was in charge of the place before I got there, had remarked to me of Tony that, you know, we needed to look after him or something; that if he... outside of this place, he could be Prime Minister you know. Now, I was never quite as impressed as that, but I mean, a very capable guy. LIZ JACKSON: Tony Abbott spent three years struggling to be a priest, then quit and went public. He wrote in the Bulletin that his dream had died. He missed, he said, 'the glittering company of Oxford, the student hurly-burly'. The seminary 'lacked imagination and virility' and the 'lack of sensual intimacy had' in his case 'become a heavy burden'. He had reached the point of 'loathing' the place. FATHER BILL WRIGHT: 'I loathed it'. There can be a flamboyance to... an extravagance to Tony's way of putting things - the one the one liner - and sometimes going to the extreme version for impact, he'll do that. NOEL DEBIEN: Some people thought a seminarian should be quiet; that a seminarian should be obedient; that a seminarian should not make waves. That wasn't Tony. TONY ABBOTT: It was difficult time of my life because I was wrestling with what I thought was a calling, but I was also wrestling with my nature, which didn't take easily to the life of the seminary. And I guess that was why I found it... I found it difficult and ultimately why I left. It was while Tony