Wednesday, 9 April 2025
Government House
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

Bujari gamarruwa  Diyn Babana Gamarada Gadigal Ngura

I greet you in the language of this land’s Traditional Owners, the Gadigal, and I pay my respects to Gadigal Elders, past, present and emerging.

As Patron of Variety - the Children’s Charity NSW, I welcome all members, supporters and special guests to Government House this evening.

Lieutenant Colonel Rollo Gillespie, who was the first Secretary of the Variety Club of Australia and Private Secretary to Governor Sir Roden Cutler, knew this house well. In his book Vice Regal Quarters, published in 1975, he described the House as a “a gigantic toy fort, apparently impracticable, delightfully incongruous in its subtropical setting”.^[1]

These playful words suggest a theatrical setting and as Variety’s international story is founded in the theatre and entertainment world, let me set the scene. The script goes like this:

Act 1 Scene 1 – Xmas Eve, 1927, the Sheridan Square Theatre in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

Eleven men – theatre owners and showmen - who meet socially in the theatre under the name of the Variety Club, hear the cries of an abandoned baby in the chilly auditorium. A letter by a desperate mother is pinned to the baby, pleading for her care.

The men decide to provide for her future education and care – but as they sit around the table, cigars poised ‘just so’, they ponder the seemingly imponderable – how to pay.  

With a few flicks of ash falling on their wide-lapelled suits – the idea crystallised – the Variety Club would put on a Show.  

Act 1 Scene II - Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The William Penn Ballroom is transformed into a massive circus tent.  Ticket sales skyrocket and the Variety Club know they have a hit.  They decide to expand to include other kids who need help and take the Show ‘on the road’ attracting attention from the highest quarters. 

Act 2 Scene 1 – 1949, Post war London

Variety is invited to perform in London by His Royal Highness Prince Phillip, who then becomes Patron.  

Two years later, Prince Phillip sends out a rallying cry – inveigling his uncle, Lord Mountbatten, to come in as co-lead – at which point two royal patrons grace the stage. 

Act 2 Scene 2 - Two decades later - London 1974

Out-rivalling the longest running theatre production in London, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, the Variety Club puts on a celebrity performance honouring Harry Secombe.  Two Australians, Royce Smeal and Reg Watson are in the audience.

Act 3 Scene 1– A few months later, Government House Sydney

Enter stage right, Lieutenant Colonel Rollo Gillespie, Private Secretary to Governor Sir Roden Cutler.

Sir Rollo was up for the part, with the right sense of costume and showmanship and connections having a prior role as aide de camp to Lord Mountbatten.

Act 3 Scene 2 - A few months later - Still at Government House – meeting arranged by Rollo Gillespie for Smeal and Watson to meet Lord Mountbatten. 

The two men stand transfixed before the former Admiral of the Fleet.  With his steel blue eyes piercing through fibre of their jackets, Mountbatten delivers the most important line in the Australian rendition of this travelling Show: 

I know having met you, I can absolutely rely on you to go ahead and get Variety off the ground in Australia. I will be back from time to time to check with you.”^[2]

The two men, slightly off-centre stage, look at each other, almost Godot like, and ask “what did we just agree to do?”  But Watson, who had served under Mountbatten in Burma, knew that they had been designated to man the post – or as Mountbatten saw it - the outpost here in Australia.

Still in Act 3 Scene 2  

Filmmaker Michael Samuelson comes on stage, reel running, knowing this is something to be captured in cinematic reel time - which can be spelt either ‘reel’ or ‘real’ - it’s an interpretative piece after all.  

Perhaps Reg Watson’s son Michael who is in tonight’s audience might be able to tell us.  We are also honoured to have Graham Mapp, here tonight who was waiting in the wings whilst all this was going on – and was an integral part of getting the show on the road here in NSW. 

Act 3 Scene 3

Within a year, Sir Roden is first patron of the Variety Club of Australia, Rollo Gillespie becomes the first Secretary and Paul Hogan is Chief Barker or Chair.

Act 4 Scene 1– A Royal Command Performance; Grosvenor House London, 1975 – a glittering black-tie event

His Royal Highness Prince Philip presents the Charter from Variety Clubs International, dated 15 April 1975, to Royce Smeal for “Tent 56”.

Within weeks, Prince Charles, then aged 27, accepts Variety Club of Australia Patronage, the Prince’s first Australian patronage.

Later that year, at the Chelsea Restaurant, Kings Cross, Sydney:

Lord Mountbatten formally presents the Charter to the Club’s Australian members.

Within 18 months, funds are raised and gifts presented - a pre-natal care ambulance is donated to the Prince of Wales Children’s Hospital, five Sunshine Coaches to a school for children with disabilities and Police Citizens Boys Clubs, colour TV sets to children’s hospitals and cassette recorders to the Royal NSW Institute for Deaf and Blind Children. The first ever Variety Club of Australia Australian TV and Film Awards (aka “The Sammys”) are presented at the Sydney Opera House.

And the Show goes on …

In 1992, the Variety Heart Scholarships Program was launched by Governor Sir Peter Sinclair to support students who face financial or physical barriers to reach their full potential in the arts, sport and education. We are delighted to have several Paralympians present this evening, who have been assisted through this program.

Over the course of five decades, Variety has continued to innovate and find new ways of helping more than two million Australian children reach their potential - from the iconic annual Variety Club Bash and 4WD, supercar, Jetski and Postie Bike fundraisers, to the NSW pilot program - the NSW Variety Flying Start Paediatric Service.

In all, $700 million has been raised to assist children and families via life changing and life enriching grants and programs.

Tonight, we are also honoured by the presence of the first West Australian Variety recipient, the inspirational Monica McGhie, who, in 1982, was assisted to undertake a 6-week trip to Toronto, Canada, to be fitted with electronic arms. Monica stunned her medical team by mastering her new arms in just a few short weeks.

To each of you here – who have been part of this remarkable 50-year story of Variety – the Children’s Charity:

In homage to your big heart (and hat!), our community extends a rousing and heartfelt thank you. 

To finish, I would like to read to you a message from His Majesty King Charles III:

I would like to send my congratulations to all those who have gathered today at Government House in Sydney to celebrate Variety the Children’s Charity Australia, on the occasion of their 50^th anniversary.

As your proud Patron, I was touched to be reminded of the outstanding support you provide to children living with dsabilities, experiencing disadvantages, or suffering from long term illnesses, and their families. The assistance you have offered to more than two million people across Australia over the past fifty years is truly remarkable. 

To everyone gathered in celebration today, I send my warmest good wishes for a successful and memorable event.

CHARLES R

[1] Viceregal Quarters, Rollo Gillespie, 1975, page 122

[2] Variety newsletter: ‘Birth of Variety’, 1980