A toast to true love at Parramatta Park
A casual picnic to toast their engagement would start an annual tradition for Rick and Denise Beauclerc that has continued for more than 40 years.
A casual picnic to toast their engagement would start an annual tradition for Rick and Denise Beauclerc that has continued for more than 40 years.
In 1974, Rick and his fiance Denise headed to a table near Old Government House at Parramatta Park to celebrate their engagement after he proposed at Australia Square.
Every year since they have returned to the park to sit at the table under the Moreton Bay fig tree and celebrate their anniversary.
The photo they snapped that day in 1974 — Rick had put the camera on timer and sprinted back to the table — has now been included in Parramatta Park Trust’s People of Parra Park, an online gallery celebrating the park’s 160th anniversary.
The pair have been coming to Parramatta Park since they were both children, Rick to play school cricket and swim and Denise piling in the station wagon with her family until it was time to go home for dinner.
Rick was a friend of Denise’s brothers and she was the 12-year-old “pesky brat sister” - until somewhere along the way things changed.
They became a couple when Denise was 17 and Rick 22, and married five years later at St Andrew’s Presbyterian in Wentworthville.
Three years later, the couple moved from Parramatta to Seven Hills but their park visits continued.
Their two daughters learnt to ride their bikes on the gentle slope near Old Government House and how to rollerblade along the footpaths.
When the family found an injured turtle near their home, they cared for it before releasing it in the park.
“We made a big ceremony and came here and let it go,” Denise said.
Each time they visited, their daughters would look for the turtle.
They celebrated birthdays and Christmases at the park and watched the Parramatta Eels train by running up and down the steep slopes.
Things have changed quite a bit since then, but the Beauclerc’s love for the park remains the same.
Now they come for the Sydney Symphony Under The Stars, the New Year’s Eve fireworks, and the Australia Day celebrations, and their five grandchildren enjoy roaming around just as Denise and Rick and their daughters did.
Denise, 66, and Rick, 71, will celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary next month - with a picnic at their table of course.
“I’ve long thought this is the best thing about Parramatta,” Rick said.
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