On Monday, 22 May, Liberal party grandees, MPs and supporters will gather at a gala dinner in Canberra to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of Sir Robert Menzies’ speech, The Forgotten People.

At precisely 9.15 pm a reverential hush will descend on the assembled multitude and the actor Peter Cousens will read the speech over the wireless, just as Menzies did.

What the jolly band of celebrants does not know, however, is that this is not the only Forgotten People speech that Menzies wrote, for another and later version has now emerged from his long-lost private papers.