Lange's farewell honours spirit of the man

Twins Peter and Margaret Lange embrace at Saturday's memorial service for their brother. Picture / Kenny Rodger

At Saturday's farewell to David Lange, Sir Edmund Hillary recalled asking the late prime minister what he was supposed to do as new high commissioner to India.

"Do whatever you think best," was the advice.

Sniffing the aroma of sizzling sausages - Mad Butcher Peter Leitch's tribute - wafting into the Ericsson Stadium supertop, it seemed to be the riding instructions of all those involved in the send-off.

If it led to the odd excess, then that just added to the Lange-esque atmosphere.

Like when Samoan Deputy Prime Minister Misa Telefoni presented Peter Lange not just with a certificate officially recording his brother's chiefly rank, but also a plastic shopping bag with five copies of Mr Telefoni's raunchy first novel, "available", he added emphatically, "at Borders".

One myth that was well shattered was that Mr Lange's quick wit and oratorical skills were developed as the defence mechanism of a fat kid in a cruel world.

Listening to his son and his siblings, it became obvious it was either a gift the whole family have inherited or a skill honed at a young age in order to survive the breakfast banter around the kitchen table.

Turning to the crowd of 3000 after an introductory remark by MC Gary McCormick about certain similarities he had with his father, Roy Lange couldn't resist quipping: "I got my mum's brain, my dad's looks."

He's also got the mannerisms. That leaning back, one elbow on the lectern, to deliver a telling point, and that deep subterranean chuckle, like phonetic punctuation, to underline the joke.

Earlier, David's sister Margaret had declared herself matriarch of the clan with a classic barbed one-liner or two herself.

We are, she said, a big family, with first and second cousins scattered around the world who keep in close touch. Then the pause, "we don't mention third cousins".

Certainly not third cousin Dr Michael Bassett, the Cabinet minister who famously fell out with Mr Lange during the Labour Party wars of the late 1980s.

But these were the asides. The emphasis was on the man, politician yes, but mainly friend, father and brother.

Roy Lange recalled waking on Sundays to the smell of bacon cooking and the sight of his father enthusiastically conducting the hymns blaring out from National Radio with his spatula.

And the time Mr Lange took the kids out on the Manukau Harbour in an unseaworthy new boat and how they were all crying for mummy as he drove it straight into Mangere Bridge.

Somehow they survived, and soon after, to Mr Lange's great amusement, he was made patron of the local boating club.

Maungakiekie MP Mark Gosche recalled how Mr Lange, though ill himself, made daily calls for months checking on the health of his wife, Carol Gosche.

Last Friday Maori politician Tau Henare was critical of the arrangements for Saturday, saying this was no way to farewell a chief.

Entering the gloom of the plastic-sided tent, with its faded orange painted stars overhead and the pitted asphalt flooring, I wondered if he might be right. The opening distorted blasts from the super-charged rock-concert sound system were not promising, either.

But it took only a few moments of the plaintive calls of the welcoming mihimihi to make you forget how irrelevant the surrounds were.

There was Andrew Lloyd Webber from the Auckland Pacific Gospel Choir, hand-clapping audience participation led by the seven young men of the De La Salle Choir, Loyal - what else - from Dave Dobbyn, and much more.

Among those on stage was the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, and Lange family members.

In the front stalls were the suited politicians and extended family.

Behind were Mr Lange's contemporaries, the ones who saved their loudest cheer for Sir Edmund's espousal of the nuclear-free policy.

There were also his friends and supporters from Mangere, a united nations of races, young and old.

It certainly wasn't how any other country would have seen off a loved past prime minister.

But it felt comfortably appropriate.

It was a sign of the maturity and independence of spirit that David Lange espoused as prime minister, a demonstration of the "do whatever you think is best" message he gave Sir Edmund 20-odd years ago.