drawing on her personal experience of having an illegal abortion in 1952 so that her future husband Bob Hawke could further his education at the University of Oxford. She wrote books, such as My Own Life: An Autobiography (copyright 1992) and A Little Bit of Magic: Thoughts For Women (copyright 1994). Hawke was an excellent pianist. In 1990, she was one of the three soloists in Mozart's Concerto in F for Three Pianos and Orchestra, K. 242, the others being Duncan Gifford and Rebecca Chambers. They played at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under John Hopkins. The performance was recorded and is currently available to purchase. She was the inaugural Patron of the Kendall National Violin Competition, and later the Patron Emeritus. Honours In June 2001 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia. The citation read: "For service to the community, particularly through the promotion of the reconciliation process, support for continued improvement in the quality of children's television, as a contributor to the preservation of heritage items, and involvement with environmental and wildlife preservation groups". Alzheimer's disease and death On 3 November 2003, the ABC aired an episode of Australian Story in which Hawke publicly revealed that she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Her family had noticed significant short-term memory loss, leading to the diagnosis in 2001. She had been reluctant to go public about the illness she called the 'Big A', but eventually did so to publicise a fund for supporting Alzheimer's sufferers that she had jointly set up with Alzheimer's Australia. In 2004, Hazel Flynn and Hawke's daughter Susan Pieters-Hawke published a book, Hazel's Journey: A personal experience of Alzheimer's, describing the previous decade of Hawke's life and the onset of Alzheimer's. At the book launch on 1 November 2004, Pieters-Hawke revealed that her mother had reached the mid-stages of the disease and was now suffering from quite severe short-term memory loss. That year the Hazel Hawke Dementia and Care Fund was established. Hawke's granddaughter Sophie Pieters-Hawke launched an education kit for schoolchildren about Alzheimers in 2007. In August 2009, she was placed in high level care. On 23 May 2013, she died from complications associated with the disease. She was 83 years old. Her family had been by her side in her last days. Public tributes were paid to her by the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard and the Governor-General,