The thing about Joe Hildebrand is, he’s always been the funniest guy in the room.
Whether he’s sitting opposite an elegant Ita Buttrose on Ten’s new morning show Studio 10, or co-hosting, with Matt Tilley, the Drive show on Triple M; or writing his column in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph; presenting programs for the ABC; or laying down the one liners on Twitter, you can generally count on Joe to give you a laugh.
Being the funny one is paying dividends this year; by The Weekly’s count, he has at least four jobs, including as a writer. He’s just published a book, An Average Joe, with ABC Books.
It would, however, be a mistake to right Joe off as the merely the funny one. Here, for example, is Joe on the time when he went walking in Wilson’s Promontory with his hippy Mum, a couple of young cousins and his awkward little brother Paddy, who was just nine years old at the time, and a bit autistic:
“Paddy loved nothing more than bushwalking. The forest ahead was calming and the way ahead was clear. And so we all strolled lazily along the path, a couple of kids straggling behind and Paddy a few short metres ahead. Then he rounded a bend, and we never saw him again.”
He isn’t mucking around. Joe’s little brother, Paddy, has never been found. His disappearance prompted one of the largest searches in Australian history. Some of the SES volunteers who went to the Prom that day to try to find him still go back, year after year, unable to accept a child could slip away and never be found.
Paddy’s death had a profound effect on Joe’s family.
“In a single tick of the clock we were all broken,” Joe writes. “Our whole lives became instantly forlorn … That night, on the long straight road out of Wilson’s Prom, I stared out the windows into the dark shapes of the bushland. Somewhere in there, my brother’s body lay but I knew we would never find him. The blackness told me so.”
