Vale Godfrey Philipp ... Adventure Island and his contribution to the 'Its Time' campaign

Some of you will be old enough (or young enough!) to remember two examples of important Australian visual media genius. The innovative and child-focused, adult-friendly 'Adventure Island' with an impressive and somewhat surprising cast, and the landmark launch of the Whitlam Labor "It's Time" campaign at the St Kilda Town Hall. Both were created and produced by Godfrey Philipp.

He did other things as well, but these are the best known and remembered. Adventure Island glistened with cinematic trickery and subtle innuendo, whilst "It's Time" rolled out after it's successful start, possibly for the first time politicians and the acting profession in an almost 'American' marketing coup, a national call to political change lead by popular known personalities touted to be thoughtful and intelligent enough not just to entertain us, but to change our thinking. And they succeeded. Whether or not the ABC of the day, upset by Philipp's genius, punished him by cancelling the former and then rubbing it in by continuing (by popular demand) to air the children's program for the next 10 years as repeats, we will never know. Philipp retreated from his creative and brilliant writing/producing disillusioned by the progress of modern programming and realism replacing creative fantasy in children's television.

Godfrey died at Sumner House recently, and on 23rd June we celebrated his extensive achievements in a memorial service on the ground floor of Sumner surrounded by some of the cohort of those days: John Michael Howson aka 'Clowny' and many others. There was music from the time and some hymns for the 'Sumner family', and some reflection beyond those great days of a man who died in poverty, in our care, loved by his little community here at the BSL. We play host those who never visited, but who needed to remember, and ones he loved and who loved him in his last years and months. Such is the tension and joy of the hospitality of the church and Sumner.

I confess I didn’t know him well, or indeed anything about his past, until after his death. A genius in our midst and for me, a person who took me into a little television wonderland in childhood, and managed to awaken my political interest in the same times. But this is the role of the Brotherhood, to support and sustain all those who through misfortune come to need our care at their most vulnerable.

The ministry we are called to is to honour the whole person, and Godfrey like his fellow residents is as deserving of our remembering as we do for everyone who lives and comes under our care.

Thanks to Sumner staff who do such a remarkable and loving service on our behalf.

A big salute to a friend moving on

Here at our blog, the Brotherhood's Fr Jeff O'Hare dips his lid to a person who has achieved great things in her long and productive lifetime.

Revd. Elizabeth Alfred has just moved on from the Brotherhood, and we bid her a fond farewell. She leaves the residential community at Sumner House for a new home, an Anglican aged care residence in Frankston. As it happens, it's right next door to the Brotherhood's High Street Centre. Now in her late nineties and with a bright and enquiring mind, Elizabeth is ready for something new.  

Elizabeth was ordained the first female Priest in Melbourne at the age of 79. From the 1940s, she was a friend and working companion to the Brotherhood's founder, Fr. Tucker. She lived for a long time at the Tucker Settlement in Carrum Downs, before moving to nearby Cox Collins.

She's never stopped actively serving in pastoral care, and has continued the celebration of communion. Her capacity to think deeply and reflect, and to offer helpful advice and wisdom has been so valuable to the people she has lived and worked with. 

Elizabeth and I worked together in the parish of Dandenong, and for a time, ran the parish together ... With some creative and at times controversial energy! She worked with the Brotherhood as Associate Priest, and now we wish her God’s peace as she journeys on.

When I interviewed Elizabeth for the book, Brotherhood: Stories of Courage and Hope, she told me the story of a child responding to a question on a Sunday night children’s radio program during the Second World War. When asked what she might pray for that night, she replied “for Winston Churchill and Fr. Tucker”.  

At first hearing, I felt sentimental about the historical context of the comment: a child’s desire for peace in a time of war, the belief that Churchill would solve the world's (even the Empire’s) great problems, and her conviction that Fr. Tucker’s fame was matched by that of Churchill’s!

On reflection, the two names were not only an expression of the ‘bigness’ of both people in this child's mind, but what they both represented to her. Hope of a better world.  

It's likely she was preoccupied with the chaos of the time: raging war where people were being killed in great numbers every minute of the day in the ‘theatre of war’, and closer to home, where the chaos of poverty prevailed and the people were fighting their own battle against it, a fight led by Fr. Tucker.  

Tucker took the problem of poverty from those who were suffering most, and placed it in the hands of those who had the capacity to throw themselves into finding solutions. He took the issue of poverty out of its ghetto and into the halls of power, and began the process of turning the lives of the disadvantaged around.

An Australia free of poverty?  Why not! We SHOULD aim high. This is our ideal, our vision for everyone who asks to be freed from their chaos, their war. For many, peace is far off, and for those of us challenged by the legacy of Tucker, it's something we continue to strive towards.

Prayer was all that was left for many in such chaos. A prayer for peace is often contradictory, because it asks that something be turned on its head, or as Tucker prayed, ‘that the enemy may be vanquished’! War, poverty, much the same. Ask the ones we care for.