Big hearts: No task is too big for Pakenham’s Stan and Beryl Hamilton.By Cassie Maher
PAKENHAM’S helping heroes, Stan and Beryl Hamilton, have finally received the recognition they deserve, although they never expected or asked for it.
A lifetime of helping the Upper Beaconsfield community has seen the husband and wife team claim the Herald Sun’s Pride of Australia Medal for Community Spirit, presented at an official ceremony at the MCG on Tuesday, 11 October.
Spend five minutes with the couple and it becomes clear why they were chosen over 1,100 other hardworking Australians. Their oldfashioned charm and genuine, downtoearth manner outshine the sterling silver award on their dining room table.
“We just never expected it,” Mr Hamilton said. “We didn’t even know our children had nominated us until we got the letter saying we were finalists.”
The hardworking volunteers have been involved in many Upper Beaconsfield organisations, including the Primary School, Fire Brigade, Scout Group and Youth Group, since meeting at a Pakenham dance decades ago.
The couple raised their three children in Upper Beaconsfield on a familyowned property established in 1925, before recently moving to Pakenham because of the maintenance demands of the property.
Being married for 44 years has only spurred on the couple’s volunteering ways. However, they each know where their individual talents are best served.
Mrs Hamilton has spent years raising money for the local community by baking cakes, collecting clothes and even repairing old and forgotten teddy bears for needy kids.
Mr Hamilton has taken on the more physical roles, travelling kilometres in his tractor to slash the local school’s grass, cutting firewood for the Guy Fawkes bonfire and leading the Upper Beaconsfield Youth Club in outdoor adventures.
Involvement in the Upper Beaconsfield Fire Brigade has been their passion, with both recently awarded life memberships.
Mrs Hamilton has been an active member of the ladies’ auxiliary for almost 30 years, while Mr Hamilton has received his 50year volunteer firefighters’ medal.
“I think I have been in every rank except Captain,” said Mr Hamilton, who still remembers his father fighting the Black Friday fires of 1939.
Unfortunately for Mr Hamilton, this was not the last fire he would battle.
The Hamiltons came close to losing everything in the Ash Wednesday fires, but still managed to generously open up their home to the local community and firefighters who had nowhere else to turn.
And for the past 22 years, they have held an annual barbecue in remembrance of the fateful day in 1983, when they lost 11 firefighter friends.
Tough personal times for the couple have seen the prestigious Herald Sun award come as a welcome surprise, but looking at their positive attitudes, it is hard to believe they have endured a hard day in their 70 years.
“Helping people just comes naturally to us,” Mrs Hamilton smiled.
“We enjoy every bit of it.”
