The opening of The Iron Lady in London reminds me of the two days that I spent with Sir Larry Lamb at the England-Australia test match at the Gabba in Brisbane in 1982.
These were days of cricket-watching, drinking and talking. He did a great deal more than me of both the last two.
And we ate soft-shell crab, a Queensland delicacy.
By this stage Larry was editor-in-chief of The Australian. Previously, in London, he had been the pioneering editor of Britain's biggest-selling newspaper, The Sun. Two stories he told stick in the mind.
First, of the daily meetings prior to the 1979 election that he had with Margaret Thatcher and Tim Bell to plot the following day’s front-page headline in The Sun. It’s generally agreed that swinging that mass-market tabloid behind Thatcher won her the election.
Then, of his rejected proposal to build an executive loo at The Australian. “Tell him to piss out of the window like the rest of us,” was apparently Rupert Murdoch’s decision. Larry was not best pleased.
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