Archive for April 8th, 2009

The garden of “Trevenna”, the historic home that is the residence of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of New England, will be open to the public as part of Australia’s Open Garden Scheme on the weekend of the 18th and 19th of April.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew, and his wife Ann, are inviting everyone to visit and enjoy the garden that weekend, listen to performances by a wide range of talented local musicians, and sample the food on offer.

There will be a $5 entry fee for adults, and children will be admitted free. Proceeds from this year’s “Trevenna” open garden will go to the Armidale Branch of the United Hospital Auxiliary. Morning and afternoon teas and lunches will be provided by the Auxiliary.

“Trevenna”, designed and built in the 1890s by the Boston-trained architect John Horbury Hunt, was bequeathed to the University in 1960 by Florence Wilson, the daughter of F.R. Wright, the original owner of “Booloomimbah” - another historic building at UNE designed by John Horbury Hunt.

Approached through a long avenue of pines, planes, cypress and horse chestnuts, the “Trevenna” gardens are constructed on several levels. The visitor is welcomed by a sunken garden at the entrance, with a stone sundial. The sundial is surrounded by lavender and petunias, as are the border gardens, with camellias and box hedging beyond. On the other side of the entrance a series of hedges encloses a private lawn. Many of the trees, including horse chestnuts, pines and planes, date back to when the house was built.

The front garden slopes away into a series of ha-ha walls, and wide perennial borders lead the eye to the city of Armidale. These wide borders are planted with a variety of shrubs including camellias, rhododendrons and a range of autumn flowering perennials. Ivy and grapevines ramble along the old stone walls around the garden.

At the rear of the house a wide sweep of lawn leads down to another sunken garden where a magnolia forms the centrepiece in a small oval bed planted with dry shade-lovers. A shaded border with hellebores, windflowers and violets provides a soft, leafy barrier between the garden and the tennis court.

An impressive range of mature trees adds to the ambience and tranquillity of the garden.

The Open Garden Scheme is a self-funding not-for-profit organisation, with proceeds being dedicated to community garden projects and other charities. Last season, garden owners raised $360,000 for charities and causes through Australia’s Open Garden Scheme. Donations since 1987 now stand at over $4,000,000.

About 70 people gained valuable insights into the research process that precedes a writing project  when they participated in a “Writing and Research Workshop” at the University of New England last week.

They heard first-hand accounts of that process from a number of well-known writers, including Professor Jane Goodall from the University of Western Sydney, author of the novels The Walker (2004), The Visitor (2005) and The Calling (2007), and the scholarly study Stage Presence: The Actor as Mesmerist (2008), and Professor Jenny Hocking from Monash University, the author of biographies of Lionel Murphy (1997,2000), Frank Hardy (2005) and Gough Whitlam (2008).

In discussing the writing of her biography of Gough Whitlam, Professor Hocking spoke about some of the issues that can arise when the subject is a living person - including the unearthing of family details unknown to the subject. For example, she said, Gough Whitlam had been unaware that his grandfather had spent four-and-a-half years in Melbourne’s Pentridge Gaol for forgery.

Professor Hocking conveyed a sense of what she called “the great creative pleasure that comes from writing biography”.

UNE’s Dr Anne Pender, a co-facilitator - together with Dr Fiona Utley - of  the one-day workshop, said that Professor Hocking and the other presenters had succeeded in passing on much practical advice, from their own experience, about planning and conducting research. In describing the research process that preceded the writing of her Stage Presence, for example, Professor Goodall had taken the participants with her on a journey through many manifestations of “presence”.

“Lorina Barker, an Associate Lecturer in UNE’s School of Humanities, gave a really inspiring presentation about how she had learnt to make a documentary film as part of her PhD research into her family’s involvement in the shearing industry,” Dr Pender said. “She was able to discuss the special problems - including ethical problems - that arise when working with members of one’s own family.”

The workshop participants included UNE staff members and postgraduate students, as well as many members of the wider community. Several postgraduate students from the University of Canberra travelled to Armidale for the occasion. “There’s a great thirst for this kind of hands-on workshop,” Dr Pender said. “We all need help in extending our skills.”

There was also a publishing workshop with Dr Leigh Dale, the editor of the journal Australian Literary Studies, during which Dr Dale gave advice to writers on how to edit their own work and how to pitch it to a publisher. “That kind of insider information is invaluable for anyone involved in - or contemplating - a writing project,” Dr Pender said.

The workshop, sponsored by UNE’s School of Arts and Faculty of Arts and Sciences, was an initiative resulting from activity under the former Federal Government’s Research Quality Framework.

The image displayed here expands to show Prof Jenny Hocking with her recently published biography of Gough Whitlam.