Once a biographer, always a biographer...

November 28, 2023

I recently returned from a brief holiday at a B&B called The Burrow at Wombat Bend, a wonderful mudbrick cottage set in a wildlife retreat at Dixon's Creek in the Yarra Valley, about an hour north-east of Melbourne. I have been meaning to go there for many, many years - since I'd published The Unusual Life of Edna Walling in fact, because during my research for that biography I had met Sue Forrester, the daughter of one of Edna's dear friends - and Wombat Bend is Sue's home and co-creation. 'The Burrow' is the B&B mudbrick cottage that overlooks a vast billabong surrounded by all manner of native trees and plants - and native wildlife, including wombats. This paradise was once a basic cow paddock and its creation echoes Edna Walling's magnificent self-made Bickleigh Vale Village in nearby Mooroolbark - also once a cow paddock. (See previous blogs re Walling's career as a landscape designer etc.)

Sue and I had much to catch up on - and I wished I'd interviewed her way back in the early 2000s when I was researching for my biography - but we only met when the book was on the verge of publication, so it was too late for the inclusion of her anecdotes - so we never sat down for a good talk. Until recently.

This is why I say 'once a biographer, always a biographer' because since publication, snippets of Edna Walling information, anecdote, photos, and firm confirmation of guessed-at facts have filtered through to me one way or another. I'm still interested in gathering these snippets, delighting in these little gems.

Sue Forrester's mum, Gwynnyth Crouch, was Edna's assistant in all things from 1934. Gwynnyth had just graduated from the Burnley College of Horticulture and Edna invited her to become her offsider, working in the nursery as well as helping to plant out newly landscaped gardens - plus much, much more. The pair remained friends thereafter, though Edna was deeply upset and 'distant' for a while when in the early 1940s Gwynnyth chose to turn freelance - and, perhaps even more of a blow - get married.

This story is already in my biography, but Sue was able to tell me a few things about her mother in relation to Edna Walling that I'd never heard before. For instance, Edna's nickname for Gwynnyth was Sam. It was short for Samson because Gwynnyth was very tall and strong and capable. Edna would often say, 'Sam will do it'. Anything difficult, or heavy to lift, or taxing - 'Sam will do it'.

A creative venture that Edna and Gwynnyth undertook was to make garden pots with lovely designs, they were made of cement though you wouldn't know it. These were often sold as fundraisers for various charities, especially during WW2. To my delight and surprise, I discovered that Sue still had some of those pots in her possession - a row of them on a dusty shelf in a garden shed, some with Gwynnyth's initials on them (G H, for her first and middle name). See the photos below - including one of Sue Forrester holding one of the pots with her mother's initials. These pots would be 90+ years old, a rare treasure to discover in a garden shed in a place called Wombat Bend.

There are more treasures to share which I shall post another time.