September 2010. Spring is in the air—in Australia, that is—and daffodils, bluebells, and peach blossoms color the landscape outside Beverley Beddoes-Mills’s home in the Blue Mountains overlooking Sydney. Her “bush environment,” she explained during our initial chat, “is very beautiful, very peaceful, very quiet, with lots of birds.”
Nevertheless, most weekends she leaves the mountains for the city, driving the 100 or so kilometers to her studio apartment on Sydney Harbor, where she frequently meets patients for professional office visits. From there it’s just a short ferry ride to the Sydney Opera House, and the Sydney Art Gallery, which she supports as a member. Also among her greatest joys during these city excursions is being able to see her son and daughter and grandchildren.
Beverley herself grew up a short distance from the famous Bondi Beach, near Sydney, where she spent most afternoons after school surfing. (She gave it up just ten years ago.) After graduating in technical drawing from the Sydney Technical College, she left for London on a working holiday. “It was a very special time for me,” Beverley recalls. “First Church, London, provided me with my first experience of church membership, which is something I will always cherish.” Two years later, she returned to Australia, married, and had her two children.
