AustLit

Author's acknowledgements:
' ... The nineteen prominent people whose phone numbers Adams gave me as friends who might give me information and insight into him all agreed to do so, and I met all except two of them personally: High Mackay, Peter Best, Peter Faiman, Matt Noffs, Brian Monahan, Lyle Dayman, Bruce Petty, Fred Chaney, Alan Snyder, Ranald McDonald, Carmen Lawrence, Philip Nitschke, Jim Soorley, Dick Smith, Bob Brown, Mark Aarons, John Cain, Barry Jones and Bob Ellis. Chris Bullock, the former executive producer of Late Night Live, told me how it operates and I watched it go to air twice. My conversations with these twenty people were always enjoyable and often very funny. All twenty were obviously fond of Adams but also mentioned his human frailties. I owe them my sincere thanks.

'I contacted Paul Keating, Mike Rann, Anna Bligh and Bob Carr without help from Adams but they also were willing to talk about him. Only one of all these people, Bob Carr, asked me to tell him what I would quote from him. Only one person, John Howard, swiftly declined to meet me about Adams and there is no need to wonder why. Bruce Shapiro, Late Night Live's US correspondent, told me how he has enjoyed talking with Adams every week for twelve years. The willingness of all these associates to talk about him shows the warmth of his people relationships.

'Adams told me he would leave it to me to contact some of the "hostiles" as he calls them, and I did so: Bob Hawke, Alan Jones, Gerard Henderson, Philip Ruddock, John Brennan, Miranda Devine and Piers Akerman.

'The National Library's Manuscripts Department gave me access, with Adams' permission, to the 500 boxes of letters and emails listeners have sent him over almost forty years, and the library's Oral History Collection gave me access, again with Adams' permission, to its verbatim record of the two-day conversation Margaret Chalker had with him. The Weekend Australian Magazine gave me permission to reproduce extracts from his columns and Penguin Books gave me permission to quote from books of his columns where it holds the copyright. Bob Ellis, James Woodford, Alan Ransey and Ashley Hay gave me permission quote from Late Night Live sessions where Adams interviewed them. ...'