"In the 1920s - over his principal years as
an advocate - Menzies worked, as Dame Pattie remembers it, 'fantastically
hard'. He estimated that at this time his weekly hours of work would
average not less than eighty. The Melbourne courts sat from 10.30am
to one o'clock and from 2.15 to 4.15 in the afternoon. Menzies' habit
was to work at his desk long into the night and to get up as late
as court or conference obligations permitted. In the first years of
marriage this work routine and the demands on Pat of home and children
meant that they lived what she calls a 'very quiet life'. Almost always,
however, Menzies took Sunday off, to rest and spend time with his
family. Though they sometimes went to church they took no part in
wider church activities and Sunday was a day for reading, and occasional
picnics and outings."
A W Martin, Robert Menzies A Life Vol 1 1894-1943, 1993 p 44.