The joy of being part of the Humpty family

Ray Martin AM

After thirty years it’s no exaggeration to say that Humpty can still bring a tear to my eye, I promise.

It happened again up in Darwin in late March, where I was for The Great Humpty Ball, Darwin 2021.

This year broke all Northern Territory fundraising records with $750,000 raised, an outstanding achievement which capped off a magical few days. I think it’s always magical up there and if I was forty years younger, I’d move to The Territory to live. Such an exciting place, it takes your breath away.

Led by General Manager Angela Garniss, the Humpty team blitzed Darwin, taking over local TV, radio and news pages and then transforming the Mindil Beach Casino Resort into a dazzling, Saturday night charity extravaganza.

Darwin certainly frocked-up for the occasion. It was a great entertainment event with food, wine, music and comedy all night. But, in the midst of an outrageously successful few days, two things stood out for me and brought those tears to my eyes.

The first was Humpty’s amazing Morning Tea on the Wednesday before the Ball. Held on the balcony at Mindil Beach, spilling across the lush green lawns which run down to the beach, it was a mammoth children’s party fuelled by fairy bread, sponge cake and lemonade, with a cacophony of laughter and joy.

Every family wanted a photo with Humpty, sweltering in his multi coloured suit, along with an inflated animal created by the highly energetic, balloon artist.

Dr Louise Woodward, the much-loved Darwin paediatrician who has simply made miracles happen, watched over it all like a proud (but youthful) medical matriarch. Which of course she is.

It was Dr Louise who three years ago convinced Paul Francis, the inspirational Humpty Chairman, that we should somehow find $300,000 and buy a Transport Incubator for Royal Darwin Hospital. Louise had been pleading for this vital piece of medical equipment for 12 years, without success.

Anyway, at last count 23 critically-ill newborn babies have been flown to The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne or Royal Adelaide Hospital in this life-saving cot and are today healthy and happy, with their families even happier.

It was wonderful to see about half of these glorious survivors come to Humpty’s Morning Tea to say, “Thanks a lot.” In fact, they said much, much more just by their smiles and the way their thankful parents clung to their precious offspring. Everywhere you looked there were giggling babies hanging off arms and shoulders or escaping across the grass. They didn’t get far before being swept up and swirled, like kids on a Luna Park ride!

Three-year-old Davey from Gove was there with his poster boy smile which can be seen on the cover of this magazine. His black curls spilling down his face, laughing uncontrollably, every time I threw him into the air and asking for “More!”

Davey was the first baby to use the transport incubator and Dr Louise said, “On the day of the transport we didn’t know if we would be able to get Davey to the hospital alive. He would almost die if someone changed his nappy, that’s how sick he was. We had to put him in a plane 30,000 feet in the air and fly for six hours and keep him alive through all of that. He really was the sickest baby that I’ve ever looked after who has made it.”

He’s a champion. And so is Jesse, who his dad said was “dying in our arms,” when he was whisked off to Melbourne. Just eight days old, he underwent heart surgery. Today, a 2-year-old, Jesse is bubbly and beautiful.

Ben “started turning blue” within ten days of his quite normal birth. He was one of three Darwin children born with congenital heart disease in the space of a week, Dr Woodward tells us, but is now close to celebrating his second birthday.

Baby Francis is a twin boy who had open heart surgery in Melbourne, at just 22 days old. His mother, Xaviera, insists that whoever helped buy the life-saving incubator is now ”part of baby Francis’ family.”

“I know that ‘thank you’ is an overused term”, Xaviera said with a choke in her voice. “I definitely can’t thank you enough for your kindness. I believe in the human spirit.”

Talking about human spirit brings me to my second tearful encounter — a poignant, unplanned moment, two days earlier.

One of our most generous private donors was with Dr Louise at the Royal Darwin Hospital, being shown some of their donated equipment hard at work in the neonatal ward. Without knowing who this donor was, but guessing they were probably important because they were being shown the workings of the paediatric rabbit-warren, a young mother sitting beside her desperately sick baby came forward and said, “I want to sincerely thank you for any help you may give this hospital.”

It was an unsolicited, impromptu act of gratitude by the mother, but a sentiment so deserving.

It was enough to make me cry.

This one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable painting was presented to the Humpty Dumpty Foundation at the morning tea, created specifically for the Grand Auction at the Great Humpty Ball, Darwin by artist Gayili, a senior Traditional owner from the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land.

She is the proud grandmother of Davey who was the first baby to have his life saved using the transport incubator donated by the Humpty Dumpty Foundation to Royal Darwin Hospital.

Her painting represents an allegory popular within the artist’s community. Mother turtles ascend shores annually to nest their eggs, returning to the sea shortly after. In her absence, hatchlings face the difficult journey of crossing the sands to enter the ocean. While many hatchlings successfully reach the waters and live a full life, some perish during this passage.

The mother turtle depicted in this artwork, and the associated story, is a reminder that communities must unite in order to protect and nurture our children. Gayili relates this to Humpty’s work to provide the best possible care for babies and children. The artist expressed that within her painting she also sees Humpty’s donors’ indiscriminate love and generosity.