Interview Recording
Interview Transcript
Lindsay Bond interviewed on 2 December 2003 Roslyn Burge
Synopsis
Lindsay’s interview commemorated the work of his wife Beth Bond who was instrumental in the establishment of the AGHS. She was born in NSW in 1924. Beth died in Suzhou, China in 2003 on her way to a conference of the International Camellia Society in Jinhua.
Beth had inherited an interest in plants from her mother who gardened at Mangrove Mountain north of Sydney. This garden, Garraman, still exists.
Beth and Lindsay married in 1946 and were keen developers of their garden at Beecroft. They began what was to become a lifelong involvement with the International Camellia Society, as was their membership with the Beecroft Garden Club.
Lindsay recalls the involvement of Tim North and his connections with friends in the Beecroft Garden Club in the establishment of a garden history group in the Southern Highlands in NSW and a subsequent group forming in Sydney. Beth was collaborating in this with Robin Lewarne, Valerie Swane, Jan Gluskie and Howard Tanner in arranging garden visits and weekends in the country. Lindsay remembers the hard work and commitment of those who saw value in recognising gardens of interest and the effort made to enthuse wider support. The society was limited to a small group of enthusiasts at first. Eventually professionals and landscapers became interested in the group’s activities and interest grew.
Beth developed her gardening interests through her studies in horticulture and her dedicated work on committees. She delighted in plant taxonomy and her capacity and recall for plant identification was one of her great strengths.
Lindsay acknowledges the professional contribution of Professor Dick Clough and his connections to landscape architecture along with wisteria expert Peter Valder. He pays tribute to the persistence and effort made by Beth and her colleagues in keeping the early years of the AGHS alive. Lesser mortals, he says, would have not had the belief and stamina to guide the Society to a level where membership grew and interest blossomed.