Sunday 22/02/09 - In Memoriam

Today has been declared a national day of mourning so that Australia can remember those who tragically died on what has now become "Black Saturday" 07/02/09. I am unable to mourn publicly and have chosen instead to share our story from the end to a new beginning and beyond.

The following is an extract from the Sydney Morning Herald. I'm sure it is copyright and that is acknowledged.The full article written by Paul McGeough who we knew as a close family friend from our 10 years in Perth may be found here -

http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-painful-truth-20090213-877u.html?page=-

"....

In St Andrews, six kilometres down the mountain from Kinglake, Quentin Addison, 60, did that - as a CFA crew leader he was on the case on the Friday night, making sure his household was in order, because of the likelihood that he would be on a fire engine on Saturday.

His theatre nurse wife, Ros, and three German backpackers who were staying with them were confidently across their assigned tasks, as they went to the local store to get a chick-flick to while away the searing afternoon heat.

At 12.30pm Addison's pager went off. The area in which he was putting out fires was over a hill and about 1.5 kilometres as the crow flies from their home on a sweeping bend on the Heidelberg-Kinglake Road. He tried to call a couple of time - network busy.

"We had a nice salad for lunch," said Ros Addison, 56. But before they were to sit down to watch their DVD, she and the backpackers set about some final tidying up outside.

By then smoke was coming into the valley. She ordered one of the backpackers to activate a pump on the dam, which was about 100 metres from the house, to feed all the garden sprinklers. She filled the kitchen sink and laundry trough and warned her guests of the need to drink a lot of water.

"Then I heard the sound," Ros Addison said. "I asked the girls: 'Do you hear that? It's the fire coming.' "

One of the backpackers, Julia, asked if a helicopter would be coming to rescue them. Instead, Ros ordered them to drop the hoses they had been using and to go indoors, where they retreated to the laundry. It was then that she looked out towards one of the reasons they had bought the property in the mid-1990s - a beautiful old ironbark barn, which was down the slope from the house. "It was on fire, glowing bright red."

It was about 5.30pm. The fire was spreading across the paddocks at the same time as it rushed up a fence-line, along which trees planted by a neighbour egged it on. As the sky darkened to black she was stunned by an eerie beauty that came with disaster: "In the grey smoke the sun was this incredible golden, pink orb - exquisite."

Smoke seeping into the house prompted the alarms to shriek. Draping wet towels over their heads, they refilled all the bottles and jugs they could carry and used some of Quentin Addison's belts to fashion leads for three disoriented dogs.

They would have to move. As she ordered the Germans downstairs, Ros Addison heard the lounge-room windows shattering. Then she saw that a hedge near the carport, which was attached to the house, was on fire.

"I told the girls that the house was on fire but that we would be OK. We would go to a spot in the garden, three metres from the house, which had been burnt black - there would be no fuel. But the radiant heat from the house-fire meant that we had to keep moving - this time to the dam wall. I said: 'That's it, girls - the complete Australian experience.' And then we discussed colours for the new sofa."

Making her way with her guests back to the unscathed St Andrews town centre, Ros Addison counted 15 destroyed homes. Many more were left in the wake of the fire as it roared up the valley, in the other direction, to maul Kinglake, on the ridge line.

In the meantime, Quentin Addison and his CFA colleagues went from spot-fire to spot-fire. He explained in a matter-of-fact way: "I was conscious that the fire was likely to be in the vicinity of my place - but I was confident that Ros would do what she had to do and I had a job to do on the truck. She might get singed. But I was able to switch off, because I knew she would survive."

As they moved to another fire, which destroyed a local winery, Addison caught a glimpse up the valley in which they lived. Judging by the other landmarks that had disappeared, he figured he had become one of the dozens of CFA volunteers who had lost their homes while they were off attempting to save the property of others.

After the fire the Addisons' only possessions are one of their three cars, a torch, one family snap, Ros Addison's wallet and a freshly laundered pair of pyjamas that she happened to grab as she left the house for the last time.

Quentin Addison had been back to the wreckage of their home but, when they went back together on Thursday, they allowed the Herald to join them.

Within minutes of arriving, Addison's gruff exterior gave way to a warm display of love. On his hands and knees, he sifted the ash for his wife's jewellery - he found the choker she wore as the mother of the bride eight years ago, a jade bracelet and much more. She emerged from the rubble with a charred biscuit-tin filled with ash - the letters he had written to her when they were courting.

"Our story is boring," Ros Addison insists. "But, yeah, it's a good one - we don't have a house but we have a family that's intact."

Paul McGeough is the Herald's chief correspondent."

Paul has told the story well and if it hasn't become clear that I think Ros is an absolute hero then it's not his fault. He was almost right about my age, I'm 60 in June.

I never really knew whether Ros would be able to meet the crisis that a bushfire presented but I had absolute faith that she would do her utmost to ensure the safety of our guests Lena, Guillia and Isobel from Wertheim in Germany and of course our beloved dogs Angas, Meggie & Fergal.

On the back of a tanker from St Andrews, I could only trust that she had received my phone message and would have time to enact the fire plain. It wasn't until many hours later after the fire truck had returned to the brigade assembly area in St Andrews, that I found out from one of my CFA colleagues that they were all safe and knew that my faith in Ros had been more than justified.

Having faced and survived one of life's most terrifying experiences and lost her home of 15,16 or 17 years - we can never quite agree or more probably I can't remember, I have no doubt that there is no challenge that Ros cannot overcome.

Yesterday we took Ros' sister Leanne, nephew, Matthew and our georgeous daughter Cait and her husband Nicco to have a look at the farm and take some pictures. Leanne & Matt had come down from Sydney to make sure we really were alive and to see what had happend to the place where they had spent a most enjoyable Christmas in 2007.

Ros & I had previously been back but this was the first time I had a camera other than my phone.

There are 267 images - I'll let them speak for themselves. Apart from the first few taken adjacent to Mitton's Bridge Road which is a couple of kilometeres from St Andrews township, the rest are of Little Wood Farm.

I've just realise after waiting for 10 minutes that it will be much smarter to load the pics into Picasa and point you there.

I'll probably do this later tonight ... well I hope this works

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/Nossida/02072009BushfiresAtLittleWoodFarm#