On November 11 1975, radio journalist Leigh Hatcher was beavering away at a story in his shoebox office on the second floor of Parliament House when his junior colleague burst through the door with startling news.

"Shit," he recalls the bewildered cadet exclaiming.

"Gough's been sacked!"

Just 19 himself, Hatcher had only begun his career as a political roundsman on budget day, three months earlier.

The tumultuous period would catapult him into a rarefied side role in Australian history as he witnessed up close one of the most extraordinary political sagas since federation.

The dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by Governor-General Sir John Kerr had been months in the making, the final chess move after a series of unpopular policies, political scandals and poor economic conditio

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