Right and proper that generous tributes are paid at a memorial service, even if sometimes undeserved or exaggerated. But what remains in my memory of the extraordinary Gough Whitlam service is not so much the tributes or even Noel Pearson’s magniloquence (marred a little by its preposterous inflation of Whitlam’s triumphs) but the image of Bob Hawke going out of his way to greet and talk with Tony Abbott (who had just been booed by the crowd) in clear view of everyone in the Sydney Town Hall.