Name: Rose Le Brun

Age: 91
Occupation during 1939: Wife of Ernie Le Brun the Bush Boss at Skinner’s New Mill at Royston
Age at time of fire: 27
Location of interview: Alexandra

"I suppose we were all scared stiff, but there was nothing you could do. Looking out through the doors at the gully the trees were very tall then, about two hundred feet and the flames were another two hundred feet above that."

Well we didn’t get word at all actually, there was a dugout in the creek just near us and a couple of the men were there from the mill. The man in charge of the mill, the mill boss – Bill, he decided all of a sudden to get us all out and he got the horse and, what do you call it, the bogie, and he came along, and we women and children were there and I think there were about 10 of us all told, we got on, and he set off to take us down as far as Royston in the hope of us getting onto the SEC tramway there you see.

And he got us all onto this truck and we were all just plodding along when Ernie and another chap whose wife was with us there, they came running back from the fire and took over from old Bill, and made the horse trot. And we just got down to the SEC powerhouse and we could see the fire coming, we could see the trees ablaze and everything.

And we got into the powerhouse which was a big, galvanized iron building. And it had big wire doors, and we got inside, and the kiddies, the 10 of us I think it was, we got into the battery room and stayed there. And the few men that were still about, they got out to the wire doors that were about 10 feet high, and they held blankets up against the doors. Two of them were standing on a table holding blankets up against the wire door and two more were under the table holding blankets against the doors. And then two more men were holding them because of the force of the wind.

The spares were throwing water on the blankets and the men. You see the water drives the turbines in the powerhouse there, so they were getting the water and throwing it on the blankets to keep the smoke and as much of the fire and heat out as they could.

I suppose we were all scared stiff, but there was nothing you could do. Looking out through the doors at the gully, the trees were very tall then, about 200 feet and the flames were another 200 feet above that.

"But of course there were no bridges anywhere because all of the bridges had been burned, so when you came to a gully which was quite often, you had to go right down and up the other side."

It just so happened that on that Tuesday when the fires came through, it was tucker day. What we used to do in the mill, on the Monday was, Mum used to send down our orders with the timber going down to the store and then on the Tuesday and on the Friday, those orders would be sent up and that was our food for the week you see, whatever we’d ordered.

Those were big days for us women when we got that because we’d all gather around the truck and sort out our doings or food for the week. And as it had happened, on that Tuesday the trucks had got up as far as Royston, and that must have been when the men had to go back and that truckload of food was left there in a little tin shed and that survived.

So when we got out from the powerhouse we raided the tucker boxes of course and we made tea with kerosene tins of water over the bits of fire, and so we were able to eat you see, otherwise we wouldn’t have had anything. I don’t know what we had. I do remember that one of the boxes going up to one of the mills had some plonk sent up in it, and of course they got on to that. We were so tired from the smoke.

We all just got through it. Then by the Thursday the SEC had got the power going again and they had a line going in to the top of the hill with a steel line for their own works and well, we walked out on that instead of going down the mountain which would have been worse.

But of course there were no bridges anywhere because all of the bridges had been burned, so when you came to a gully, which was quite often, you had to go right down and up the other side. The two women, well one of the old women who couldn’t walk, I had to carry her a lot of the way, but the rest of us managed to struggle along to the top of the hill and then as the SEC had got the haulage going there, they were able to lower us down to the Rubicon township in the haulage you see.

"Ern was hit with three bullets through the shoulder, and a bomb went off right beside him – he’s still got shrapnel in his shoulder and down his side. It shows up every time he has an x-ray"

A couple of weeks later we came back up and stayed with the people at the top of the haulage for about a week or so, and then they got us tents, and Ern and I lived in a tent up there, in two tents up there for over 12 months or more.

Ern had been working for the SEC rebuilding bridges and we were just going to shift down to the bottom of the hill, to rebuild on a block we got from the forestry. But then things were bad in the war, and Ern enlisted, so I went back to town - to my people.

I became an officer in the Australian Women’s Army. I was a pay sergeant most of the time. The Americans were tickled pink when Ern was home on leave, as he only had sergeant stripes up and I had six stripes. I was his superior. They used to think it was very funny.

I was working at the Army headquarter in Swanston Street in Melbourne and staying with my parents at Essendon for the five years that Ern was away in the war.

When he came back on leave, I got pregnant with Mike, but he was stillborn. So I didn’t have any children ’til Ern came back injured from Greece. Ern was hit with three bullets through the shoulder, and a bomb went off right beside him – he’s still got shrapnel in his shoulder and down his side. It shows up every time he has an x-ray. And then Robyn was born a while later when we were living back up in the bush.

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