With the death of Margaret Whitlam, AO, we are edging closer to the end of an era. Given the description of ‘Free Spirit, Prime Minister’s Wife’, in Jane Sullivan’s obituary in the Age (20 March 2012), Margaret Whitlam’s intelligence and independence represented so distinctly a changing of the guard. She stood, as Sullivan noted, alongside, and not behind her husband.
His ‘best appointment’ cemented a relationship that lasted 69 years. To Margaret’s family our sincere condolences.