BETTY WESTWOOD "THE TREE LADY"

BETTY WESTWOOD

“THE TREE LADY”

We’re thrilled to announce that in September 2022, Betty Westwood OAM — lovingly known as the “Tree Lady” — was posthumously inducted into the SA Environment Hall of Fame with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2022 SA Environment Awards*. Betty was a recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia for Conservation and a Civic Trust Award for her promotion of environmental concerns. Betty’s cousin, John Bradford, gives us an insight into how Betty became a ‘modern day warrior’ for the preservation of nature.

Betty's father and my grandfather came out to South Australia from Scotland after World War I and both took up land just outside the mainly Scottish settled rural town of Strathalbyn on the Fleurieu Peninsula. Both men married sisters from the local Taylor family and settled down to farming life. Betty's life as a child on the family farm “Hill Top” gave her an appreciation of the natural world and our connection to all living things especially the trees. She excelled at school, then chose a career in nursing, training at the RAH in Adelaide. After seeing service during World War II she spent some time at Geelong Grammar in Victoria, eventually moving back to Adelaide where she took up the position of Matron at St Peter’s College. Betty was dedicated to the wellbeing of “her boys”, passing on the life skills they would need as well as a love for the environment, she was the Owl Lady to them. Over the years the boys gave Betty an impressive collection of all things owl, from tea towels to carved ebony statues. These all ended up in Hoot Hall as it became known, the front room of the old butcher shop at the family home Dollar in Strathalbyn.

Over the years Betty had many, many visitors to Hoot Hall, a lot of these were school excursion groups both local and from the city. All who visited received detailed instruction on how to puddle a seedling into the soil to give it the best chance to grow. She was very proud of the survival rate of her plantings. In the back yard at Dollar she had her propagation benches with shade cloth covering over the younger seedlings and nearby was an old table set up as the tube filling centre. Her enthusiasm and vision was infectious, so we soon had our own propagation area at our home in Milang, with all the trees destined for the farm.

Her little blue Volkswagen beetle could often be seen along the local roadsides as she planted her trees. The schools around Strathalbyn also helped, with many planting days organised in local reserves. When my parents, Diana and Bill Bradford, moved to the farm after Dad's retirement. Mum used to look up the hill from the homestead towards Strathalbyn and say how wonderful it would be to see the bare skyline covered in trees and hoped she would live to see it. It took a few years of fencing, ripping and hard work. It was a tough spot to dig holes and to plant. Tree guards were needed on this very exposed hillside. Today it is a tree lined view up the hill and Mum lived to see it. Betty spent many weekends at our farm planting out the bird corridors and fenced off remnant vegetation areas. She was an inspiration to us, introducing us to Men of the Trees (Trees For Life as it is now).

Betty introduced so many people, young and old, to the wonders of the natural world. She was a dedicated and passionate woman who not only talked the talk but walked the walk, BIG TIME.

From Betty’s cousin, John Bradford. 

“I am very attached to this country. I am concerned about the land. And you turn around and see the very old, dead and dying trees, and if you look into the future all you can visualise is that there will be nothing here at all. For me there’s concern. I’ve always had the feeling that I was part of the environment. Something drives me to do it. When I look at that big, old, ringbarked tree, dead and still standing, it’s what gives me incentive. It gives me strength. If I can grow a tree, then plant it so a bird will nest in it, that’s the ultimate happiness to me. Something has to be done about the state of our land. We will never be able to bring it back, the way it used to be, but the least we can do is save and re-establish what we can.”

–Betty Westwood^ OAM 1917 — 2004

WHEN ALL THE TREES HAVE GONE

A poem by Betty Westwood When all the trees have gone No joyous song will greet the light Or share its happiness all day No bird wings home at night When all the trees have gone

When all the trees have gone No roots will hold the earth’s thin crust An age of weathered rock Blown out to sea as dust When all the trees have gone

No harvest time will come No gentle grass that once forgave Our greed; the desert soon Will claim the land we failed to save Now all the trees have gone.

*SA Environment Awards are presented by Conservation Council SA in partnership with Green Adelaide and the Department for Environment and Water.

^Quote taken from ‘Listen to the People, Listen to the Land’, Jim Sinatra & Phin Murphy 1999 Melbourne University Press.