He had an inside view of most of the momentous decisions of our lifetime, from as far back as 1958 when he joined Keith Holyoake's staff. He saw those years first from the Prime Minister's office then as a backbench MP from 1966.
In the 1970s he watched Norman Kirk from across the aisle, supported Rob Muldoon against John Marshall, became an Assistant Finance Minister to Muldoon in the next Government but soon fell out with him. Their mutual antipathy is generally attributed to the abortion debate at that time. Muldoon was for life, Gair for choice. But I suspect their differences ran deeper.
Muldoon thereafter treated him badly. He gave him the new Energy Ministry, then took it away just as Gair was getting it organised for what became Think Big. In the second term he was loaded with the gigantic health and social welfare portfolios at the same time.
Naturally Gair was on the side of the "colonels" in the coup that nearly succeeded in 1980. The next year, when the Government was returned, he got responsibility for transport and civil aviation and it was there, I think, he did his most historic work.
By then Muldoon was fiercely resisting pressure within his own caucus and from the Treasury to liberalise the economy much as Margaret Thatcher was doing in Britain. Gair was the one minister who managed to take significant steps in that direction, an achievement soon forgotten in the excitement of the rapid and drastic reforms that followed the change of Government in 1984.
It is a measure of how much has changed that Gair's first task as Minister of Civil Aviation was to decide whether Air New Zealand should buy three more 747s. The finances of the airline micro-managed by the Government in this way were not in good shape.
As Minister of Transport Gair was soon making speeches that gently advocated deregulating the trucking industry. He argued that prospective carriers should not need to find an unsatisfied demand before they could be given a licence to compete.
Midway through 1982 he also advocated the removal of the railway's monopoly of long-haul freight services.
But nothing was done quickly in those days. Consultants' reports were published, discussion papers issued, always with assurances the Government would make no decisions without extensive public debate.
Industry associations would weigh in, defending the status quo. Decisions, if they came, were always half-measures considered "politically acceptable", bringing minimal change.
Looking back on everything that has happened since, there is a tendency, especially within the National Party, to believe that we could have got where we are today by continuing with Gair's style of gradualism - that the "crash through" of 1984-94 was unnecessary.
Key tends to this view, by instinct if not complete conviction. It would have been interesting to discover whether Gair, looking back, believed the economy would be as open and competitive as it is today if his pace and style had prevailed.
The trouble with gradualism is that it doesn't give the country a sense of direction. Nobody was in any doubt after 1984 that we were plunging into a new economy. Whatever most voters thought about the direction, they liked the fact we were going somewhere. Labour was re-elected in 1987 with an increased majority.
Gair, by then National's deputy leader, took the fall for the election result and left Parliament at the next election. He spent the next few years as High Commissioner to London and on his return, was elected mayor of North Shore. His single term left a legacy in the Bruce Mason Theatre and North Harbour Stadium.
He should have written the book.
