It has been said that passionate people produce results and in a small Queensland village on the Great Dividing Range lives a woman who exemplifies this statement.

Amongst other things, she is passionate about preserving the memory of more than one million Australians who defended our freedom in military conflicts since the Boer War. More than one hundred thousand of these individuals never returned home, a fact she echoes, we must never forget.

The daughter of a Dalby grazier, Fay Helwig (nee Mulcahy), acquired qualities of independence and tenacity at a very young age. At the age of seven she commenced school, riding alone on horseback the six miles.  Fay learned early on in life that if you want something enough, you can make it happen, but you might have to be prepared to do it yourself.

After moving from Toowoomba to Glen Aplin on Queensland’s Granite Belt in 1992, Fay and her German-born husband Eberhard established Das Helwig Haus B&B.  They were amongst tourist industry pioneers in the region and since then Fay has been like a beacon of vision, which has stimulated and at times re-invigorated the tourist community.

Fay had identified that the Granite Belt possessed a district competitive advantage within the tourist industry. Her research showed that nowhere else in the world outside Belgium and France are there seven names of World War 1 battlefields and a climate that allows the Flanders poppies to bloom for 11th November.

In 1996, she proposed that a memorial drive be established to link the World War 1 returned soldier settlements of Amiens, Messines, Bapaume, Passchendaele, Bullecourt, Pozieres and Fleurbaix.  These villages are named after World War 1 battlefields and Fay proposed that people along the roads linking these districts should grow the Flanders poppies to bloom for Remembrance Day on 11th November.

Ultimately, this drive was named Armistice Way, but not before initial opposition from farmers along the route who feared the poppies could become a weed nuisance.

Faced with early opposition and driven by her passion for the project, in 1996 Fay and Eberhard ploughed a field in front of their home (Das Helwig Haus B&B at Glen Aplin).  They planted it with wheat, poppies and cornflowers to represent the way the fallow wheat fields of France had looked prior to the devastation of World War 1.  Then they opened it and their remarkable home garden featuring Northern Hemisphere flowers for public viewing during November.

Not satisfied with just sharing their garden, Fay conceived the notion of an annual Legacy Flanders Poppy Festival of Faith, a time and a place amid a field of poppies to remember all those who have served in military conflict.   In opening the 2003 Legacy Flanders Poppy Festival of Faith at Das Helwig Haus, Stanthorpe Shire Mayor, Adrian Finlay, said that after seven years, Fay had proved the poppies were unlikely to spread and become a weed nuisance.

Her vision led Fay to encourage other tourist operators within Glen Aplin to promote their products, which included red cherries, red strawberries and red wines when the red poppies were in full bloom.  Thus Fay created the Red November promotion which now attracts many visitors, especially clubs for their end of year outing.  This influx of visitors generates much-needed income across the community at a time when tourism is quiet throughout Australia.

Though untrained in media skills, Fay’s drive has generated tremendous publicity for Red November each year in major newspapers, on radio and TV. There is capacity for additional involvement by other operators to stage a series of events throughout the district to create a month long celebration of Red November.  Already this time coincides with The Australian Small Winemakers’ Show in Stanthorpe, Robert Channon Wines annual Musical Hall Concert, the Sirromet Long Lunch and several local gardens participating in the Australia’s Open Garden Scheme.

In 1997, the Southern Downs Tourist Association recognised Fay’s enormous contribution to ongoing promotion of the region with their Tourism Ambassador Award.

Although Fay did not instigate the winter Brass Monkey SeasonTM promotion, the Helwigs have enthusiastically provided Weihnachten Feasts – German Christmas dinners throughout the winter months. In 2003, the Helwigs were chosen as one of the 20 businesses to represent Multicultural Productivity in Queensland by the Multicultural Affairs Queensland – a Premier’s Department.  In May 2005 Das Helwig Haus B&B received the inaugural Queensland Multicultural Award for Small Business. In 2007 Fay appeared on a panel of judges to choose the winners of the Queensland Multicultural Awards for Large and Small businesses.

As the final visitor to the Remembrance Field last November left the driveway, Fay was back at the keyboard pursuing her latest dream. In more than fifteen years of living on the Granite Belt this woman has watched the district expand from eleven wineries and twelve accommodation houses to sixty wineries and three hundred forms of alternative accommodation.

These observations and experiences are the basis of Fay Helwig’s first book.  Entitled, Wildflowers, Wilderness and Wine, the book is timed to hit the bookstores early in 2009. It will do much to promote the place Fay loves, Granite Belt.  She likens the style to an Australian version of A Year in Provence or Under the Tuscan Sun – aimed at the reader who enjoys sitting on a terrace, sipping a glass of wine.

The book relays the tales of the eccentric characters who have visited Das Helwig Haus over the years and about the guests who were inspired by the example set by Fay and Eberhard to return to the district and establish their own tourist businesses.  A passionate gardener, Fay has described the comings and goings during the changing four seasons of the Granite Belt against a backdrop in recent years of prolonged drought, the horror of a sudden bushfire and the relief brought by steady, soaking rain.

Fay has produced an E-Book called The Summer of the Morning Star .  In the voice of her black and white cat, Patches, the tale is related of how Fay spends a summer nurturing twenty South Korean backpackers working in the Granite Belt fruit and vegetable harvest. The book is well illustrated by Fay’s photography.