The name George McDonald is synonymous with the towns of Mooroolbark and Kilsyth, marking decades of service to his community.
So when Mr McDonald was announced as an honorary recipient of the Order of Australia Medal (OAM), Star Mail journalist Mikayla van Loon was not surprised.
It did, however, come as a complete shock to Mr McDonald when they organised a time to speak, forever humble in his achievements.
The nearly 94-year-old has called Mooroolbark home for 58 years, making the move to Australia from Scotland after a job opportunity arose.
Working for American company Rohm and Haas, in May 1967, Mr McDonald’s new life abroad began to develop, although he hadn’t yet worked out where it would take him.
Never shying away from an opportunity, Mr McDonald was asked by the American director to travel to Philadelphia and all over the country to help with the expansion of the company overseas.
“[When I returned to Philadelphia, the directors] said ‘McDonald you’ve got this top job in Australia’ and I said ‘but you’ve never interviewed me’. They said everybody I spoke to in the last few weeks submitted reports about me.”
Mr McDonald, his wife Betty and children George Jnr and Audrey, packed up life in Scotland, bound for Australia in 1968.
It didn’t take long for Mr McDonald to understand the vastness of the country and just how far away everything was.
“When I was the Scottish manager for the company, I could drive anywhere in 12 hours. I was here about five weeks, and I went back to Philadelphia, and I said, ‘Hello, you guys, the information you’re giving me is a farce’. They said, ‘what’s wrong?’” Mr McDonald said.
“I could not visit all these places in less than six months. So they sent a chap across to investigate. This boy came, and he stayed for two weeks. He said, ‘Oh yeah, Australia is different’.
“I was meant to go around to the major clients once every three months. And I said it takes me sometimes two or three days to go to three people, trying to go to Swan Hill one day and somewhere else one day. And just the difference in time and the driving.”
Because of the time Mr McDonald spent travelling overseas and around Australia, Mrs McDonald was beginning to feel homesick.
“Of course, I discovered when I was three months on the road, they had nothing to do at nighttime and they didn’t know anybody,” he said.
“So I went to the local church and said to the minister, ‘you’ve got a church hall here in St Margaret’s Church, can I make a badminton court?’”
Mr McDonald and some friends, on a Sunday, dedicated time to door-knocking within the local community seeking players for a badminton competition.
With the help of the late Bev Trollope as secretary, Mr McDonald helped establish a community, particularly for other UK expats.
Outgrowing the number of members within three months for the church hall, and having the gumption to ask for what was needed, Mr McDonald approached the State government when Pembroke College was proposed to see if the local clubs could use the stadium for badminton.
“After about 12 months, too many people wanted to play,” he said.
By setting up a cooperative where members essentially purchased a share in the badminton courts for $10 each, the State government would guarantee a $90 pay back scheme to raise the funds.
Then known as Mr Pink’s Farm in Kilsyth, which housed a great herd of cattle, the Lilydale Council offered Mr McDonald a portion of the land to build three courts.
Six months later, Mr McDonald was back on the path of building more courts, having outgrown the three. In 1976, another three courts were built and by 1982, the current 12-court stadium was completed – he regards it as his greatest achievement.
In the 1980s, the Mountain District Badminton Association became the largest in Australia.
“I couldn’t believe it. Mooroolbark at that time was nearly full of English and Irish and Scottish people more or less in the early days (who needed something to do).
“So that was how we evolved in getting badminton and that was all because my wife was homesick and needed something to do.
“But that was the problem, there was nobody doing anything.”
Having helped his wife create friendships, Mr McDonald looked at doing something for his children by establishing the first Mooroolbark billy cart race in 1970.
“The billy carts were about giving them something to do and because we lived on the hill, they played with the billy cart themselves.”
Building relationships, finding friends and making a home was the catalyst for all the work Mr McDonald did in the Mooroolbark and Kilsyth communities.
This led to the establishment of the 360 Club and the Mooroolbark Senior Citizens Centre.
In recent years, Mr McDonald has served on the Celebrate Mooroolbark Festival committee and has been a major supporter of the Shop 16 Community Connect initiative in Mooroolbark.
He was also a founding member of the Kilsyth Community Action Group in 2014.
Where possible, he still attends committee meetings, contributing to these community events and projects, and looks forward to seeing Celebrate Mooroolbark come to life in March.
