Tags:
Black
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saturday
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fire
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anniversary
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compassion
By ANTHONY RADFORD, Editor
OVER the past few months the Bendigo Weekly news team has been planning how to cover the one year anniversary of Black Saturday.
While it is important to remember the events of the worst day in Victoria’s history, and one of the worst in Bendigo’s history, we felt it was important to simply not go over old ground.
We considered whether or not it was appropriate to re-run parts of our coverage of the Bendigo fire, to remind the public once again how terrifying February 7, 2009 was.
At the other end of the scale we wondered whether we should do much at all, given most would still remember the events clearly and would be bombarded on Sunday and in the lead up with horrific images that would rekindle horrific memories.
The Friday after the Black Saturday fires, the Weekly’s editorial thanked everyone involved who helped on the day, a lot risking their lives to save others. Perhaps that should be the way to go.
Instead, we chose to offer hope and remind the public that for those caught up in the fires, the memories will never cease.
That is an important facet of this anniversary. While most of us will be caught up in the emotion of this weekend, for those involved, the memories have been there for every one of the past 363 days.
There were some who were lucky to turn to auto pilot to cope, only to have things spill out unexpectedly, like one of my dearest friends.
Her and her husband left leaving their house too late. They were lucky to escape, driving down their long driveway at 80 km/h, with the fire licking at their wheels.
They lost everything and one day will rebuild. In the meantime they bought a new house, in town, and were coping the best they could.
They were doing ok until Christmas time. My friend received a Christmas decoration in her pigeon hole at work and broke down.
Like everything else, her much-loved and long-used Christmas decorations, which were part of her family’s happy Christmas memories, had been destroyed in the fires.
Each day she is battling with memories of things lost and destroyed.
Another friend is faring much worse. He is in the CFA and fought the Black Saturday fires at their fiercest.
He came across a family dead in a burnt-out car. He has not coped since and is seeking constant medical help. Up until recently his wife had to lock him in the house at night to stop him escaping in an almost trance-like state.
After months and months of treatment, the family slept with the doors unlocked for the first time recently. She awoke at 2.30am and couldn’t find him anywhere.
He was found in his pyjamas, walking down the main street of Kinglake, kilometres away, still trying to process what he had seen and what he had gone through.
These types of stories, and worse, exist in places such as Marysville, Whittlesea, Flowerdale, Kilmore East, Boolara and every one of the towns and areas decimated on Black Saturday.
Also, for the family of Mick Kane, who tragically died in the Bendigo fires, Sunday’s anniversary will be tough, but it has been tough every day.
If there is anything members of the public leave the Black Saturday anniversary with, it needs to be hope and compassion.
Hope is obvious in the millions of people who have thrown out their arms in support of the victims, and in the victims themselves as they rebuild their lives and their homes.
Compassion is easy for a day, but hard forever. Please use this anniversary to remember those who survived, and the loved ones of those who did not.
They relive Black Saturday every minute of every hour of every day. Some will never forget. Others, hopefully, will achieve small periods of respite as the years go on.
A lot of us who were affected by the events of Black Saturday manage to get on with our lives.
However, for hundreds, possibly thousands, of Australians, Victorians and Bendigonians, the nightmare will be there forever.
