All us kids remember the night that Mum talks about in her where can I wash my hands story. There is no strain on the memory when someone asks where were you when the sawmill at Wooloowin burnt down? cause we were all there, right underneath it. My best recollection is that all us kids were preparing to sit down to the evening meal that Aunty Phill had made with the help of our big sisters, when we noticed a strange orange glow coming through the stain glass windows at the back of the house. As one, we all went out the back door to investigate. There it was a wall of flame reaching up to the sky with sparks being carried by the raising heat high into the air. For us kids it was oh wow! For Aunty Phil it was oh no! She went straight for the phone to tell others about the great event that was happening right in our own back yard. After a series of calls she came back said that we all should get dressed into our dressing gowns and grab whatever valuables we could and be prepared to leave the house at any time. I followed Tom’s lead (or did he follow mine) anyway, I grabbed my teddy bear and the large cardboard scripture verse that always hung at the end of my bed. I had in my possession everything of value that I thought needed to be saved. The big sisters tied to save all of Mum’s heirloom jewellery which they thought would be contained in her vinyl handbags. David had only one thought and that was of his birds in the aviary underneath the blazing sawmill wall. Both he and Aunty Phill went out and caught all the birds while the fire raged and brought them back safely and released them in the bathroom. (Except for two that we found the next morning miraculously, safe and well) By this time the crowds had begun to build up and they were starting to flow into our backyard and even up our back steps. That’s when one of the most memorable events happened for me that night. Uncle Howard. I always thought him to be a quiet and reserved, somewhat reverend uncle but this night I saw something else. I watched him arrive through the back gate and within moments began driving the gorking voyeurists out of our family property with all the fury of a man driving the merchants from the temple so long ago. No one wanted to argue with a man so filled with righteous rage, and so they all left without murmur. I felt safe – Uncle Howard had arrived. His advice was to leave the house and wait out the front. I wasn’t about to argue, so me and Tom left by the front steps with our precious possessions and were looked after by neighbours until Mum came through the madding crowd and collected us with one of her trademark hugs.
See also related story by [Mum][Tom]
