Someone once said that if you’re still thinking at 50 the thoughts you had at 30, you’ve wasted 20 years of your life.

But back in 1975, I would’ve sworn that I would forever harbour resentment for Malcolm Fraser.

The day of the dismissal, I was covering a small council meeting at Buninyong Shire, near Ballarat, and the Shire Secretary came into the chamber and announced very excitedly that the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, had just been sacked and Malcolm Fraser was the caretaker Prime Minister.

Fuelled with a 20-year-old’s swift anger at just about anything, I downed the Biro and went back to the newsroom and never wrote a word about the council meeting. Nyar nyar, so there.

I saw Malcolm Fraser again a few years later at a press conference in Hobart, and I just couldn’t get over my annoyance. I have this bizarre memory of a senior national journalist – it might have been Mungo McCallum – putting a little plastic wind-up duck on the table in front of the Prime Minister. I have no idea why.

Now, of course, 40 years later, I’m happy to say I don’t quite see the world that way anymore, so my life has not been an utter waste of time.

And like many, I’ve been curious about the way Malcolm Fraser morphed from one persona to another, and perhaps it was just a little residual annoyance, that I wondered what it was really all about.

Now, he’s gone and I have to say that I find myself quite liking some aspects of the bloke: I read today he loved gardening and exotic old cars.

People who love old cars are special.

Malcolm loved exotic Italian things, Alfas and Lancias, but was known – I now learn – to enjoy pushing the odd Ferrari or Maserati around the Canberra hills, with a protective police guard in frustrated pursuit.

There’s a certain purity and simplicity about older cars. They react almost emotionally to being cared for and driven well.  I have never met a car enthusiast that I couldn’t find some way to like. (Yes, even you, Roger, I know you’re reading this.)

I’m in the Bendigo Sports and Classic Car Club and the vehicles that turn up at club gatherings are amazing in their variety: from gently customised old Ford utes, to auto-erotica  so rare you wonder how anyone can drive them in traffic.

Many, like mine, are just a nostril above common garden variety. When we get together though, everyone gets along. It’s all about being there and sharing an interest.

Same with gardening. Gardeners get along. Most people who plants trees will never get to see them at their peak and therefore can never be entirely selfish people.

So – sorry Malcolm. I just didn’t know you well enough at the time.