text: Alan Ramsey dies aged 82
  Updated November 24, 2020 — 1.48pm first published at 12.40pm
  Renowned journalist and columnist Alan Ramsey has died, aged 82.
  The infamously irascible writer spent his final months in a nursing home on the NSW South Coast.
  Ramsey had a 56-year career in journalism and wrote a weekend column for The Sydney Morning Herald between 1987 and 2008.
  He began his career in 1953 as a copy boy and then a cadet journalist at the Daily Telegraph.
  Ramsey was 28 when he went to work in the Canberra press gallery in 1966, following a stint as a war correspondent in Vietnam in 1965. However, he was no cleanskin. He'd already clocked up 13 years in journalism, working in Sydney, Melbourne, Mt Isa, Darwin, Port Moresby and London, and on publications including The Australian and Time.
  Ramsey later became Labor opposition leader Bill Hayden's press secretary from 1978 to 1983.
  He returned to the gallery and retired in 2008 as the oldest and longest-serving reporter writing about federal politics.
  One of Ramsey's most famous moments came when he was almost thrown out of parliament in 1971 when he was political correspondent for The Australian.
  Alan Ramsey In 1971 Credit:Fairfax Media
  Perched in the press gallery, he shouted "You liar!" towards then prime minister John Gorton, who accepted his subsequent apology and saved him from being removed by the sergeant-at-arms.
  David Marr wrote about Ramsey on his retirement 12 years ago that there was no one now, and no one coming along, who can write like this:
  "Where? In the basement corridor of the ministerial wing. The bins seemed a more apt commentary than all the desperate, last-minute Coalition windbaggery going on around the nation on what is about to descend on the Prime Minister after 33 years in public life and almost 12 years remaking Australia in his own miserable, disfigured image.
  They arrived two days ago and whoever they're for, 48 hours before a single vote is cast today, you felt somebody, somewhere, finally got it right.
  Tributes have poured in from people in the media.
  Long-time friend and colleague Milton Cockburn paid tribute to Ramsey's legacy.
  "Alan was gruff, cantankerous, opinionated and never content. But he was a loyal friend, always great company and loved by many," he said.
  "He was hard on himself and hard on those around him. He was never shy about giving advice to his editors, usually in a blunt way."
  Former colleague Geoff Kitney remembers sharing "a tiny, smoke-filled office" in Old Parliament House with Ramsey when he returned to journalism after working for Hayden.
  "Alan was passionate, honest and a brutal critic of anything that he considered cant or humbug. He hated pissants – one of his favourite words," Kitney said.
  "He was an intensely private and sometimes difficult person but he was driven by a powerful sense of the importance of holding political leaders to account.
  "Alan wrote with great clarity and used words like lasers, never missing a target. At his best, he was the most feared political journalist in the country."
  The Conversation's chief political correspondent Michelle Grattan said Ramsey was "always his own person".
  "He had a formidable reporting career and was insightful, tough and uncompromising as a commentator," she said.
  "Often his columns picked up issues or stories others in the gallery had overlooked or missed. His SMH columns – which sometimes tested the nerves of deadline-conscious subs on Friday nights – were absolute 'must reads' on Saturday morning."
  Herald editor Lisa Davies said Ramsey's long-running column was the reason many readers bought the Saturday paper.
  "For 21 years, Alan's column was a mainstay of the Herald, his fearless criticism of governments and politicians of all political stripes earning him a reputation as an uncompromising and razor-sharp commentator," she said.
  "Ramsey's brand of journalism will ensure he remains an industry luminary for decades to come."
  Ramsey was married twice, most recently to chief political correspondent of ABC's 7.30 program journalist Laura Tingle until their divorce in 2017.
  Ramsey was married to journalist Laura Tingle until their divorce in 2017, not 2012 as reported earlier.