Goodman’s green thumb
• Bridport’s Bill Goodman.
• The Churchill Fellowship Medal Mr Goodman received in 1971.
By Daisy Baker
February 12, 2020
For Bridport’s Bill Goodman, becoming a horticulturalist was a natural choice.
He grew up in Victoria in a family where many of his relatives had gone down a similar career path and he saw it as an opportunity to continue his study and spend time outdoors.
Mr Goodman moved to Tasmania in 1967 with his wife when he became the Director of Parks and Recreation for Launceston City Council.
He held this position until he retired in 1989, helping to develop areas including the Brisbane Street Mall, Quadrant Mall, Civic Square, Heritage Forest and the City Park monkey island.
“When I took over from Frank Douse, Launceston always had a name for being a garden city and I was appointed because of that and the fact I was a horticulturalist,” he said.
In 1971 Mr Goodman was awarded the Churchill Fellowship, which enabled him to do an overseas tour to study various aspects of park development and redevelopment in South Africa, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada and USA.
“I put a lot of work into my application and wrote to people in South Africa, Denmark and Switzerland telling them if I could get a study tour what I’d want to see. I got letters back from them all.”
Prior to the study tour, the furthest Bill had travelled was New Zealand but he said he had a clear idea of what he wanted to learn.
“I knew I wanted to see a lot of things to do with urban areas and the redevelopment in association with major road works,” he said.
“I also knew I wanted to do something with the aspect of horticulture so I got in contact with the City of London and the Chelsea Flower show.”
This study tour provided inspiration for Mr Goodman when designing spaces throughout Launceston.
“When I came back from the world study tour I was determined with the redevelopment of the road system in Launceston to make it as much of a garden city impression for visitors as it was always renowned to be,” he said.
“When they did any alteration like Bathurst Street extension through Royal Park, we made sure we fought to get enough space so that from Paterson Street you could see park.
“It disappoints me now – I won’t go into the Brisbane Street Mall because I think it is too sterile.”
Mr Goodman designed Heritage Forest based on an impression he got when he visited the Black Forest in Munich.
“They had a big forest in the middle of the city and they had all these patches of clearings where they had outdoor table tennis and a running channel of water for canoes and I thought that was a great idea,” he said.
Goodman Court in Invermay was named in his honour.
“The City Park monkey island was based on something I saw in Holland where they had gazelles or something climbing up rocks and running free. I thought that would be a great thing,” he said.
“We were living in the City Park house at the time and they had a few old rhesus monkeys in cages that were very old and inbred and there were only two or three of them left.
“We got all the school kids involved and got them to write thousands of letters to council saying what they’d like to see and eventually we got some Japanese Macaques from Japan.”
The display was opened to the public in 1980.
Mr Goodman built his current home in Bridport in 1974 where he spent his weekends until he retired and moved permanently to the town.
After retiring from fulltime work at the Council, he kept himself busy doing consulting work for 20 years and travelling some 200,000kms criss-crossing Australia with his dog and old Hiace.
Mr Goodman has also been active in community groups for many years, serving as a member and president of APEX and Rotary, President of Australian Institute of Parks and Gardens and Life member of Bridport Golf Club.
Over the years, he helped develop the Golf Club and passed on his skills to two apprentices who he trained as greenkeepers.
“I put the first lot of automatic irrigation in at the Golf Club. When I started off they only had little sprinklers and they had to be manually turned around,” he said.
He also helped to implement a recycled sewer water scheme in 2003, which was jointly funded by the Commonwealth government under the Better Seas program, and the golf club.
“It meant they stopped putting so much overflow out into the bay and meant they could put storage on the golf course, and we could irrigate with it after we’d treated it.”
These days Mr Goodman keeps busy in his garden and occasionally camping in the North-East.