Name: Mick O’Meara

Age: 80
Occupation during 1939: Factory worker at Central Spring Works in Melbourne.
Age at time of fire: 16
Location of interview: Melbourne

"Ash was falling in South Melbourne, and it was half as big as your hand. Well, I knew that something was on then and it was hot, God it was hot."

When I was a kid, I was brought up on a sawmill, up at Warburton called the Mississippi. We had a wooden chimney, and of course you couldn’t build a very big fire. Dad had a ladder running up the wall and in between the roof and in the chimney he had buckets of water so if the chimney caught alight he could pour it out. Well it would burn your house down otherwise.

I was living in Melbourne and my brother was living up in the Acheron Way on Feiglin’s No.1 Mill with his wife and baby. I think Jim was only about three months old.

Well, you knew that there were fires around, but on that particular day it was about 114 (Fahrenheit) in Melbourne - that’s hot.

Where I worked was in a factory, and you could see the ash, you could see bracken fern falling. Ash was falling in South Melbourne, and it was half as big as your hand. Well, I knew that something was on then and it was hot, God it was hot.

When I went home that night, everybody was worried about my brother Tom, and his wife Connie and the baby. Mums were the boss of the place, because my father was away - this was at the end of the depression just before the war and Mum was worried about Tom. There were no phones then or very few phones. Mrs. Ebling came in and said to Mum, “I just had a phone call from Tom and he’s alright, and Connie his wife and Jim the baby are at Buxton”.

"He was very lucky, if it wasn’t for old Smithy, he would have been dead."

When Tom came down, all he had was his boots and his socks and a pair of dungaree pants which were jeans as you know them today. And men used to wear flannels then, a big flannel shirt, and that was about all he had. Lost the lot.

Tom and Connie and the baby were living in a mill house at Feiglin’s Mill. It was a four-room house, just a big square divided into four and a little skillion (lean-to or outhouse) out the back with a tin bath and a heater or a copper or something like that in it, that you would heat water to get a bath in.

He was an engine driver and filer. He used to drive the steam engine. The steam engine drove the mill, drove the saws and all the rest of it and then he used to file the saws too, sharpen them.

Connie went out first, because Tom had to stay at the mill but he was worried, there was a lot of smoke around, Tom said.

Joe, a friend of Tom’s working at the mill, said that he would take them and see if he could find out something. So he took Connie and the baby, and he took a young bloke, a bit of a kid called Sam Isaacs. They got to St. Fillans, which was down along the Acheron Way about six miles - where the junction of the Marysville Road and the Maroondah Highway meet.

And he took them there, and Sam says he always remembered what Connie said, when they got there. The whole place was alight and Connie said to him, “Well, Sam, I think we’ve jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire”. They couldn’t get to Healesville because it was burning, so they headed up the other way towards Buxton and Taggerty and Alexandra. Now Tom didn’t know where she was or what happened to her. He was still at the mill working.

He said he saw the fire - smoke and fire coming from the Acheron Way and thought the fire was quite a long way away. The mill was still working, everything was going just as normal. And then he decided to shut the valve that turns the steam engine off, to stop the mill. He just turned it off. You did those things then, he made an assessment, and that was it, he turned it off. He said why the devil he turned if off, he doesn’t know, but he turned it off. Now he shut the engine off and of course all the blokes were watching him do this and they started to mill around him and somebody said “Right, well we’d better get to the dug-out”.

"... and they were joking and happy to be alive. Then Tom saw this thing burned on the road and it was a little girl."

And then he thought, well he’d run down to his house, which I suppose was about 100 yards away from the mill, down a track, like a road, and he ran down towards it, because in his house he had two suitcases on the bed, and the only 50 pounds he had in the world were in those two suitcases.

Connie didn’t take them with her and he thought, well geez, I’ll get the suitcases and at least they’d have something. And he ran down about 50 yards, and he was watching it – the fire racing up toward him, and he said to himself, “I don’t think I’m going to make it”, so he turned around, and he ran back towards the dug-out.

Now he was a young man, he’d be 24 or 25 I suppose, he wouldn’t be much more and he was as fit as a fiddle, but by the time he got back near the dug-out, he was blind. Blind with smoke. And he didn’t know anywhere, he didn’t even know where the dug-out was because it was that smoky.

Suddenly the fire was everywhere and he said it was as black as night. He said he was blind with the smoke and flying embers in his eyes. He couldn’t see and the only thing that saved him was that there was an old bloke that he used to work with, a fellow called Sid Smith, he came from Yarra Junction.

Smithy came out of the dug-out because he knew that Tom had headed down towards his house and he started singing out, “Over here Tom. Hey, Tom, come over here”, because Smithy couldn’t see Tom either.

Tom said that he heard Smithy’s voice, and yelled out to him that he was blind and Smithy came out of the dug-out and they yelled at one another, and they gradually got closer and Smithy came over and grabbed him and took him into the dug-out, otherwise he would have been dead. He was very lucky, if it wasn’t for old Smithy, he would have been dead.

About eight hours I think they were in the dug-out. This happened at about nine or 10 in the morning and when they were walking out they had to walk from the mill out to Warburton and they were joking and happy to be alive. Then Tom saw this thing burned on the road and it was a little girl.

"Well he was a man that was absolutely shattered. His eyes were back in his head. And he was really bad, he really was, he was devastated I would say."

This was on the Acheron Way - they saw the little girl, and then the mother and father were in front of her towards Narbethong, the three of them. Further up they found three dead Greeks who had been working down at the Quarry - that’s dead bodies; they found the dead bodies on the road.

Well when he landed at our place, when he came home, Connie went to her sister’s place in Yarraville and Tom came up to our place to see Mum. Well he was a man that was absolutely shattered. His eyes were back in his head. And he was really bad, he really was, he was devastated I would say.

I’ve seen men come out of a war, out of the front line, and you could see them - they’re shattered, but he was in just as bad a condition as they were. I think the fire and the girl, and all sorts of things, I suppose reaction set in, but there was none of this business now of counselling and all of this kind of rubbish. You just pulled your socks up and you went back to work. I think they were working again within a week, or a fortnight. You see, they had to rebuild the mill. They had to work. That was all there was to it.

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