By Andrea Davy – courtesy of the Mackay Daily Mercury
A Mackay city girl working for a company that flew supplies to Central Queensland properties met a station man who was picking up an engine part one day.
She married him in the 1960s and soon fell in love with the country lifestyle. Now aged 72, Mrs Beryl Neilsen is the woman behind the John and Beryl Neilsen Winchester Foundation, a charity that supports rural people every day. The foundation provides students with opportunitiesto gain a high-quality education that young people in cities take for granted. Mrs Neilsen said the foundation was something she and her husband had talked about for many years.
“When it all came together, it was a dream come true for me,”she said. Winchester Downs is a family-run cattle property about 30km south of Moranbah. At one stage it boasted 4700 hectares (116,000 acres) of stock country but the Bowen Basin mining boom has seen the station reduced.
recipient Zac O’Brien with Beryl Neilsen
Peak Downs, Millennium and Eagle Downs mines all have a foothold on the property.
“It was very sad at first. There were lots of tears in the beginning,” she said.
“But it’s called progress and we learnt to accept it would happen.” Mrs Neilsen still enjoys living on Winchester Downs. “When I first moved out here my mother-in-law (Jesse Neilsen) was just wonderful with helping me make the shift from the city,”she said.
“I think I surprised a lot of people when I decided to stay out here but I just had so many good memories,” she said.
Mrs Neilsen went to primary school at St Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School and then to high school at St Patrick’s College in Mackay. Earlier this year, the Winchester Foundation sponsored the costs to bring 427 primary school children to Mackay to be part of the annual
Whitsunday Voices Festival. The funding meant students from small schools like Valkyrie, Mackenzie River, Nebo and Clarke Creek could attend. As well as paying for some of the costs of students at boarding schools, the foundation has also helped young people looking to
achieve a tertiary education.
Charters Towers student Zac O’Brien, who is doing veterinary science, is one student supported through the foundation. Meeting the recipients was a pure joy for Mrs Neilsen. “There is a lot of gratitude out there … I never had kids myself so this has just been wonderful,”she said. Visit www.winchesterfoundation.org
