David Lange's widow, Margaret Pope, at his memorial in Otahuhu. Photo / Paul Estcourt
David Lange's widow, Margaret Pope, at his memorial in Otahuhu. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Andrew Stone takes a look at a new book by Margaret Pope - the speechwriter who became David Lange's second wife


The phrase that turned Margaret Pope towards David Lange - and started a five-year affair - was a throwaway line from the Prime Minister just a few days before Christmas in 1984.
Lange had been premier since July, when Labour defeated a tired Muldoon administration. Pope, a public servant-turned-party researcher, worked as Lange's speechwriter.
One of the women in Lange's Beehive office had already indicated that Pope was a favourite on the ninth floor.
"You're obviously number one," Pope was told.
Her status was confirmed a short time later. Lange appeared at her office door, just before heading back to Auckland and his wife Naomi and family for the weekend.
Pope: "He said nothing of moment until I said I hoped he would enjoy his weekend."
Lange: "I won't. You won't be there."

Pope, whose own marriage to architect Campbell Pope had run its course, was thrown off-balance: "I was dazzled. I was moved, because I knew reserve was an essential element of his character."
Here was a man, she thought, unwilling to seek out support from political colleagues, yet who had sought from her a commitment "when he could not be sure of the reply".

Pope, who is 60, has not talked publicly or written previously of these matters of the heart. She does so, sparingly, in a book published today: At The Turning Point.
Subtitled "My Political Life With David Lange", much of its core rests on the souring relationship between Lange and his Finance Minister Sir Roger Douglas, and the conflict that ripped Labour apart.
Full story at The NZ Herald.