Malcolm Bruce Padgett has spent his life doing all he can in the fight against cancer. He also pioneered audiovisual shows — and it all began in a Cobram classroom.
On Monday, June 10, he was awarded Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) on the King’s Birthday Honours List.
Mr Padgett said he thinks there are far more deserving people out there, something many in his home town would disagree with.
“I couldn’t believe it when I was told I was being given this incredible honour,” he said.
For those in town who might not know Malcolm, that could be because he left not long after high school.
But he credits his schooling, in particular his teachers and mentors, in Cobram as the reason he has achieved so much.
Malcolm said it took his sister pointing out how long he’d been working to raise awareness of bowel cancer and raising money for cancer research to realise he might be worthy of the honour.
“What I want to do is gratefully accept this honour and use it to open more doors, so I can get more action on bowel cancer,” he said.
“Because it’s so easily detectable, it’s the only cancer that gives you a warning up to 10 years beforehand, it’s frustrating that people don’t take an opportunity to get tested.
“My mission is to convince people who are otherwise healthy and think they’re invincible to do a quick test and save their lives.
“I want them to see their kids and grandkids grow up.”
Malcolm’s passion for fighting cancer grew from the loss of his brother, Greg, to bowel cancer aged 47.
“He’s got three grandchildren now that he never got to see.”
Malcolm said while the family makes a point of letting them know what a wonderful person their grandfather was, he wishes they could have found that out for themselves.
“I don’t want any family to go through losing a loved one,” he said.
“Supporting cancer charities is a way I can make sense of his passing. By doing what I do, his life wasn’t lost for nothing.”
And Malcolm does a lot.
He has been a participant and fundraiser for the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation’s Unite to Fight Cancer and Ride to Fight Cancer since 2012, raising more than $130,000 for the charity.
He has fundraised for the Victorian Cancer Council and participated in Relay for Life.
And he’s been actively involved in cancer awareness, prevention and fundraising through the Rotary Club as he currently lives in Queensland.
“There was a fella called Jeff Wilson and because I’m a graphic designer and make videos he asked if I could help Rotary with social media,” he said.
“Because of him, I joined Rotary in Queensland. And now I’m actually on the Queensland Rotary Bowel Cancer Committee.
“Rotary were the ones who started the bowel scan initiative about 40 years ago.
“When the free government tests came in for everybody aged 50-74, most of the states pulled out (of offering similar free testing).
“As they felt their job was done. But it’s not, as only 40 per cent of the kits are used.
“So there’s more to do, particularly for younger people.
“Australia is number one in the world for incidents of bowel cancer between the ages of 15 and 49.
“People think it’s an old person’s disease. Younger people put on sunscreen, do breast and testicular checks, avoid smoking and actively try to minimise their risk of getting cancer.”
Malcolm said he wants to see a day when they also get screened for bowel cancer and intends to keep working towards that goal.
While his work in the fight against cancer would be worthy of an OAM by itself, he’s been given the honour for that as well as his service to the business world.
Malcolm was an innovator in the audio/visual world, starting out creating displays using a slide projector — when a slide projector was state-of-the-art technology.
“I grew up in Yarroweyah. My parents were dairy farmers” he said.
“I went to school in Cobram, but moved away to study graphic design in Melbourne.
“I still have a lot of friends in the area and come back regularly.”
Malcolm said multimedia studies in the late 70s were computer controlled slide projectors and reel-to-reel tape-decks.
“Film was really expensive to produce, and video projectors weren’t bright enough, so they couldn’t compete with slide projectors.
“In Melbourne there were these six companies who only made audio slide and tape productions, I think I saw my first one in 1979.
“Because I had a deep interest in photography, and I’ve always liked music, I thought ‘wow, I want to do that’.
“So I majored in that the next year, and that’s how I got involved.”
Malcolm said he’s had to reinvent his career around three times, as the technology got slowly, then quickly much more advanced.
“Slide shows were gone in about two years after I started. That’s when the video projectors got much brighter,” he said.
“Then computers came in. One of the last slide shows I made I used Photoshop and a film recorder to go direct from the computer screen to a slide.
“Before that, you had to colourise and edit each frame individually.”
Malcolm said the values he lives by all came from his school, and teachers in Cobram.
“There was a teacher called Lucy Armstrong,” he said.
“She said to me one day ‘have you ever thought of being a graphic designer?’.
“This was in the mid-70s in Cobram, so I said ‘what’s that?’.
“She sent off to all the colleges and two weeks later she was presenting me with all these posters and pamphlets.
“And I thought ‘wow, that’s what I want to do’.
“Then in form 4 (Year 10) Don Batty got me a job at Getty’s offset printing.”
It was these Cobram people who inspired Malcolm and set him on the path he’s taken.
The path that has led to an OAM.
Malcolm said he would celebrate with friends and family as soon as he didn’t have to keep the honour a secret any more.