To a friend on her birthday.(First Person)

THANK YOU, Ann and Lee, for asking me to make a few remarks on this special day. It is Madeleine's day so I will be brief.

We all know something of Madeleine's full and varied life, of her special talents: as critical art collector, stimulating theatre critic, and respected librarian (especially for her part in the modernising of the system in the Parliamentary Library of New South Wales).

We know of her gift for friendship, her interest in people of all sorts and of all ages. We know of her delight in life. We recall the joyous dinners and parties and picnics when she and David settled for some years in semi-bohemian, semi-rural Eltham, and the legendary parties they hosted at Windsor Street in Paddington. (My hairdresser was reminiscing about Windsor Street parties only a few days ago.)

We love her for her manners, for her quest for perfection in all around her--her exquisite apartment, her elegant clothes. We love her for her gentleness and for her strong, unwavering opinions.

We know of her devotion to her family; and of the times of deep sadness and loss that she has faced with typical stoicism.

We know all this and admire her greatly for it. But now let me tell you something about Madeleine, aged seventeen, at Sydney University.

We first met as freshers in Arts in the middle of the Second World War. It was a strange period at the university. Most of the prospective male students had gone off to fight the Japanese, and a somewhat melancholy quietness hung around the Quadrangle and the lecture rooms. The place was rather like a large girls' school, or perhaps a superior convent with its sandstone vaulting, though the tone was set on the one hand by the scholars from the great state high schools (the Swots), on the other by young sophisticates from expensive private schools who spent their evenings at Prince's nightclub, dancing with the Yanks (the Good Time Girls).