Auction aids nursing home | People and Places

Part of the large crowd at Saturday’s deceased estate auction to raise money for the Haddington Nursing Home at Tenterfield.

ABOUT 300 people attended a deceased estate clearance sale on a rural property west of Tenterfield on Saturday, raising more than $30,000 for the community-run Haddington Nursing Home.

The sale by auction was from the estate of Tenterfield-born journalist, publicist, author and grazier Joan Starr (1927-2009), a former correspondent of The Northern Star.

Thousands of items were sold, including tractors andattachments, saddles and harness, a wide range of tools, building and fencing materials, antiques and collectibles, arts and crafts, and furniture.

“We hosted this sale as a fundraiser for Haddington to put something back into a community-based organisation that looked after my mother wonderfully well for the final six years of her life,” said the executor of Joan Starr’s estate, her son, Grant Thompson.

“The volunteers of the Tenterfield Care organisation, who established Haddington in 2003, and who have continued to run it efficiently and with sensitivity for its residents, are heroes to me.

“Decades of hard work and fundraising by these selfless volunteers has established an unexcelled standard of community-run aged care in Tenterfield which is a model and a national treasure.

“The Haddington Nursing Home and its precursor project, the Millrace aged hostel, are remarkable achievements in a town of only 3300 people. They express the very best of the community spirit and traditional values.”