Don Journet is a Bacchus Marsh man with a passion for botany who has spent his life volunteering at a variety of organisations. He spoke to Liam McNally about his community groups and his connection to Moorabool.
What’s your connection to Bacchus Marsh?
I moved to Bacchus Marsh in 1979 after leaving London. I taught at the Footscray TAFE until my retirement until 2002 and have done a variety of voluntary work in the area.
What do you like about where you live?
[When I moved here] I loved it for being a very small rural town, it’s the type of place I was really impressed with. I was fortunate in getting a property that faces out onto Werribee Vale Road and I planted a lot of Australian Native trees on Bacchus Street 30 or 40 years ago. The area is a little pocket of green.
Tell us about your work with the CFA?
During the 1984 fires in the west I volunteered with a local staging area for fighting fires near Bacchus Marsh. I was inspired to volunteer after seeing all the carnage created by bushfires.
I was perceived as a greenie at the CFA but I put in the hard yards. I became training officer and 2nd Lieutenant for the Coimadai Brigade.
Last year I felt very honoured to be given life membership of the brigade. I’m one of five since the 1930s to be given that honour. I was also awarded the National Medal for fighting the Kinglake fires as a crew leader in 2009.
Tell us about your work with Rose Carers?
I’ve always been botanically inclined, I’m currently an administrative officer for Plant Trust, I have a collection of plants called Lachenalia registered with the Ornamental Plant Collections Association. I’m also president of Bacchus Marsh and district garden club. I was on the management committee of Maddingley Park. Rose Carers formed out of Friends of Maddingley Park.
The entrance from Taverner Street was just grass so I set up the Memorial Rose garden in 2005, and then a friend offered heritage roses to us, so we set those up around the Rotunda in Maddingley Park in about 2007. I started digging flower beds from a dust bowl where people used to do wheelies in their cars and I made the garden beds in the shape of eucalyptus leaves.
What, if anything, would you change about where you live?
I’m not keen on the high density development in Bacchus Marsh, it’s changing Bacchus Marsh and I worry a little bit.
