The Wishing Well is a major feature of the Balmoral water front. It’s history goes back to 1986:
When Alistair the son of Roger Bluett, a long-standing resident of Mosman, died from melanoma in 1985, Roger obtained permission from Council to erect a wishing well on Balmoral promenade to serve as a warning of the menace of melanoma and to publicise the need for care. The Rotary Club agreed to take unofficial trusteeship of the wishing well, collecting the coins, banking them in the Project Fund and sending an annual donation to the Melanoma Foundation (now the Melanoma Institute)
The wishing well was officially opened on 26 october 1986. Since then a number of Club stalwarts have the somewhat messy task of emptying the Well, cleaning the coins and banking them. By 30 June 1989 our esteemed elderly member Perc Murray had cleaned 32 times, the total then collected being $4,550. Thereafter a number of others undertook the task until, about the turn of the century, the servicing and collection fell away somewhat, with the return falling accordingly. All was resolved when Ken Palmer took over the task.
For the last ten years, Ken, while undertaking his regular morning swim and taking the reading of the water temperature at Balmoral, has religiously serviced the Wishing Well. He has kept it clean and in good repair, as well as collecting and cleaning the coinage before handing it over to our chief coin counter Barry Starr for counting and banking. As a result, collections over the years have grown from about $1,500 to about $5,000 a year. The amount collected during the life of the Wishing Well is estimated to in excess of $50,000.
Roger Bluett was the first non-Rotarian to be awarded a Paul Harris Fellowship by our club, such award being made at Changeover Night on 2 July 1988. He passed away the mid 1990s but the Wishing well survives in his memory. In 2005, the club received a donation of $5,000 from Beresford Bluett, another son of Roger, towards the ongoing maintenance of the wishing well in expression of the family’s thanks for the Club’s servicing of it over nearly 25 years.
[Fifty Years of Rotary in Mosman 1961-2011 – Philip Perkins]
Last week our contact with the family, Mary Bluett visited the well her daughter and granddaughter who are on a trip from UK. Mark Alderson and Barry Starr continue Ken’s work by regularly collecting coins thrown into the wishing well; the proceeds continue to be donated to the Melanoma Institute with a copy of the receipt being sent by the treasurer to Mary.