When a mate’s in trouble, sometimes the best thing to do is throw a party. Words and pictures by Stephen McKenzie.
THERE’S an adage about friendship that likens it to phosphorus, something that “shines brightest when all around is dark”. Another, an Assyrian proverb, is much starker: “Tell me your friends,” it goes, “and I’ll tell you who you are’’.
Sometimes it takes a crisis, such as a devastating illness, for friends to get a chance to show how much they care. It might be a kind word, a casserole left on the doorstep, an offer to pick up groceries on the way home. Or it might be a fundraiser with live entertainment, ticket sales and a huge crowd of well-wishers all digging deep to help fill the huge financial hole serious illness can create.
We met three much-loved Melburnians who have been on the receiving end of such practical displays of affection – and found that although getting sick in the world’s eighth most expensive city can be bleak, there’s nothing like a party and the support of real friends to light up your world.
GAVIN LYNCH
FORMER publican Gavin Lynch juggles two full-time jobs. The first, raising two-year-old son Jack, is soured by the second – fighting aggressive cancer. Neither “job’’ pays a cracker.
For regulars at Fitzroy’s Labor in Vain Hotel, Lynch’s second family, that needed addressing. On February 4, bands, boozers and buddies crammed the hotel to raise a glass – and $10,000 – for their all-time favourite barman. As one punter put it to an overwhelmed recipient: “Shit, mate, we’d have done this for you even if you didn’t have cancer. Think of it as payback for all the crap you put up with for 10 years.”
It started, as many ideas do, over a few pots between mates Wayne Slattery and Kerry Levier. “For a while it was just talk,’’ says Slattery, a musician. “Some musos I approached said to go to the pub itself, the grassroots, and build from there. It was great advice. Things kicked into gear. We got raffle donations: things like drinks and food vouchers from local pubs, retailers’ products, gift vouchers. Public radio gave it a plug, and Sticky Carpet in The Age. All it took was a few phone calls and emails, it was that easy.”
If only beating cancer were so simple. Lynch, who has melanomas, is three years into an “emotional and physical battle which knocks you on your arse”, never more so than in 2009 when a post-operative infection left severed nerves in his leg and a gaping wound. “I’ve broken 14 bones over the years but this was a thousand times worse,” he says.
Life since has been a roller-coaster of operations, remissions and recurrences. Even at his fundraiser, Lynch clutched his mobile phone, awaiting word on whether new lumps at the back of his neck required removal (they do) and whether they are nasty (they are).
All the while he nursed his son, hugged his wife Anthea, whose parents run the pub, and reminisced with locals about more carefree times. Anti-anxiety drugs help avoid peaks and troughs, but the brave face isn’t put on.
Lynch was initially uncomfortable with the idea of people “going to such lengths, the spotlight and everything”, but resigned himself when told by Levier, in no uncertain terms: “It’s for you, mate, it’s not about you!” So he watched, humbled, while five bands roared through their sets; he even joined Bruce Springsteen tribute act The Boss Band on vocals. The pub heaved with a sell-out crowd of mostly locals, all of whom paid $20 entry and eagerly imbibed, aware that every drink filled their friend’s coffer.
Comedian Hung Le says: “I’ve known Gav since he was manager at Naughtons, way, way back. We’d go to the footy together (Lynch, a Blues man, will cherish the signed jumper presented to him that night). I found out Gav had cancer a few weeks back while borrowing his Victa mower. It’s an awesome mower. I hope he leaves it for me when he goes.”
He’s joking, of course, but there is a sombreness beneath the frivolity at Lynch’s fundraiser, a reminder of the unexpected hand that life can deal. On the flipside, one thing is evident; when one of our own is challenged, it’s all hands on deck to help.
PAUL CAMPAIN
IN his heyday, cricketer Paul Campain struck fear in seasoned batsmen, sending hundreds to the pavilion – a few of them concussed – with curly, lightning fast deliveries. He was a decent tailender, too, clocking handy runs in five premierships over 25 years.
North Balwyn Combined Cricket Club is his second home, its members like family. So when fate sent a tricky potentially fatal delivery Campain’s way, a tumor in his throat, the club responded like any loving family might; they threw a fundraiser. Not your average pass-the-hat-around barbecue, either. It featured guest speakers (Cricket Australia chief Malcolm Speed, Hawthorn footballer Brad Sewell, former AFL coach Rodney Eade), auction items (including the 1991 premiership jumper of Hawthorn centreman and school friend Anthony Condon) and 180 or so paying punters.
Take a bow, David Wood: club stalwart, committeeman and close friend. “It’s more than just mateship at this club,” says Wood, whose wife has battled cancer for years. “You’d drop into a ditch for each other. I went to the club president and said, ‘This guy has been a great servant of this club and we’re going to do something, show what a club we are’.’’
It wasn’t the club’s first fundraiser. In 2001, teammates, friends and family of terminally ill motor neurone sufferer Peter Williams collected thousands of dollars for his family; fire trucks, clowns and jumping castles added colour to a tragic situation. It formed a template for Wood, who set flummoxed board members a seven-week deadline, all the while telling a slightly embarrassed Campain to rest.
“I’d had this biopsy, seen the oncologist at Peter Mac and didn’t know what radiotherapy was,” Campain says. “Woody told me some home truths: ‘It will do this, will knock you around. It will knock the physical and financial stuffing out of you.’ Then he’s gone, ‘Oh, yeah, hope you don’t mind, but we’re putting on a fundraiser’. I’m like, ‘Geez, I’m happy to have a beer, but you don’t have to do that’.”
It was too late. By mid-November, invitations were in the mail and speakers on board, free of charge. Local businesses joined the fray, among them Campain’s favourite Thai restaurant, which brought sumptuous food the radiology patient unfortunately couldn’t taste. (Even the two beers he allowed himself tasted like metal).
Campain put the $10,000 raised towards the mountain of bills he keeps in a weighty folder. He has taken two vital things from his experience. The first: cricket is much more than a sport. It’s a brotherhood. “I saw blokes there that night, opponents I hadn’t seen in years. I was overwhelmed.”
And this: “I woke with a swollen gland one day. I put it down to an infection. I’d been feeling fit, you know, typical male, nothing wrong with me. After five or so days my girlfriend urged me to go to the doctor. The doc has gone, ‘Hmm, that’s a bit strange’. He did some tests, I had a CAT scan, next thing you know, ‘You’ve got tonsil cancer’. In a million years I wouldn’t have suspected that. I was lucky I got there early. So please, tell your readers, if something isn’t right, get checked out.”
There’s some good news as we go to print, the word that Campain is in remission.
GENEVIEVE BLACKMORE
FOR a moment there, swaggering her way through the risqué song “Lachlan” at her February fundraiser, guitar slung across her back, Genevieve Blackmore looked anything but a woman laid low with breast cancer.
Nor, as she snarled lyrics like “My motives are shocking, so if it’s a rocking (Lachlan’s panel van) don’t come a-knocking”, did she seem the shy type. But she is, on both counts.
It is why Blackmore’s dear friend, singer/songwriter Angie Hart, wrestled over whether to organise Gen Fest, a fundraiser at which music luminaries played and 350 well-wishers paid. “My friends and I wanted to jump in straight away, but Gen’s such a private person she needed time,” says Hart.
But then, the former Frente frontwoman understood that Blackmore needed bills paid, rest and better airconditioned digs more than she needed privacy.
After some gentle persuasion from Hart’s manager, Will Larnach-Jones, Blackmore realised the only way to have a fundraiser was to be its public face. With Blackmore on board, the ball got rolling down a pretty steep hill: 3RRR, where “Genny B” is a DJ, filled the airwaves and the on-line community was aflutter; Inpress provided articles and ad space, rival street mag Beat a “gig of the week” plug.
A host of indie luminaries had “fallen over themselves” to play, among them Dan Luscombe, Dan Kelly, Jess Cornelius and Glenn Richards. Alan Brough was locked in as co-host. The Corner Hotel, scene of many a Blackmore gig, waived its fees. “It was incredible how things fell into place,” says Hart. “Convincing Gen was the toughest bit.”
On February 16, an overwhelmed Blackmore watched from backstage. “I was agog,” she says. “It’s an honour to be part of a music community that pumps sonic blood through our city and which pulls together when one of its own needs a hand. I was initially uncomfortable with it, I won’t lie. It’s very intense, everyone knowing. I was afraid of becoming ‘Genevieve the cancer patient’ to friends and strangers … I had to let that go ’cause I really needed help. As it turned out, I received so much love as well as the financial relief (almost $11,000), it nourished my soul.”
Rather than work the room thanking people, she put her energy into a rollicking three-song performance with her band, Your Wedding Night. “I’d been very tired leading up to Gen Fest, but miraculously felt great on the day … there’s something energising about being with the band, strumming away. It was very rock ’n’ roll.
“It’s very draining worrying about money when you should be focused on getting well. It’s not like you have a cancer savings account in case you’re diagnosed … money sucks, doesn’t it?”
