Making a gargoyle

It is easy to imagine book-buyers nodding with approval at the subtitle of this biography: ‘The making of a larrikin’. With ‘larrikin’ today applied to knockabout young men who are irreverent and mischievous but genuinely good-hearted, Bob Hawke seems a quintessential example. Yes, the myth goes, he used slipshod language now and then, and was quite a sight when he was in his cups, but generally Hawkie was a top bloke, a man who would call a spade a spade, a mate who could sup with princes and paupers but never forget who he was.

Just as this use of the term ‘larrikin’ is thoroughly denuded of its original menace, so too is this mythical Hawke. In the 1870s, when the term first emerged, a larrikin was an itinerant and belligerent city thug, a young man who would hang about in pushes (i.e. gangs), abusing people on the streets, leering at women, getting drunk, and brawling with volleys of Irish confetti (i.e. bricks).