Open Writing

When we bought the big old house in Irymple, we were pleased to have the extra land. An acre we thought, with our large family, would give the children room to have a pony and fly kites. Maybe we would build a tennis court or a swimming pool, and most certainly my husband could keep a milking cow, which he had often talked about.

The Real Estate Agent had added as an afterthought, that there was a shed on the property too. As I had grown up in Melbourne, and was unfamiliar with the local jargon, I thought how we would have a place to keep the wheelbarrow and the kid's bikes. It was in fact, a large packing shed with a steep roof, occupying almost a quarter of an acre.

The day in September 1975 will always be remembered in Sunraysia, as the day the cyclone came. It began just like any other day. I drove the children to school but, as I was rostered to take my turn at the canteen as well, I joined the other mothers to spend the morning making sandwiches, heating soup and slicing fruit. Our three year old daughter played happily with her colouring books and snack bites.

The day's weather forecast had advised that there would be rain, so my husband, who was on leave from his employment, busied himself at home by checking camping gear for our annual family holiday. Back at the school, as the post-lunch clean-up had been satisfactorily dealt with, we chatted together, waiting for the dismissal bell.

The sound of thunder was making it difficult to hear one another's conversations, and, concerned about our children's reaction to the coming storm, we left the tuck-shop. Entering the school we joined children and teachers at the huge glass wall of windows on the eastern boundary.

A grey gloom, unusual at two in the afternoon, pervaded everywhere, and there was a strange reflected light, but no sun was visible. As thunder and lightening continued to resound, a hailstorm erupted over our school with the terrible fury of a wind coming at 100 knots an hour. Each hailstone was as large as a golf ball, but they were being tossed about by some unseen force, as if they were snowflakes. Then the sound of the wind came, increasing in its intensity and causing the children to cover their ears, as it sucked objects like bikes up into its vortex.

Then all fell silent. Nobody moved for a few seconds. We were all still in disbelief. When it appeared safe to do so, school was dismissed. Children streamed out of every exit, running to pick up as many golf-ball sized hailstones as they could. There were broken branches of trees and other debris scattered everywhere. In hindsight, we were all thankful that the cyclone hadn't arrived a little later when children would have been walking or cycling home.

The fury of the storm had passed so quickly and now to our amazement, sunshine sparkled on mounds of frosting everywhere, especially in the car park. I was relieved to see that my car was undamaged. I shepherded my family into it and took off for our home three miles away. We travelled past scenes of devastation from the cyclone's damage. Trees were uprooted and on their sides, roofing iron was missing from many roofs or hanging askew. Driving home to Irymple was a slalom course dodging the debris that had been dumped on the road.

Seeing all this, I felt mounting concern about our home. As I rounded the corner into our short street, I thankfully saw my husband's silhouette leading his cow back from where it had been blown into an irrigation channel.

Fortunately, our house was undamaged, but the shed which had occupied 64 squares, was a shambles. 75% of its roof had been lifted off in one piece by some unseen force and carried 40 feet away, where it destroyed four rows of our neighbour's grapevines.

My husband noted our dumbstruck faces and as he carried our youngest indoors, said to us with a grin "God and I started on the tennis court today."