Richard Farmer's Daily Email Briefing

ACCESS BACK ISSUES
HERE

NEWS AND VIEWS
Australia

Other Countries

Mark Whittaker

Biographical Notes from The Walkley Awards website for 2005

Print: Magazine Feature Writing Winner

Mark Whittaker, The Australian, "Ordinary Heroes"

Mark Whittaker started as a copyboy at News Limited in 1985 and joined The Weekend Australian Magazine as a staff writer in 1993. He left the magazine in 2000 to travel around Australia and write The Road To Mount Buggery, about peculiar Australian placenames, with his wife, Amy.

He has rejoined The Weekend Australian Magazine as a part-time staff writer. This is his first Walkley.

Whittaker was first sent to do a story on Sophie Delezio and Molly Wood, the two toddlers who suffered horrific burns when a car crashed into the Roundhouse childcare centre on Sydney's northern beaches. Instead, Whittaker found an untold story of suburban heroism.

When the childcare centre would not cooperate, Whittaker found an ex-employee who was disgruntled that the bravery of her co-workers went unrecognised. He interviewed 14 of the 22 civilians involved.

Judges' comments

Mark's powerful, affecting story took the reader inside the Roundhouse childcare centre, re-creating the atmosphere of noise, heat and confusion in the minutes after a car crashed into a roomful of sleeping toddlers. His moving yet unsentimental story provided real-life insight into the indiscriminate horror of the accident and the extraordinary nature of human courage.