They were late-night/early-morning reflections on why he had decided to stand down as Premier of South Australia.

He gave them to me because it was my task as his media adviser to write the announcement of his decision.

I’ve watched and worked closely with many politicians across Australia.

John Bannon stands out.

My former colleague Michael Jacobs wrote here about John’s grace, decency, moral courage and capacity for love.

I would add great humanity, extraordinary humility and surprisingly robust humour.

As I reflect on John’s passing, perhaps surprisingly I barely recall John Bannon the politician – for me, he became completely overshadowed by John Bannon the man.

Running and cricket were our two earliest connections.

Despite the awful, generic clothing he wore, John was a seriously good runner and I could never beat him. We ‘celebrated’ after running the 1993 Adelaide Marathon by drafting the announcement of his decision to quit Parliament – I was stiff and sore, he was typically fresh and chipper.

For years on the first day of the Adelaide Test match, we had a tradition of sitting for a while in the baking sun on the now long-gone, red-hot timber-slatted bench seating in front of the members’ stand.

John Bannon was an outstanding marathon runner – despite his awful running gear.

After he’d become Master at St Mark’s College, I would join a group of his friends for dinner one night during the Test. Rodney Cavalier, a former NSW Education Minister, chairman of the SCG Trust and ‘comrade’, would hilariously read some of John’s words from the volumes of Hansard that lined the walls. Much red wine was consumed.

Our most extraordinary cricket adventure was to go to South Africa together in 1994 for the first Australian Test tour after the apartheid sporting ban was lifted.

The cricket was exciting, but not as memorable as the new insights into John Bannon the simple, common man – and I mean this in the nicest possible way.

Politicians very quickly become used to, and expect, high standards of travel – but never John. He shared a 24-hour, second-class African train trip in a small compartment with me, my wife Helen and our two-year-old daughter who bathed naked in the tiny sink. And he staggered Helen and me by telling us how he had washed his underwear by hand while travelling as Premier.

That was John – he held the State’s highest political office for almost a decade and had a rare intellect, but he was utterly without pretence.

I doubt John ever fully appreciated the enormous positive impact he had on so many younger people for whom he provided leadership, both professional and personal.

The words on the two pages John gave me in 1992 were raw and personal, but typically honest and selfless.

I framed them and they hung on a wall of our Sydney home for many years. I finally took them down because they were fading badly.

I can barely read the notes now, but like Barb, Nick, Michele, Ethne and the others who were there on the day he gave them to me, I hold on to something more important and vivid – the privilege of having known this gentle, caring, extraordinary man.

Paul Willoughby started his career as a journalist at The Advertiser before working for federal and state politicians. He now works in the corporate sector in Sydney.