It’s all good

As Melbourne as football, the state’s annual Good Friday Appeal telecast celebrates its 60th anniversary, writes Di Webster.

In 1957, Gordon Bennett was conscripted to help out at the first telecast of The Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal. He was 15 and working as an office boy at HSV7 in Melbourne. Sixty years on, Bennett is the event’s daytime producer, overseeing one of the fastestmoving and most logistically challenging live television events of the year. “The appeal has evolved with television,” says Bennett, who turns 75 two days after the April 14 telecast. “It has evolved with colour, with videotapes; in my day, we shot everything on film in black and white and that was exciting!”

Bennett says the annual fundraising drive, which culminates in a 15-hour telethon, has endured because “every person in Victoria can relate to either taking their children to the hospital or thinking that they may have to”.

And it’s not just mums and dads who kick in, he says. “It’s the firemen, it’s all those blokes in the country who put a couple of dollars in the tin each time they go into the pub. It’s from the heart... and as pure today as it was when I first went there.”

Since the appeal began in 1931 – Qantas has been supporting it since 1987 – more than $310 million has been raised to benefit sick children. Bennett says the highlight for him has been meeting them over the years. “It’s quite an emotional ride.”

Along with the appeal’s flagship event, Kids Day Out is the largest free one-day event for families in the state. And this year, funds should also get a boost from the crowds at Etihad Stadium in Docklands, where the first Good Friday AFL match will take place between the North Melbourne Kangaroos and last year’s premiers, the Western Bulldogs. Donate online at goodfridayappeal.com.au.