Australia Day honours: Bridgetown’s Noel Holdsworth receives Medal of the Order of Australia

A Bridgetown resident has been nationally recognised for his services to the local community by being honoured and awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia.

Noel Holdsworth, 84, has been recognised for his lifetime of contributions with an Australia Day honour of an Order of Australia.

Mr Holdsworth — a member of the Bridgetown Rotary Club and life member of the Bridgetown Football Club — told the South Western Times it was an honour to be recognised and thanked people who nominated him for his work.

“It’s a great thing; I’ve been nominated for it and they think I’ve worked hard enough to earn it, so I’d like to say thanks to those who nominated me,” he said.

Mr Holdsworth said he had been with the Rotary club for more than 40 years and his contributions included being chairman for the lackwood Marathon, which helped raise money for projects in Bridgetown.

“I joined the Rotary club about 40 to 42 years ago, and I’ve been on that ever since.”

“We run the Blackwood Marathon and I’ve been chairman of that for 15 years, which has been good for the community, raising money for the community for the basketball courts and all these sorts of things we’ve put money into.”

He also said his lifelong membership to the football club, including being a field umpire and patron to the club, helped him get involved in the community and advised people to join sports as a way of community involvement as well.

“I’ve been involved with football for the past 50 years being involved in the Bridgetown Football Club, been a goal umpire for 45 years, but I’m not doing that at the moment, haven’t done that for the last two or three years,” he said.

“Just getting involved in the community, that’s what happened.”

“Sport’s good, like football and those type of things, I would like to see the young people get involved in that type of thing, because whether it’s football, basketball or cricket, it gets them involved in the community and meet friends there, that they’ll know for their lifetime.”

He was also awarded Bridgetown Citizen of the Year in 2018, an award he said was a “surprise” to him, noting other people in the community and their contributions.

“Yeah, that one was a bit of a surprise,” he said

“There are a lot of other people who are probably worthy of being mentioned for that kind of thing that don’t, that’s life I suppose.”

Mr Holdsworth is the director of the Greenacres Mill, having worked in the timber industry for 60 years and once was the owner of the Bridgetown Newsagency, having bought it in 1986 and sold in 2014.

“I’ve been working in the timber industry for 60 years and I bought the Greenacres Mill about 25 years ago, and I had managed it for a couple of years before that,” he said.

“I worked at the Hester Mill for about 10 or 12 years, after I left there, I came to Greenacres, cutting timber, and that was about 50 years ago, and it got sold and I own it.”

“Bought the newsagency, stayed there for 28 years and ran that as well, so I had a busy sort of life. I used to do the paper route and wake up at 3 in the morning.”

He gave advice on being in the community and crediting the people who have supported his contributions to the Bridgetown community.

“I can’t complain about life because I met a lot of great people all the time and whether you do what you’re best at, with young people today, you’ve got to aim for something they’ve got to believe in and they have to carry on with it,” he said.

“I think the most important thing is your family behind you because all these times you been a football umpire, or working for the Rotary club or the marathon, you have to remember that you’ve always got your family behind you.”

“Mine been great, being back and behind me all the way and without them, I wouldn’t be able to achieve anything.”