(From Goodbye Jerusalem, 1997)
…..Nifty I had known in a different way.
When Rosemary Foot had asked in the Legislative Assembly was it true that Neville Wran’s close friend Bob Ellis had got a ten- screenplay contract, the first ever, with the New South Wales Film Corporation, Nifty rose and said, ‘It is true I have met Bob Ellis from time to time. For anyone resident in Sydney this experience is almost unavoidable. But I would not rank him as one of my close friends; and he, I think, with equal pride, would not rank me as one of his.’ Nevertheless we connected, and, drinking late, were often the last to leave State functions. I remember once grabbing him by the back of the neck, and grabbing Bob Caswell, the writer of Scales of Justice, about State government corruption, also by the back of the neck, and bidding them now talk, you bastards. You can’t do that sort of thing in guided democracies, I expect; I’m a little surprised I did it here.
Nifty saved my bacon once when John Howard as Treasurer …
