What's In A Name : Are You Phil Campbell?
By David Ellis
When
a tornado ripped through the unusually-named little township of Phil
Campbell in America’s Alabama in April of this year, wiping out whole
blocks and killing twenty-six of the town’s just-over 1000 residents,
little did the locals expect that their almost-miniscule community
would attract help from around the world.
Nor that the people
helping those of Phil Campbell township, Alabama would include Phil
Campbell from Bowral in the Southern Highlands of NSW, Phil Campbell
from Coffs Harbour on the NSW Mid North Coast, Phil Campbell from
Adelaide, Phil Campbell from New York and Phil Campbell from
Nottingham, England... even a Phil Campbell from Greece, and other Phil
Campbells from Ireland, Scotland and Asia.
And that twenty
international Phil Campbells, including those three from Australia,
would fly there this month to join a working-bee in helping to rebuild
their little community… together, for good measure, with a Phyllis
Campbell.
The story of Phil Campbell, the town, goes back to the
1880s when a railroad being built through Alabama passed by an un-named
little settlement that was struggling to get on its feet to service a
growing farming community.
One of the settlement’s businessmen
suggested to the Scottish engineer in charge of the railroad, a Mr Phil
Campbell that if he could somehow “arrange” a rail-siding and depot at
which freight trains could load and unload, the locals would name their
little township after him.
The engineer agreed, and when the job
was done the townspeople were true to their word, naming their
community Phil Campbell – the only town in the world whose name
contains a person’s first and surname.
Fast-forward a hundred
years to 1995 when an American journalist named Phil Campbell thought
it would be a hoot to get fellow Phil Campbells together for a reunion
– and where better than in the township of Phil Campbell?
A
near-two dozen turned up from around America, and as word spread of
similar gatherings in subsequent years, others named Phil Campbell
joined-in from different parts of the world.
And this year, with
the devastation caused by the April tornado, Phil Campbells around the
world began raising money and organising shipments of everything from
household goods to books and childrens’ toys – and a Phil Campbell
Reunion that would include a clean-up working bee.
And Bowral’s
Phil Campbell also took dozens of NSW’s State Emergency Services’
soft-toy platypus mascots to give to local school children.
Mr
Campbell – who is his State Emergency Services’ Corporate
Communications Manager – found that seven weeks after the tornado,
large parts of Phil Campbell township are still little more than piles
of debris, wrecked houses and trashed businesses.
“Over one
hundred families lost their homes – and in just those seven weeks since
the tornado, the Phil Campbells of the world raised $30,000 which is
enough to fund a house to be built by volunteer labour for one family,
and we’re now raising funds to build more,” he said.
“Where
houses once stood are just concrete slabs, hundred-year-old trees have
been reduced to jagged stumps, roofing iron is still caught in the tops
of some, and we passed one tree in which a family’s washing was still
caught in the branches…
“We did a lot of clearing-up work and
demolished some buildings that were beyond repair at the local swimming
pool, but compared to the devastation around us, it was a small
effort,” Mr Campbell said.
And yet despite their losses, the
people of Phil Campbell township managed to put on a Hoedown concert
for the Phil Campbells who’d come to help them, those Phil Campbells –
sporting T-shirts emblazoned with "I'm With Phil" – being borne through
town like heroes on two pick-up trucks led by marching bands, Girls
Scouts and emergency service vehicles.
“To be there was a
life-changing experience,” Mr Campbell said. “Knowing we were bound by
no more than our names and that of a small American town, and that
between us we’d raised enough money to make a small but tangible
difference in this small Deep South community...
“And new friendships were forged across the world in a way that none of us could have imagined.”
To donate to Phil Campbell township’s recovery go to imwithphil.bbnow.org.
And, no, you don’t have to be a Phil Campbell to contribute. |
