Bridgetown-Greenbushes family and community honours naturalist’s legacy with new park bench

The legacy of a “hippie” horticulturalist with a deep passion for beautifying spaces in the shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes will live on through a new park bench. Derek Duffett (1949-2023) served the shire as a curator of parks and gardens from 1991-2022. His daughter Julia Wrack said one of her dad’s last wishes was to have a bench in Pioneer Park — a wish that is now being granted. Ms Wrack said her father loved Pioneer Park because it offered something for everybody. “He would take lunch and watch people walking their dogs, people doing yoga down there, couples wandering through, kids running through with soccer balls,” she said. From beautifying the main street of Bridgetown to working with troubled youth, Ms Wrack said her dad was an environmentalist with a passion for service of all kinds. “The joy of some of his choices you see every winter — every winter they’re there. I’m like, ‘my dad planted that tree’,” she said. “I would laugh every winter as the pink blossoms fall off the tree and go into IGA and there’d be people . . . sweeping them out of the door with a broom. “Everything he planted was beautiful — he was very much a naturalist.” When he first took on Pioneer Park, Mr Duffett was unsettled by the gravestones at the entry, which were scattered and uncared for. “A lot of them had been so badly destroyed over the years, they weren’t recognisable,” Ms Wrack said. “He applied to be allowed to move their headstones . . . keeping them in the park, but putting them all together, so that the people beneath them wouldn’t be lonely, so that the families would be reconnected. Mr Duffet moved to Bridgetown from the UK in 1982, and turned the property he had bought in his 20s into a family home filled with plants. Mr Duffett died in July 2023 after a 17-month fight against cancer. “Dad got a very late diagnosis of acute myeloid lymphoma. No one saw it coming,” Ms Wrack said. “He was still working for the shire when he was diagnosed. (He) continued working until he couldn’t, and then came back because what he does in the gardens is his peace. “He was born a hippie, and kind of died a hippie qualified in horticulture.” Two days before he died, Ms Wrack said her dad requested that a bench be installed in Pioneer Park as his final wish. Ms Wrack said she took the request to the shire, and was touched to see it come to life — especially with the other parks and gardens employees offering to pay for the bench. “They (the shire) were as devastated as us,” she said. “Then it got bigger, and the Grumpy Old Men’s Shed said, ‘we would like to build it, not buy it’. “It was beautiful that it became owned by the community, because that’s what Dad was here for. “ At the unveiling on Friday, Ms Wrack said listening to what people said about her father filled her pride. “To see the pride in other people’s faces for this man I call Dad — I’m so grateful,” she said. “The nicest part was listening to the crew from the shire, like the guys who work in parks and gardens, who’d worked with dad for a short time and for a long time, just reminiscing on how much they enjoyed working with him. “We miss him, but we realise how many other people were affected by him. “ She said the park bench gave her family somewhere to reflect, but she hoped it would be used by all.