A good friend asked him…
John Howard at the Lions Club function held at the Marigold restaurant, Chinatown. Photo: Steve Lunan FOR a moment he was just another bespectacled grey man in a suit in a room full of them. But then the crowd parted and former prime minister John Howard was welcomed by those assembled at the Sydney Executive Business Lions Club charity dinner as a very special one of their own. Your excellency, someone said. Another pushed her grandson forward to meet his hero. Two excited women produced a photo taken with Mr Howard a decade ago, hoping for it to be signed, before posing for another snap. For this evening, among these friends, Im going to keep calling him prime minister, he said. It was a title that featured several times in Mr Howards headline speech, which was delivered inside six minutes, without notes. It was a fleeting glimpse of the former leader many knew and, here, no doubt, loved. Mr Howard said he had been approached to speak at the event by a very good friend of mine , top Liberal Party fund-raiser Benjamin Chow.
I get a lot of requests, yeah, he said. I have quite a busy life but I try to spend a bit of time helping good causes.It seems, these days, the party he once led was not one of them.