It's tough down under
Sir: Ralph Berry (Letters, 14 February) must take a reality check (or a brain trans- plant).
Whilst I do understand that his 'harsh environment' is one in which tickets to the Shakespeare Memorial theatre have been sold out, some of us are not 'doing it quite so tough'. Of his half-a-dozen so-called comfortable and safe cities in Australia, two, Perth and Sydney, have, just in the past three months, suffered major bush fires (with people actually killed, Ralph). Victoria has also suffered many major bush fires and, as previous articles and corre- spondence have revealed, there have been far too many drownings through ignorance of our 'comfortable and safe' conditions. I live on the outskirts of metropolitan Ade- laide. The city suffered a significant earth- quake in 1954. It has also been a victim of major bush fires on a number of occasions, the most recent being the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires.
On that benign day, when the tempera- ture was 42C and the wind was at near gale force, one third of the houses in my street were destroyed or were badly damaged, and six people, including a close friend, were burnt to death within two kilometres of my house. Please do not presume to tell me, Ralph, how to recognise a harsh envi- ronment, and just pray to your God each night that the residents of Stratford-upon- Avon do not have to suffer the kinds of events about whose consequences you appear so sanguine.
Derrick Wisking
48 Yarrabee Road, Greenhill, South Australia
Previous page
