Our People
9 June, 2026
The long way home: Fifty years of friendship, service and community
FOR most people in Stawell, the Monaghan name probably arrives with Terry attached to it. The real estate signs, the advertisements and the familiar voice that seems to know almost everybody and everything happening in town. For more than half a century, Terry Monaghan has been one of Stawell’s most recognisable faces. His wife Annie has spent much of that same time quietly helping other people feel at home, because many years ago, somebody did the same for her.
When Annie arrived in Stawell in 1974, she was a long way from home and not entirely convinced she wanted to be here.
Before Stawell ever entered the picture, the girl from Broken Hill had already lived in Adelaide, Perth and Alice Springs. It was there, working behind the bar of a pub in the middle of Australia, that she met a young Victorian labourer named Terry Monaghan.
“I was a barmaid, and he was just a labourer,” she said.
Asked whether Terry was charming, Annie doesn’t hesitate.
“Yes,” she said, laughing.
What happened next depends on which Monaghan is telling the story.
Annie says she left Alice Springs and returned home to Broken Hill.
Terry soon appeared there too.
“He reckons he didn’t chase me,” she laughed.
“He reckons he just came down for a holiday.”
Readers are free to draw their own conclusions.
The couple returned to Alice Springs, married after knowing each other only six months, spent some time in Melbourne and eventually moved to Stawell in October 1974 after Terry’s father asked him to return to the family business.
For Terry, it was home.
For Annie, it was something else entirely.
The young couple were renting a farmhouse out of town. Terry had the car during the day, Annie was pregnant with their first child, and most of the people she loved were hundreds of kilometres away.
“It was very lonely,” she said.
Looking back now, she admits there were years when she would have happily packed up and left.
“It took me a long time,” she said.
“At that stage, for quite a few years, I would have left Stawell.
“But I wouldn’t now. No way.”
The thing that changed her mind wasn’t a job, a house or even the passing of time.
It was people.
One of Annie’s oldest friendships began because Terry’s mother noticed she was lonely and mentioned it to another local woman.
Five decades later, they are still dear friends.
It’s a simple story, but perhaps it explains something important about country towns.
Sometimes belonging starts with somebody noticing.
Soon afterwards came another invitation, in the form of a phone call to ask whether Annie might be interested in joining a newly-formed Red Cross younger set known as the Red Garters.
Annie had a baby at home and barely knew anyone.
Still, she said yes.
“I thought, I must get out and meet people,” she said.
“That’s really what started it.
“I probably didn’t know much about Red Cross or anything, but I thought I just had to do something, get out and meet people, and this was an opportunity for me.”
Half a century later, she's still there.
The Red Garters would eventually become the longest-running surviving Red Cross younger set in Victoria. Annie would complete training, help run fundraisers, support emergency responses and form friendships that lasted a lifetime.
But friendship came first.
“All my best friends are in Red Garters,” she said.
Over the years she taught children to swim, ran cooking classes, volunteered with the former Red Cross Blood Bank, hosted exchange students, helped through community health programs and became involved with the Grampians Multicultural Hub.
For 23 years she has also been part of Active for Life, a volunteer-run exercise group for older residents that meets every Monday morning.
When the conversation turns to Active for Life, Annie barely waits for the question.
“I love Active for Life,” she said.
“I love going every Monday morning to those women and men. I love it. I do. I really do.”
The group combines exercise, balance work and games, but Annie suspects the cuppa afterwards may be just as important.
Asked whether the morning tea is healthy, she laughs.
“Honestly, I don’t think there’s one woman there that buys a cake.”
What she enjoys most is watching people arrive unsure of themselves and gradually gain confidence.
“It’s great satisfaction seeing a lady come there and say she’s uncoordinated and ‘I’ll never be able to do that’,” she said.
“Then within three or four weeks they’ve got it, they’ve picked it up and they’re enjoying it so much.”
Listening to Annie talk, a pattern emerges.
Whether she was teaching children to swim, helping migrants settle in, visiting an elderly woman or encouraging somebody through their first exercise session, the work was rarely about the activity itself.
It was about people.
Perhaps that’s because she remembers what it felt like to arrive in a town where she knew almost nobody.
Years ago, through a community care program, Annie visited an elderly woman each week. They would go to lunch together and talk. Over time, the friendship deepened.
When the woman died, Annie found it unexpectedly difficult.
“I don’t think I could handle that again,” she said quietly.
The risk of caring, after all, is that eventually you care.
Today, Annie worries about the future of many community organisations. The Red Garters now have only about 10 members and, like many volunteer groups across regional Australia, are looking for younger people willing to step forward.
But she isn’t interested in lecturing anybody.
Instead, she talks about the opportunities people might be missing.
“When you’re volunteering, I honestly think you’re not lonely,” she said.
“You get satisfaction out of it, and you can learn new skills along the way.
“Your self-esteem goes up.”
The woman who once imagined leaving Stawell now finds herself defending it.
“As my husband says, it’s the centre of the universe,” she laughed.
“He always says it, and if anyone says anything about Stawell, he’s first one in there defending it.”
She pauses, then admits she’s become much the same.
After all, this is the town where somebody noticed a young mother was lonely and reached out.
The town where a phone call led to friendships that have lasted half a century.
The town where volunteering opened doors, introduced lifelong friends and slowly transformed a place she once wanted to leave into a place she cannot imagine leaving.
More than 50 years ago, somebody noticed a young mother was lonely and invited her along.
Annie Monaghan never forgot it.
Ever since, she has been returning the favour.
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