Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, April 9, 2003


IN CASE OF FIRE, PLEASE TAKE PHOTOS


IN MAJOR disasters - generally floods or bushfires - the devastated victims often wish they had been able to save items of sentimental value, such as photographs, rather than merely expensive ones. After the Canberra bushfires, for example, home owners were to be seen on TV picking through the charred ruins of their homes in the forlorn hope of finding a surviving memento or two. Almost all of them said they were looking for photographs. Although I can understand why people might attach importance to their family snaps, especially of the kids, saving photographs would be the last thing on my mind. No photo of me was ever worth saving, or worth taking in the first place. Burn, baby, burn. Yet the matter intrigued me and I did a quick survey of my journalist colleagues, asking them what two items they would save first from their burning houses? Of the 29 responses, 21 said they would get their photographs, assuming that other family members had already managed to flee to safety. The fear of losing photographs seems so ingrained in us that it seems to be a good argument for either spending $300 on a small fireproof safe or buying a digital camera, scanning the images onto a computer and emailing them to cyberspace where they could not possibly burn. Eight of the responses said they would save their dogs, and another seven said they would fetch personal documents such as passports. I would not bother with either. The rest of the responses contained random, one-off items that were of importance only to the person concerned _ a guitar, a painting, family ornaments, cigarette lighter, stuffed toy and a bedspread. One woman said she would rush back into a burning building to save a special evening gown that she had worn only once. ``They don't make gowns with that many sequins on them any more,'' she noted. Another female said she would save her boyfriend, which was just pathetic.
A male, who made no mention of trying to save any photos, said he would save his camera in order to take photos of the disaster as it happened. I put his response into the same ingratiating category as the young journo who said he would save a notepad in order to write a story about the event. Suck, suck. A mate of mine lost his house in the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires _ not in the Adelaide Hills but the one that razed the Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne. He never mentioned to me anything about saving photographs but his modest bunagalow was replaced by a luxurious, three-level pole house, and he had enough money left over to open a restaurant on the side. He had benefitted from disaster relief, charity handouts, free shopping vouchers, a collection taken up for him at work and an insurance payout bonanza that even extended to replacing his rusty old golf clubs with a new set of expensive Calloways. That is what I would save first - the house insurance policy.