Betty Stroud sure knows how to tell a good yarn, and this Sunday you can catch her performing a selection of her favourite travel stories – all for a good cause.

Orange City Life previously caught up with the retired Uniting Church minister in 2023, when Betty released her first book, 'Puffin' Along with Betty', a collection of solo travel stories spanning 50 years and dozens of countries.

“The subtitle was ‘Going from Afghanistan to Venice.’ It was just a collection of stories that explained some of my travels over 40 or 50 years,” Betty explains.

“And I was encouraged to write the book by a friend who'd seen my blogs on Facebook and said, 'You ought to put some stories together because they take us right there!’”

Betty's book has been well received, and she says her editor has been on her to write another book for some time.

“That seemed all too hard at the time,” Betty says, “and I wondered about writing some stories for stage and presenting them as a performer.”

A lifelong lover of music and theatre, Betty made her first stage appearance at just 18 months, when she was roped into a production to play Cupid. She was a founding member of Dubbo's Wesley House Players and has acted, sung, played piano, built props, produced, and directed many productions over the decades since.

'Moving Along: Stories of a Traveller' is a one-woman show in which Betty recounts a few of her favourite travel stories spanning some 50 years.

“In the show, I dress up as a puffin,” Betty says, explaining how she decided to retell the titular story of her book, the two hours alone with a puffin colony on Fair Isle, from the view of a puffin.

“And I speak with a Scottish accent,” she adds. “That's gone down really, really well. So it's a one-woman play, and there's a bit of singing, other subtle costume changes, and changes of the set.”

Other stories include Betty's first overseas trip to the remote New Guinea highlands in 1968, where, in a village with no electricity or running water, one of the first things she heard was Slim Dusty's music coming across the village green.

“It's been good fun, I've enjoyed it – and I've had really, really good feedback from audiences,” Betty says.

But more than just a creative outlet and a chance to 'tread the boards', Betty is using her show to give a little something back, offering the communities where she performs the chance to use her show to raise money for a charitable cause of their choice.

“I thought, well, I'm prepared to just have fun performing and provide entertainment for people, and so I've offered the performance to church congregations to raise money for whatever they want,” Betty explains.

“In Lithgow and Blayney, it was Can Assist; down in Wagga, it was a group that supports a school in Cambodia; and this weekend in Orange it'll be helping Veritas House furnish the old Uniting Church Sunday School hall that's been turned into seven crisis accommodation units.

“It has been fun. I'm getting a bit weary of driving, but I love doing it!”

You can catch Betty Stroud's highly entertaining performance 'Moving Along: Stories of a Traveller' at 2pm this Sunday, September 27, at the Orange Uniting Church Hall, 217 Anson St. Entry is by donation.

Betty will also have copies of her book 'Puffin' Along with Betty' for sale for $30, with $15 going to Veritas House.