A mother’s plea in a painful moment

Tracey’s son Luke was just 22 months old when he suffered severe burns in a petrol explosion in 1984, leaving him with 60–70% third-degree burns. Over the years he would undergo more than 50 surgeries.

When Luke was about 15, Tracey (pictured left) had taken him to Sydney for a round of particularly distressing medical appointments.

“It was humiliating for him… just devastating,” she said.
“I was so saddened for my boy.”

Sitting in the hospital waiting room, Tracey heard a familiar voice over the speakers — John Laws on the radio.

In a moment of instinct, she walked to the front counter.

“Ast bold as brass I said, ‘Can you ring John Laws?’ They honestly thought I was crazy. But I begged them.”

To her astonishment, the station agreed to her request to come in. 

Within seconds, she had instructions:  Go outside. Get the first taxi. Come straight to the studio. His secretary will pay the fare.

A taxi ride, a long shot — and pure kindness

It wasn’t smooth. At first the taxi driver refused to take them when Tracey explained she had no cash.

“He said, ‘No, no, you pay now!’ and told us to get out. But I wasn’t budging,” she laughed. “I said to Luke, don’t get out, I’ve got this.’”

Eventually they made it across Sydney. True to his word, a staff member was waiting on the footpath — chequebook in hand, with the driver handsomely rewarded for getting them there before Laws went off air.

Inside the studio, the tough on-air persona melted away.

“He was a big, gentle giant,” Tracey said.

“When it came to empathy and the love of people, he wasn’t that hard-ass you sometimes heard on the radio.”

After the show ended Laws ushered them into his private office — a room filled with artefacts from around the world.

There, he presented Luke with a John Laws wristwatch, a treasured keepsake he still remembers staring at on the plane home.

“John and I were both teary.  It made my son’s day — and mine.”

A newspaper clipping from Tracey’s scrapbook detailing his long fight to recover

A gift in return

Wanting to thank him properly, Tracey searched for something worthy of the moment.

She eventually sent Laws her grandmother’s pristine tin of antique ‘His Master’s Voice’ gramophone needles, which she wrapped in a hand-crocheted white linen hanky.

“What on earth do you give John Laws?” she said. “But this felt right.”

Laws was deeply moved and at first reluctant to accept such a personal heirloom, but Tracey insisted.

“I said, ‘My son accepted a watch from him — he has to accept this.’”

He later told her he gifted the hanky to his wife, “the Princess”.

A lasting impact

Tracey never contacted him again — she felt it wasn’t her place. But the news of his passing last week hit her hard.

“I just sobbed and sobbed,” she said. “I wasn’t ready for it.”

She remembers the TV commercials, the voice, the golden microphone — but mostly, the kindness he showed a frightened young boy and a desperate mum in a Sydney hospital corridor.

“He made such an impact on us,” she said. “I’ll never forget it.”

Tracey still treasures the letter she received back from John Laws

Read our earlier profile on Tracey and her extraordinary life of community fundraising