At the end of this affectionate memoir of Sir Robert and Dame Pattie Menzies, Heather Henderson recognises some might see it as a hagiography: ‘After all, this is about my beloved parents.’ No reader should be deterred; the book has too many treasures to be so regarded.

A decade ago, a son-in-law had encouraged her to write about ‘the real Bob Menzies, the human side of the political figure’.