I WAS BORN IN 1949 in Kent, southeast England. I have a twin sister, Pamela, and an older sister, Jenny, and our playground was the orchards of Kent. So trees are everything for me. There were a lot of apples, peaches and pears. We picked them for the farmers and received some for free. My twin sister and I, we don’t look like one another. We’re the complete opposite.
Sally Grace Bunker (left) with her twin sister, Pamela. Photo: courtesy Sally Bunker
MY MOTHER WAS a nurse and my father was in local government in Kent. My twin sister studied botany. My older sister became a physiotherapist. We had lots of chickens in the garden and grew our own vegetables. I enjoyed athletics and went right up to doing the Southern Counties Championship. I had lots of medals. I could run very fast, actually. My father used to take me to London, where I was trained by a professional, but I realised I didn’t want to spend my life just jumping over hurdles.
I also enjoyed ballet, which I thought I would do as a career, but ballet wasn’t quite right for me. I couldn’t get my right leg up over my head because I had something wrong with my hip from doing a lot of hurdling. So, I became a physical education teacher. I went to Chelsea College of Physical Education, in Eastbourne, and specialised in dancing.
Sally and Bob Bunker on their wedding day in 1971. Photo: courtesy Sally Bunker
IN 1970, MY TWIN sister and I went with my parents on a sailing holiday. And this guy (Bob Bunker) was chatting away to my parents in front of me. I was already with another guy, but I looked at my sister and said, “I’m going to marry him,” without even talking to him. In 1971, we got married in Westminster Abbey, because Bob’s father was a Companion of the Order of the Bath, and members of the order and their offspring have the right to be married in Westminster Abbey. The wedding had to be done in wintertime because it’s a bit too crowded in the summer. My mother made me the most beautiful white velvet medieval dress.
Sally Bunker with her husband, Bob, in their garden in Mui Wo, Lantau Island, Hong Kong. Photo: Jocelyn Tam
I HAVE TWO SONS, Edward and William, and Edward’s here in Hong Kong. He does reiki. He’s been given a gift. William is 18 months younger and is a beekeeper in London and runs a computer company. Bob was a banker and in the 1970s we lived in St Albans (northwest of London). It’s a lovely city. I was still doing athletics and did dancing classes for children. I suffer from Raynaud’s syndrome, which basically means I can’t tolerate cold weather and I’ve lost fingers. Bob was offered a two-year contract in Hong Kong, and I looked it up to see where it is on the map and saw that it could be quite hot! So, we got on a plane with a five-year-old and a three-year-old and that was it. We came here in 1979. We had banking accommodation but we loved Lantau. We bought a weekend place on the island in 1986 and then moved here permanently in 1997.
Sally Bunker became a Cub leader in the Scouts and rose to become assistant district commissioner for Hong Kong. Photo: courtesy Sally BunkerI became involved in the Scouts and rose to assistant district commissioner for Hong Kong. I also spent many years researching (and working to protect) the cows on Lantau, talking to the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. We’ve been to so many meetings. In the end, we won and they’ve survived. I was known as the cow lady, making sure that the government understood that they are part of Hong Kong and the ecosystem.
Sally Bunker at work on one of her botanical artworks. Photo: Jocelyn Tam
HONG KONG HAS everything that I love. I love the islands and flora here, and it was lovely to be a teacher here, to be able to have children from different countries. Initially I taught keep-fit classes and then in 1992, I started helping out at Parkview Kindergarten. In 1997, I set up my own school, Leafy – Lantau Educational Activities for the Young. I wanted to teach children through nature. It did very well, because in 1998 the international airport opened on Lantau, and suddenly there was a rush of pilots with young kids and they wanted international kindergartens. It was such fun.
Sally Bunker, who has lost parts of her fingers to Raynaud’s syndrome, shows her magic finger trick. Photo: Jocelyn Tam
I DECIDED TO teach through environmental studies. I did many outdoor activities to get the children to understand how important trees and plants are. The complexity of just being out in the countryside held a huge amount of interest for them and they learned a lot. It’s actually quite bad for them to be behind a desk all the time. The Education Bureau liked my curriculum for international kindergartens and adopted it. It’s a nice village kindergarten. I left in 2009 but I still own the school and building.
One of Sally Bunker’s botanical art illustrations from the book Portraits of Trees of Hong Kong and Southern China. Photo: courtesy Sally Bunker
WHEN I WAS a teenager, I was very interested in art and everyone said I should become an artist. But I had this awful feeling that if I did art, I would be bad at it. I wasn’t. I was a botanical artist but I didn’t realise that at the time. In 2009, artist Lorette Roberts asked me to attend her sketching trips out and about. She got rather annoyed with me because I kept staying in one place and doing absolute details of things I saw. She’s the one who pushed me to do a three-year course with the London School of Arts, which I did through distance learning. I was later awarded a fellowship from the UK Society of Botanical Artists.
Sally Bunker with Pang Chun-chiu, co-author of Portraits of Trees of Hong Kong and Southern China, which was illustrated by her. Photo: courtesy Sally BunkerIN 2012, I WAS asked to go for an interview with Professor Richard Saunders, who was head of biological sciences at the University of Hong Kong. He said he had wanted to do something but needed an artist. We got together along with Pang Chun-chiu, a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Biological Sciences. Out of the 390 indigenous trees in Hong Kong, we chose 100. I worked six hours a day creating highly detailed original watercolours and it took me seven years. I did the art, they did the words for the book Portraits of Trees of Hong Kong and Southern China (2019). I have finally decided what to do with these watercolours. I have donated them all to the library of Chinese University. They will be kept as the “Sally Bunker Collection” and will be digitised so they are available for scientific study and can be kept for future centuries as evidence of how trees have evolved.
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