The former Prime Minister was headbutted

recently. I mentioned this elsewhere.
This morning there is an article in our state newspaper "celebrating" the fact. What it is celebrating though is interesting. It celebrates the fact that our previous Prime Ministers don't, generally speaking, go out with a security detail in tow. 
I know that's not the case with previous Presidents of the United States or some previous Prime Ministers, Presidents, Chancellors and the like in Europe. 
We apparently take a different view Downunder. I say "apparently" because, despite what the writer of the article had to say, it isn't quite as simple as it appears to be on the surface.
But it does happen here - and in the UK - more often than people realise.  I have chatted to a former Governor of this state in the bank. She was actually the Governor at the time - but she had the  habit of standing in the queue with everyone else. It allowed her "to talk to people". I have met other VIPs in other (almost) unexpected places - like the law library and in lifts. My encounters have usually been brief and involved  nothing more than social pleasantries. 
And there was that elderly gentleman who walked through some university grounds in London every morning at about the same time as I would arrive. I mended the cuff on a cardigan for him once - and had no idea that he was actually a member of the  High Court. He didn't tell me. I didn't need to know. When I did find out we still just went on talking about the weather - as the British do. 
I have told people the story since then - not to name drop but to point out that the apparent security detail isn't always there and, even if it is, it isn't always apparent - unless perhaps you know where to look. 
For some years a former Chief Justice of this state (a very very distant relative)  lived alone in a tiny house in the city. It didn't appear to be anything special. If you looked very closely though there were a few discreet security details that were not on other properties and, oddly, there was often a police car parked somewhere in the street. In it there would usually be a couple of officers on an apparent break. I was invited to go there once and the police car was in evidence. They nodded me in after I had pressed the buzzer on the gate and announced myself. They knew full well who I was and what I was doing there.  To anyone who didn't know though it would just have been "a couple of cops having a break" and "someone ringing an entry bell" - and that's the way it should have been. 
Most of the time the same Chief Justice walked the city (he never learned to drive) apparently alone. He liked to do it that way - despite the security risks. It meant he could talk to people if he wanted to do so - and he liked to talk to people. I have seen other high profile public figures do the same.
And that's the way it should be. Yes, the former Prime Minister got headbutted by an idiot but it is better he gets headbutted by an idiot than all former Prime Ministers travel in armour proof vehicles with armed motorcycle outriders. 
And, if it hadn't been that way, an elderly man who was grieving for his late wife would never have had the cuff of the cardigan she knitted for him mended. I'm glad that a "lack of security detail" meant that could happen.