Is that really our George Blenkhorn

 

 

 

 

 

“I think over about 20 years I would have worked every Christmas Day. It was always a good day to work because you quite often got some Christmas cake” former Cardinia Shire Mayor and recipient of the Cardinia VFF branch’s Agricultural Achievement Award George Blenkhorn.

 

Last Friday night at the Nar Nar Goon Community Centre, the Cardinia branch of the Victorian Farmers Federation recognised two local residents who – though born overseas – have made invaluable contributions to the local farming and agriculture landscape as RUSSELL BENNETT reports.

 

Last Friday night at Nar Nar Goon, a whole host of dignitaries – along with well over 100 members of the local farming community – gathered for the Cardinia Victorian Farmers Federation branch’s 31st annual dinner.

Victorian Farmers Federation president David Jochinke, McMillan MP Russell Broadbent and his wife Bronwyn, Bass MP Brian Paynter, Cardinia Mayor Brett Owen, Cr Graeme Moore and wife Sue, members of neighbouring VFF branches, Cardinia VFF president and former Cardinia Shire councillor David Young all gathered to recognise former Cardinia mayor George Blenkhorn’s contribution to the local farming landscape.

In being named this year’s recipient of the Cardinia branch’s Agricultural Achievement Award, Mr Blenkhorn became the latest in a line of richly-deserving winners including – over the past decade – Russell Broadbent, Frank and Karen Rovers, Frank Crameri, Eric Kent, Noel Campbell, Bob and Joan Rose, Chas and Marie Harding, Barbara and Alan Bullen, John Coleman, and Peter Van Dieman.

Ian Anderson, who hosted the dinner, said it gave him great pleasure to announce Mr Blenkhorn as this year’s winner.
“This award recognises those individuals who have made a long and everlasting contribution to our farming community,” he said.
“Indeed I’m immensely proud to be part of a farming community that has so many people who have made a great contribution to our area.
“Tonight’s recipient of our award is a person who has just worked tirelessly for agriculture and the community for his entire life.”
Mr Blenkhorn has been an active member of the local community since he, his wife Sue, and their three children emigrated from the UK in 1977.
“Within a very short period of time of arriving here in Pakenham, George became a partner in the veterinary practice, continued to ownership, and then retired out of the business some 10 years ago,” Mr Anderson said on Friday night.

“George has always been well-respected and appreciated by all the organisations that he’s been involved with.
“(He’s been) A Rotarian for close to 30 years, race day vet at VRC race meetings here at Pakenham and associated racecourses, life member of the Pakenham and District Agricultural and Horticultural Show Society – including serving a term as president, (and has served on) the committee of the PB Ronald Trust for more than 12 years and acted as chairman for the past two.”

Mr Anderson spoke about how the Trust had gone through a period where it struggled to attract young recipients, but Mr Blenkhorn had been a driving force in reinvigorating it this year.

“George has also served eight years as a Cardinia Shire councillor – serving one term as mayor,” Mr Anderson said.
“He did say to me that he could only become a councillor when he retired from the veterinary practice because he didn’t have time to do it before then.
“Your contribution to the community has been outstanding. George, we – the agricultural community – thank you sincerely and hope that you receive much pleasure in accepting our agricultural achievement award for 2017.”

 

Cardinia VFF branch president David Young, who served a term on council alongside Mr Blenkhorn, said many in the local community wouldn’t realise just how significant a contribution he’d made.

“A lot of people wouldn’t realise that when George was first elected to council, the budgetary position of the council was in a parlous state,” he explained.
“We were one of the few councils in Victoria that the Auditor General had to oversee our budget to make sure it was in line with best practice.
“George was eight years on council and he served on the audit committee of council and he brought a lot of rigor to that committee.
“A lot of councillors will have things they can point to that they’ve achieved – a building, perhaps, within the shire.
“George, through his rigor and overseeing of the budget, has probably made a bigger contribution to the many people in this room than just about any other councillor.
“I know a lot of people think the rates have gone up, but they would have gone up a lot more if George hadn’t been on council.
“In his eight years on council, he helped bring that budget back into line.
“George’s contribution to this rural community wasn’t inconsiderable while he was a councillor, and yet he won’t have that large building.
“But there is one facility in the shire that George can be justly proud of and that’s the special school in Officer.
“I know he and Sue, his wife, lobbied very hard for that school to be built in the Cardinia shire and that’s a major asset for the shire and for that we can be very grateful.”

 

Upon receiving his award on Friday night, Mr Blenkhorn was clearly – and visibly – shocked.
“I really wasn’t expecting it,” he said.

“I thought my contribution to the agricultural community was long passed but I came here in ’77 to help the practice in Pakenham with cattle work.
“Life goes on and I was at the practice for nearly 30 years serving the community – horses, dogs, cats – 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
“I think over about 20 years I would have worked every Christmas Day. It was always a good day to work because you quite often got some Christmas cake and I remember up in Gembrook one day the Italians up there had some special grappa!

“When we came to Pakenham, the first day we came here in the main street it was a hot day in January.
“The only thing missing in the main street was a hitching rail and a horse. There wasn’t a man, dog, cat or anything and we thought ‘good god, what have we come to!’ but just look at it now. “In those days you’d go down the Seven Mile by the Main Drain and look back at Pakenham at two o’clock in the morning and you might see one light. Now you hardly need car lights when you’re down there.

“The agricultural community has been very good to me and I really appreciated the work I was doing. It was an absolutely fabulous job to have and working with the local community and local farmers I was very, very fortunate.”

 

North American ex-pat, Dr Pat McWhirter was the guest speaker at Friday’s dinner – talking about Tooradin’s Harewood House, which she acquired in the early 1990s.
A specialist bird vet, she has completed a PhD on the history of the property just outside of Tooradin, which borders Western Port and has become a focus for her intense interest in the bay and enhancing local wildlife corridors.

Harewood is a heritage-listed property bounded by Lyall’s inlet, Cardinia Creek, and Western Port, and also the South Gippsland Highway.
“Higher up the catchment there’s evidence of 33,000-year history,” Dr McWhirter said on Friday night.
“If you go and look at Frankston, their little bit of aboriginal history is buried in warehouses. Our generation can do better than this, guys.
“I come from North America and that’s twice as long as any human history that we’ve got in North America – likewise in Britain – so in Cardinia we’ve got something that’s really special.

“I just don’t think we necessarily appreciate it as much as we should.
“We now have a new airport coming probably 11 kilometres to the east of Harewood and we’re going to have a city the size of Adelaide and I’m very mindful that we’ve got some really interesting wildlife that’s unique to the world and I’d hate to think that we’re just going to have suburbia or warehouses going all the way from Monomeith back to Tullamarine.”

Harewood’s stables date back to the 1850s, with the house completed in 1868.
“I don’t think there’s any reason why you can’t have development and native animals as well,” she said of the local area.
“You’ve just got to put careful planning in to allow them to co-exist and have an understanding of what their habitat requirements are.
“It’s a unique, beautiful, vulnerable heritage. We’re all connected and whether you’re a farmer, an artist or a poet, or a scientist or developer, I just think we should be good custodians.”