Star team's fun raiser

"In Peru I saw small children quarrying all day alongside their dad. They have to because their mother has died from complications relating to appendicitis - a death itself related to poverty which would not happen in Britain. For three days' hard labour the kids get £2, a sum critical in keeping the wolf from the family door.

"Their dad told me he has nightmares how his children will eat the next day. He would like to try to find a different job, but every day he takes off to look for such a job, he cannot afford to feed his children. Comic Relief and Sport Relief cannot cure all ills and make life wonderful for everyone on earth, but it can turn round the lives of individuals such as this family.

"A local project will get involved, getting the kids in school for two hours a day where they get a good breakfast and develop some literacy skills. Hence they start to break the back-breaking cycle, instead of repeating it for generation after generation.''

Cahill, 50, who lives on a Twickenham houseboat which has featured (with him) on Changing Rooms, has become well-practised at powerful delivery of such information since he joined Comic Relief in 1990, oddly moving from the National Theatre. But then powerful delivery is a general speciality of Comic Relief, specifically the quality of the filmed reports which sprinkle the evening's entertainment. Even now one year after the most recent Comic Relief, for example, the memory of the Aids-infected Rwandan widows and their literally death-defying courage still brings tears to the eyes.

Some new films have been made for Sport Relief, and others are planned. They are every bit as powerful as we have come to expect. The sight of an infant Peruvian struggling hopelessly to shift a stone which dwarfs him is a metaphor easily understood. But there is levity too.

"I got a call from Kevin when he was on his way to the airport,'' recalled Martyn Smith, a senior BBC producer for Sport Relief. "He wanted to take some cricket balls to the kids in Bangladesh. So he'd got in touch with Readers, a manufacturer in Kent. 'They've given me 120!' he announced down the phone. I asked him how he'd fitted them in his luggage. He said he'd left some clothes behind to make room.''

Like Comic Relief, Sport Relief will also support community charities at home. In Oldham, areas such as Glodwick have experienced considerable economic deprivation and racial tension. Unity in the Community is a collaboration between the police, Oldham Athletic FC and the government's Department of Education and Culture. Every night 100 Oldham children play football in mixed community teams, where they get to know one another as individuals and hence come to respect one another's religion.

"Having travelled so much and seen so many people battling huge problems, I certainly complain about the unimportant things less than I used to,'' said Cahill. "When you come home from those places, you understand life isn't so bad simply because the train is late or whatever. Your perspective is altered.''

As is ours, even if only briefly, thanks to the likes of Cahill, Comic Relief and now Sport Relief.

For a Sport Relief fundraising pack call 09068 101010 or log on to www.sportrelief.com