Welcome to Litsy!

As the Ash Wednesday bushfires raged around her in a small Victorian town in February 1983, a young mother stood between her two young daughters and the massive fireball heading straight for them... Ann tells her dramatic story with candour and disarming humour beginning with her working-class childhood growing up in a village in Lancashire, England. Her fateful decision to marry the young Australian from Melbourne took her to the other side of the world for the adventure of a life time. Twelve years later, her peaceful family life was shattered. This story takes us far beyond the drama of Ash Wednesday. Her reflections and insights are profoundly illuminating and inspirational. This is a story about living and loving, about hope and determination, about facing your worst demons and staring them down. The bushfires that ripped through Victoria and South Australia on Ash Wednesday in 1983 killed 75 people. It was a deadly reminder to the tens of thousands who had moved out of the cities about how dangerous living in the bush could be.