Painting the blue, beautiful hues,

Coloured with gold and old rose

Playing the clown,

Trying to drown all of my woes

Though things may not look bright

They all turn out alright

If I keep painting the clouds with sunshine.

This is the second part of the chorus of Painting The Clouds With Sunshine, the theme song  of the 2PK Sunshine Club.  

Every weekday morning this song would go out all over the Central West and a multitude of people would listen to Betty on the wireless. It was and still is to a lesser extent, a wonderful organisation that raised many millions of dollars for The Royal Far West Children’s Health Scheme.

We have been recording interviews for The National Library at the Parkes Museum over the past few weeks.  They are currently mounting an exhibition to celebrate the 80th anniversary of radio station 2PK, founded in 1937.  

I got to talk with the enthusiastic Rose Jones who provided me with lot of information on the radio station from their research.

Of course Betty and the Sunshine club are featuring strongly in the display and this got me thinking about the social impact that Betty and the organisation had on our town of Forbes as well as a vast area of the Central West.

Frank Spicer the owner and manager of 2PK started sponsoring  the Royal Far West Health Scheme with the commencement of the 2PK Sunshine Club in 1939.

Betty Muzyczuk (Frank’s daughter) began as the official announcer and organiser in 1948 taking over from her sister Cecily.

I believe that at one time there were over 33 branches of the Sunshine Club in our area.

A vast number of fund raising activities were held by the club and it had many thousands of members, myself included.  Each of us had our own special club ‘name’ I was ‘Bob the Kid’.

From memory I joined at a Sunshine Club Ball in Parkes and was a tad under the weather at the time.

There were some really clever names from memory. What was yours?

The club purchased mini-buses, station wagons, ambulances, food trolleys, ear testing equipment, respirators, audio equipment and many other items for the Far West.

The Sunshine Club in Parkes finished on 2PK in 1982 when the Station changed hands. We have one  of the few remaining recordings of the program and the amazing Betty  in our NFSA collection.

The folklore and tales of Betty and the Sunshine Club abound. Stories of Betty sitting in the studio knitting away while rallying the Sunshine troops to support a street stall or provide goods for a raffle.

I believe that you could not mention beer on air for some reason so the call went out for bottles of ”brown cordial”, and they got plenty.

The program would start with the ‘thought for the day’ which Betty would read out. These were often submitted by members who would occasionally slip something risque in for her to read.

I do remember one but unfortunately can’t repeat it here. There were also “Me to You’s” which were records played from one member to another with a relevant message.

One of the legendary stories is about the time Betty’s husband, Alex Muzyczuk, known by his club name of ‘My Heart’s Delight’ went into hospital for an operation to repair parts of his nether region, not exactly a pile of fun. One of the wags sent a ‘Me To You’ to poor Alex – a recording of Johnny Cash singing ‘The Ring of Fire”.  True story.

Forbes Sunshine Club recently celebrated 78 years of association with the Far West Scheme, they are one of the two Sunshine Club branches still surviving.

People like Molly Neilsen and her troops  keep the flame of this significant organisation burning.

Betty Muzyczuk MBE, OAM died in 2007 aged 84.  She left a legacy that will live forever.