Lange: How I love beating the odds

David Lange's wife and former wife have made their peace at his hospital bedside, as his new memoirs divulge how becoming prime minister destroyed his first marriage.

The memoirs, My Life, out tomorrow, reveal his relationship with speechwriter Margaret Pope began early in the term of the Fourth Labour Government when Lange used to spend time in Pope's office, chatting.

Lange writes about how he told first wife Naomi about the affair, and their efforts to stay together for their three children. Eventually, Naomi went public over the affair.

Naomi now lives in a modest flat on one of Mangere's poorer streets. She is still regarded as part of the family, has been visiting Mr Lange in hospital, and has talked things through with Margaret Pope.

Lange, close to death last week but now recovering in Middlemore Hospital after having his lower leg amputated, has told his sister: "If there's one thing I love doing, it's beating the odds."

The memoirs reveal how Lange remained in Parliament as a backbencher from 1993 to 1996 because he was so strapped for cash he needed the salary.

When Helen Clark became Prime Minister she offered him the post of High Commissioner to his much-loved India, but he turned it down for the sake of Margaret, who wouldn't have enjoyed the lifestyle.

In the book he calls Helen Clark a "survivor" who protected her own patch by keeping her head down in the Cabinet fights.

"As long as her paddock had a good sole of grass the firestorm could consume the rest."

But, he says, only he and Michael Cullen opposed Roger Douglas' controversial flat tax proposal.

His memoirs canvass his years as prime minister from 1984 to 1989 when he created the ban on nuclear ships almost by accident, and the troubled relations in his Cabinet. One of the ministers with whom he fell out was the "venomous" Michael Bassett - who had been delivered by Lange's obstetrician father. Lange acerbically suggests that given how Dr Bassett turned out, perhaps his father had dropped him at birth. Yesterday, Dr Bassett gently replied that the one-liner was typical of Lange, "but it's also a telling reminder that when he couldn't deal with the message, he'd attack the messenger".

Lange also attacks Cabinet colleagues Sir Roger as "beyond reason"; Mike Moore as "mercurial"; David Caygill as "dry as dust"; Kerry Burke as a "lightweight"; Russell Marshall as "shallow, shabby, endlessly self-seeking" and Dr Cullen as sometimes "close to tears".

"There were times when I could have cried myself. I could not stand the frustration."

Lange recalls how when he arrived in Parliament for the first time as a young MP, colleague Jonathan Hunt - later to become infamous as the "Minister of Wine and Cheese" - told him of the free air travel to which he was entitled. One could join the Invercargill Public Library, said Hunt, and fly down to get out books and return them.

He expressed sympathy for his successor, Geoffrey Palmer: "His reputation was not enhanced when he became prime minister because he did not have the desire for the job and his abilities were not the ones it required. I am sorry that the burden fell on him."

After coming close to death four times, the irony of his survival delights Lange.

He recalls how his mother left his cousin Chris Reid to look after their ailing grandfather while she went shopping. But she returned to find the old man had passed away: "Christopher, Christopher, what have you done to him?"

So Lange was amused that the person sitting with him overnight, after his operation on Tuesday, was none other than his cousin Chris.

Family gathered around his bedside at Middlemore Hospital on Thursday to celebrate his 63rd birthday, with his sister Margaret Lange teasingly giving him a pair of socks.

But despite Lange's poor health he has managed to fire a few barbs from his hospital bed.

Last week, in his sole interview since being admitted to hospital, he told the Herald on Sunday of his fury at attempts to undermine his nuclear-free policy.

Labour has been campaigning on a claim that the policy would be "gone by lunchtime" under National, despite Don Brash's insistence it would not be changed without a referendum.

Peter Lange said last week his brother's survival had been touch and go: "I don't think he would have been with us for very long if it wasn't for the operation.

"There have been times when he wasn't well-regarded by people ... But now there's been a lot of people who think very kindly and emotionally towards him.

"When it became clear there was serious risk to his life, it made people feel almost miserable."

Margaret Lange said her brother's ill-health had brought the tight-knit family even closer together.

"You see him doing all these things, speaking to the Oxford Union debate, speaking at the United Nations, and you're immensely proud. But he's still your brother, and that's what he's good at. Peter's my brother and he's good at being a potter; I'm good at playing the piano. He's your brother, and you love him."

The family was now discussing, not a funeral, but a ramp and other renovations to his Mangere Bridge house so he could return to his home in a wheelchair.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY