Ready to celebrate village milestone

Pictured above: Pat Cannard and Evelyn O’Mara at Bolton Clarke Inverpine.

Eleven Bolton Clarke Inverpine residents are gearing up to celebrate 25 years living at the Murrumba Downs retirement village.

The village will hold its official 25th anniversary event on Tuesday (October 22) from 10am in the community hall.

Planning for the village, in Ogg Rd, began in 1996 with the first group of residents moving in at the end of 1999.

Residents Pat Cannard and Evelyn O’Mara, they have been neighbours since that first day.

“My late husband Billy and I were looking for somewhere to downsize but also wanted to be in an area where we had a community around us,” Evelyn said.

“I can’t believe it’s been 25 years and now that I’m 95, I just can’t believe that I’ve gotten this far.

“We gave ourselves two years to look around for a retirement village and this was by far the best and it even provides a free bus to take us shopping three days a week.

“We never regretted our decision moving in here,” she said.

The residents will be joined by the rest of the village for a morning tea to celebrate and reminisce.

For Pat and her late husband Ernie their connection to the RSL was a driving force to find a retirement village to support their lifestyle in the late 90s.

“The security and the social life has always been really good and I’ve got great neighbours,” Pat said.

“We were living in Geebung at the time but we needed to find somewhere more suitable as my husband was suffering from illnesses that prevented him doing the work he needed to do.

“We have seen it change from having the residential aged care and independent units in one area to now being more separate but still co-located,” she said.