRAVELLED WELL

JOHN,CENTRE STAGE

HE LIVED,LOVED AND TRAVELLED WELL!
I went to John Button’s state funeral today and despite the presence of the mostly Australian Labor Party great and good and various groupies, there was no doubting who was the star of the show.

There was Bill Hayden and John Caine to ensure his enshrinement in the Labor party hall of fame but much more riveting of attention were, Morag Fraser, who spoke of his literary interests and skills and best of all his son, the journalist, James Button, who fought off his emotions long enough to give us a vivid picture of a father as political operator who found time still to be a father, husband, grandfather, mentor,story teller, football tragic and lover of several women.

Good stories were told and this was an entertainment as well as goodbye ceremony, as evidenced by the applause for each speaker and for John as they carried his coffin from the “stage’ of St Michael’s.

Dr Francis MacNab, presided and told that when he was putting together a book about how older men coped with aging and mortality, he went to see his friend of 58 years, John Button, to seek his contribution. John had just returned from the Richmond Gym (where I came to know him through an incident of mistaken identity-when he had a beard we looked a little alike to women who greeted me on the Richmond streets) and as Francis asked him his opinion on the topic, John was sitting down to breakfast and took a very burnt piece of bread from the toaster, smeared it thickly with butter and ate it. Francis took this as sufficient answer and put it in the book, despite John’s initial protest that his trainer wouldn’t like it.

Jim Kennan spoke of John the joker, who once at the airport having got off the same flight ahead of Jim, was to be found in the arrival hall amongst the chauffeurs holding up a card with Jim’s name on it. It seemed also, that he had a habit of buying quantities of post cards from wherever he went and which he would send to all and sundry (even once to Bronwyn Bishop!), sometimes even 10 years later, when the moment seemed right to him, such that recipients wondered how he could be both in Moscow and Mexico city at almost the same time. He wrote newspaper articles and sent challenging letters under the pseudonym of ‘Cartwright” to political opponents and allies alike and the Geelong football team Coach, such that some threatened to do terrible things to this writer if they ever tracked him down.
GOODBYE JOHN!

There were many present (including our new woman Deputy Prime Minister)who had gained higher political office and even outlived John, but none I think that could hold a candle to him as a human being and wonderfully complex, contrarian and charismatic man. Truly, as the Financial Review columnist said of him earlier this week, “He lived, loved and travelled well! Goodbye John! I will certainly miss you.
STOPPING THE TRAFFIC IN COLLINS STREET