WHAT BETTER way to spend a morning than listening to two true Australian Ambassadors that are devoted to promoting Australia.
A crowd of around 300 patriotic Crookwell residents were amazed with the selection of Australia Day Ambassadors for Crookwell and Gunning.
They were actors and authors, Judy Nunn and Bruce Venables.
Judy Nunn's career has been long, illustrious and multifaceted. After combining her internationally successful acting career with scriptwriting for television and radio, Judy decided in the 80s to turn her hand to prose.
The result was two adventure novels for children, ‘Eye in the Storm’ and ‘Eye in the City’, which remain extremely popular, not only in Australia but in Europe.
Embarking on adult fiction in the early 90s, Judy's three novels, ‘The Glitter Game’, ‘Centre Stage’ and ‘Araluen’, set respectively in the worlds of television, theatre and film, became instant bestsellers.
Her subsequent bestsellers, ‘Kal’, ‘Beneath The Southern Cross’, ‘Territory’, ‘Pacific, Heritage’, ‘Floodtide’, ‘Maralinga’ and ‘Tiger Men’ confirm her position as one of Australia's leading popular novelists.
Judy thanked the Upper Lachlan Shire and the Australia Day Council and described Crookwell as a lovely town that the residents can be very proud of.
“Bruce and I will spend a little time here exploring what Crookwell has to offer” Judy said.
Judy is better known as Ailsa from Home and Away and has described playing this role as ‘quite a challenge’ considering Ailsa has had such a assorted past during the program.
Judy has written 11 fiction books; two children’s and nine adult fiction.
“These are all Aussie books and this magnificent country is what inspires me to write them, after all I am fifth generation Australian,” said Judy.
Bruce then spoke to an inspired audience about his career to-date and opened by telling the audience a very light-hearted joke!
He was born in Hobart and was a member of the Tasmanian Police Force. In 1976 he joined the Royal Hong Kong police as an Inspector.
He served in the Hong Kong Marine Police as a launch commander and in the Tactical Unit as a platoon commander.
In 1984 Bruce took up residence in Sydney and began his career as a writer of film and television scripts.
He is also well known to Australian audiences as an actor.
His first novel, ‘A Necessary Evil’, was published in 1995.
His collection of poetry, ‘The Spirit of the Bush’, was published in 2003 and his saga of Hong Kong, ‘The Time of the Dragons’, was published in 2004.
Bruce recited a poem from his book of verse ‘The spirit of the Bush’ entitled ‘G’Day’.
Many of his poems are written from the heart.
Bruce and Judy now live on the Central Coast, NSW. They have donated two books to the Crookwell Library.
Upper Lachlan Australia Day awardees
Nominees for 2012 were Norm Fountain, Tracey Anderson, Helen Campbell, Ian McFaul, Dr Johanna Kovats and James Evans.
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TRACEY ANDERSON - A well-known and very popular community leader, from Crookwell Lions Club was awarded Upper Lachlan ‘Citizen of the Year award for 2012’.
Tracey came to Crookwell in 1980 for a holiday and ended up marrying and settling here. Since then Tracey has been involved with Play Group, Basketball, Netball, Gymnastics, Swim Club, Soccer, Crookwell Public School Canteen, P&C, Crookwell High Canteen, Youth Centre, SES, Crookwell Country Festival, Crookwell Information Centre and Kiama Creek Landcare.
In 2006, Tracey joined the Crookwell Lions Club and held the position of Secretary for three years and was awarded ‘Lion of the Year’ in 2010.
In 2011, Tracey was appointed by the Lions District Governor as Zone Chairman for Crookwell, Taralga, Goulburn and Braidwood.
In 2010 Tracey joined the NSW RFS assisting with fire safety presentations in schools.
Tracey is a very hands-on and community minded person.
Tracey was overwhelmed receiving her award and said: “Thank you to everyone who voted for me, I am very honoured but a little lost for words”.
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