By Dongyun Kwon
Sue Thompson became one of the Mayor’s Lifetime Achievers for countless achievements throughout her life for the Yarra Ranges community.
A keen historian and volunteer, and a former local journalist, Ms Thompson was instrumental in the formation of the Lilydale Museum, now known as the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum, to ensure that local artefacts, photographs and items could be catalogued, maintained and preserved for future generations.
The award winner said her interest in history started in primary school when she did a project about family history.
“As one of the journalist editors at the Lilydale Express, when we had the centenary coming up of the newspaper in1986, I got involved with the (Lilydale) Historical Society who provided us with photos for our 100-page special edition,” she said.
“In the following year, I got recruited to the Historical Society, so I’ve been involved with the society since then. The Historical Society was operating the museum, which they opened in 1976 or thereabouts.
“So the Historical Society operated the museum until I handed the operations of the collection over to the shire in 1989, we then focused on supporting that rather than running the museum. We became more the research side of things for the museum.”
Ms Thompson has published about 40 small history books and developed the only website dedicated to Dame Nellie Melba, who has significant links to the Lilydale region and wider Yarra Ranges.
She said she knew Lady Vesty (Pamela Vestey) who was Melba’s granddaughter and worked with her to pass the story of Dame Nellie Melba down to the next generations.
“(Lady Vesty) was the patron of our society. She was the patron of our society, and she’d come along to the different functions. We became friends and we used to talk a lot about Melba,” Ms Thompson said.
“When the society operated the museum in the 70s and 80s, we always had a Melba display. We made sure we kept changing that Melba display every year to promote Melba.
“I encouraged Pam (Lady Vesty) to write her book which is Melba’s family memoir because she was the only granddaughter of Melba, the only person who could write the book, which was unique.
“From that, we developed the Dame Neil Melba Museum which is a virtual website, and we’ve got people from all over the world contacting us on that website. We’ve got so many donations of materials of Melba from around the world. That website keeps the Melba name going very much.”
The local historian said it is important to preserve the local history.
“To create a community, you have to have people, and every person has a story to tell,” she said.
“It’s important that we all understand ’why we are what we are today’ and ’why the community is what it is today’.
“We are only what we are today because of the past, the people of the past and the things they did in the past to develop our community.”
Besides history, she was part of the Lilydale Community Group which aimed at promoting the aspirations, activities and things for people in Lilydale.
Ms Thompson said the group tried to provide welfare services for the local community, which the local government back then couldn’t focus on as it focused on bigger infrastructure like roads and trains.
“We started the first after-school program at Kilsyth East Primary School. We ran one of the first holiday programs, and this was in the early 70s,“ she said.
“The community group came to the issue of people needing a library. We didn’t have a library service.
“So, we informed the Library Action Group and lobby council for two years and got our first library service, which was a bookmobile to start with, and then the development of libraries, the Mooroolbark, Montrose, Mount Evelyn and Lilydale Libraries that we have today.”
Ms Thompson was also a local journalist from 1976, which dragged her further into being involved in the community as she got to know the people in the community.
Her work has resulted in buildings and street trees being included in Heritage Overlays, to ensure the history of the region perseveres.
As a result of countless works for the local community, Ms Thompson was awarded the Shire of Lilydale Citizen of the Year Award in 1990 and received the inaugural Jane Hansen Award for History Advocacy in 2021.
The award recipient said the Mayor’s Lifetime Achiever award was not just a recognition of herself.
“It’s a very great honour, it’s recognition of all people and all groups who’ve been part of my journey, especially my family,” Ms Thompson said.
“If my family hadn’t supported what I was doing, I wouldn’t been involved in all the things I’ve been involved in over the years.”
