July 2010

'I am humbled,' says 73-year-old William

Royal honour for street kid turned caravan dealer

A FORMER New South Wales caravan dealer who now dedicates his life to helping abused, neglected and homeless children has been recognised in the Queen's Birthday honours.

Seventy-three-year-old former street kid William Campbell told Caravanning News he was "very surprised" to receive a Member of the Order of Australia (OAM) medal for his work with foster children needing crisis care and accommodation.

"I am humbled by it and feel very honoured," he said.

Mr Campbell spent a miserable childhood living apart from his twin sisters ... all three moving between foster care, children's homes and institutions.

He was forced to live on the streets but managed to pull himself out of the gutter and later in life launch a successful car and caravan sales business in the Shellharbour suburb of Albion Park Rail.

He married Dawn who, he said, had been very supportive since the day they first met. "She's had to put up with a lot," he said.

Mr Campbell started his motor business in 1979 with a Chrysler-Mitsubishi dealership but then switched to caravans. "We had a number of caravan franchises including Advance, Roadstar, Jayco, Cub trailers and Windsor," he recalled.

Mr Campbell later founded the William Campbell College at Nowra which, he said, "provided a loving home environment for abused, neglected and homeless children, providing them with stability, growth and achievement underpinned by a spiritual and educational healing process".

"We started the charity in 1998 and found the workload of the dealership – Illawarra Motor Park – was getting too much," he explained. "We were setting up the college and our first child arrived in care in November, 2004, so we needed to make the break."

Mr Campbell closed down the dealership and leased out the property. "I found I could not concentrate on the business and do our charity work at the same time," he said.

"It's most rewarding that we have some 30 children and young people in our care which verifies the significance of our foster care agency which is fully accredited by the Children's Guardian. 

"Additionally, we have received recommendation by the NSW Board of Studies for five years' registration for our school, which commenced in the first term of 2010."

Despite selling caravans for nearly 20 years, he admits to never taking a touring caravan holiday.

"But we did have a caravan on site at Durras Lakes on the South Coast north of Batemans Bay," he said.

"We had it for 15 to 20 yrs and used to go for our holidays and really enjoyed it. We loved it.

"But our work with children consumed us and we sold the caravan because we had not used it for a number of years."

Mr Campbell spoke about how he spent his childhood in children's homes, institutions and foster care.

"But when I was almost 14 I had nowhere to go," he recalled.

"There was kids living on the streets and I joined them for about five months. Whatever money I earned got me a bed in a boarding house. But if you had no money you slept out ... it could have been at the Manly wharf, at railways or under the Harbour Bridge.

"There were quite a few kids in the same situation and the boarding houses weren't all that safe because you had some predatory men staying at some of these places."

As a teenager, Mr Campbell held down three jobs to get himself on his feet. He sold newspapers on the trams at Camperdown, worked in a Chinese cafe for his meals and sold chocolates at the local picture theatre.

"The best thing that happened to me was when I obtained an apprenticeship in the horse stables at Kensington," he said.

"I spent 16 months there and just loved the riding and track work. I managed to become an apprentice to one of the trainers. I had designs on becoming a jockey, but I was up around eight stone and just couldn't get the weight off. So as much as I loved it, I just had to move on."

Mr Campbell said his childhood background gave him the driving passion to help bring sibling groups of children together.

"My twin sisters and me were split up and, unfortunately, even today siblings are split up and put in different foster care placements. You might have half a dozen living in four different placements."

He described how his family underwrote the purchase a 120-acre farming property, which is registered in the charity's name, to help homeless siblings stay together.

"We have two cottages on the farm at this stage which provide accommodation for sibling groups of children who live 24/7 with professionally trained permanent foster carers," he said. "Our plan for the future is to construct more family-type cottages for sibling groups of children.

"Some 103 children have now passed through our foster care agency."

When asked his age, Mr Campbell quipped: "I'm 73 ... but I'm not out yet!"