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family history project - front_red title_22Oct25.png

Molly and Hamish: Two outstanding community leaders

$30.00

Jan Trezise and family

Molly and Hamish Mackay played key roles in their local community and in the wider Springvale Community. This account of their lives, their significant contribution to a newly developing outer suburb of Melbourne that became a haven and home for people from many different countries and circumstances, has been compiled by their four children.

The values that guided Molly and Hamish throughout their lives were love of family, commitment to community, kindness, and a generosity of spirit.

All profits from the sale of the book are donated to DNISTER – UKRAINE CRISIS APPEAL - a Ukraine charity

Jan Trezise and family

Molly and Hamish Mackay played key roles in their local community and in the wider Springvale Community. This account of their lives, their significant contribution to a newly developing outer suburb of Melbourne that became a haven and home for people from many different countries and circumstances, has been compiled by their four children.

The values that guided Molly and Hamish throughout their lives were love of family, commitment to community, kindness, and a generosity of spirit.

All profits from the sale of the book are donated to DNISTER – UKRAINE CRISIS APPEAL - a Ukraine charity

  • December 2025 |  9781925893779 | 304 pages | Paperback | 234 × 153mm | Fiction

  • Family history; Australian family stories; collective memoir; biography; life writing; community history; local history; Springvale; Springvale South; Melbourne suburbs; Victorian history; post-war Australia; migration stories; refugee settlement; multicultural Australia; community building; civic engagement; volunteering; family values; social cohesion; multigenerational families

  • 9781925893779

 Molly and Hamish’s four children are Ian Douglas Mackay, Barbara Marian Parker, Janet Christina Trezise, Donald Alistair Mackay. All four of us wanted to document our family stories and each has contributed to the creation of this book. In addition, many anecdotes have been provided by numerous extended family members and family friends.

We were born into a household spanning three generations, in a wide extended family that stretched from Australia to the United Kingdom. We all attended local schools, where our teachers had often taught our older family members.

Reflecting back, we realise that the family business played a significant role in the settlement of Springvale South; and as children, we enjoyed being part of a movement that literally built a community centre from the ground up. Many people with shared values and a wide range of skills and interests worked together to create something unique. As our community embraced refugees and migrants from beyond the UK, we were enriched by our being introduced to many cultures from post-war Europe and later, from across the world.

Both our parents played key roles in their local community and in the wider Springvale community, reflecting the values they lived by: love of family, commitment to community, kindness and generosity of spirit. They continue to inspire successive generations of our family.