Our People
11 September, 2026
A pair beyond compare
DI HOLDEN thought she had been told remarkably little for someone expected to keep an entire day free. There was no time. No destination. No explanation. Just an instruction from her fellow Stawell Red Garters: keep the date free. “I didn’t have a clue what was happening,” she said. A few suspicions eventually crept in, helped by a husband who knew there was a secret but apparently wasn’t particularly good at keeping one. But when Di arrived at Barney’s Bistro at Pomonal, the reason finally became clear. The Stawell Red Garters had gathered friends and family for a surprise celebration honouring Di and good friend Annie Monaghan for an extraordinary milestone – 50 years with the group they helped establish.
For Di, who was elected the Red Garters’ first president in 1976 and has remained part of the organisation ever since, the recognition was almost overwhelming.
“The words today were just beautiful,” she said.
“I didn’t realise I was appreciated so much.”
Asked whether those 50 years felt as long as they sounded, Di wasn’t quite sure.
“Yes and no,” she said.
“It’s like ageing. One minute it seems like it’s a long time, and other times it’s just yesterday.”
Those “yesterdays” fill two old minute books which proved a rich source of memories at the celebration.
Together they record the early decades of an organisation that began with seven young Stawell women in August 1976 and became a fixture of community life.
The committee was formed on August 4, with Di elected president, before the first meeting was held later that month.
They wasted little time.
Their first fundraiser, a morning coffee party and stall, was organised for September.
Soon there were cake stalls, fashion parades, golf days, raffles, mystery bus trips, film nights and wine and cheese evenings.
One wedding catering job raised $951.28, while a raffle for a portable colour television brought in another $988.
There was even a “Sherry and Savouries” evening, with tickets selling for $4.
The rules could also be unforgiving.
Members who arrived at meetings without their Red Cross badge were fined 10 cents.
Turn up more than 15 minutes late and another 10 cents was added to the bill.
A proposed points system later offered one point for attending a meeting, five for recruiting a new member and 10 for holding a function at home.
The records prompted plenty of memories for Di.
“You have lots,” she said.
“All the different fundraisers we’ve had over the years and the different ladies that have been in the group.
“They’ve all been wonderful ladies.
“A lot of them have left town, or some got busy in other ways.
“So it’s quite amazing. There’s really only two of us from the original group.”
Behind the lighter moments was a serious commitment to helping people.
When fires broke out and emergency services called for food, Red Garters members would put everything aside, gather at a member’s home and start making sandwiches and slices for firefighters.
They later took turns running the Stawell Hospital trolley, delivered Meals on Wheels, supported the Red Cross Blood Bank, laid Anzac Day wreaths and raised money following major disasters.
There were decades of Red Cross appeals, Christmas and Mother’s Day raffles and, for several years, Oaks Day celebrations.
Secretary Mandi Hancock told those gathered the minute books recorded thousands of hours of meetings, fundraising, phone calls, sandwiches and cups of tea, but could never capture everything the women had contributed.
“Fifty years of volunteering is more than just a milestone,” she said.
“It is 50 years of saying yes.
“Yes to helping. Yes to organising. Yes to turning up.”
Red Cross had been part of Di’s family life long before the Red Garters existed.
Her mother had been involved for many years, and Di said it was her mother’s generation that helped get the younger women involved.
Annie said that connection had helped make Di the steadying force behind the Red Garters for half a century.
“Di is the core of the whole thing,” she said.
“There have been times when Red Cross have done different things and we sort of haven’t agreed with it, and Di said, ‘No, no, no, it’s fine’.
“She’s really pushed us through it all.”
Di is less inclined to describe her contribution in those terms.
Instead, she talks about the women she has met, the fundraisers they organised and generations of volunteers who simply regarded helping as something you did.
Keeping that tradition alive is now one of the Red Garters’ greatest challenges.
“We tried to get another younger group going, like my mum’s group got us going, and we tried to do the same thing,” Di said.
“But you just can’t get that commitment now.
“People are very busy, and that’s understandable, but there’s just not that long-term commitment.”
The Red Garters are smaller than they once were, but the remaining members continue meeting and volunteering.
And while the luncheon looked back on everything Di and Annie had contributed, it also celebrated something harder to measure.
The friendships.
The women who came and went.
The afternoons spent around meeting tables.
The emergencies when a phone call was enough to bring everybody together.
The countless small jobs that never made it into a minute book.
For Annie, the Red Garters became the source of some of her closest friendships after she arrived in Stawell as a young mother.
But on this day, she was quick to redirect attention towards the woman beside her.
“Especially for Di, because her mum was in Red Cross for many, many years,” Annie said.
“Di’s just gone on from her mum.”
Fifty years after seven young women started the Red Garters, two remain with the group.
For Di, the surprise at Barney’s was a chance to discover that all those meetings, raffles, sandwiches, appeals and afternoons spent helping other people had added up to something rather extraordinary.
She was still coming to terms with it afterwards.
“I just can’t believe the words that were used in there,” she said.
“That was just wonderful.”
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