Dr Phillip Law died yesterday, at the age of 97, in Melbourne. I had known him since 1999, when I first started working on the arrangement and description of his records at his home in Canterbury. I should write more about this, but right now I’d just like to remember him.

When he moved from Canterbury to Balwyn Manor, we kept in touch, and a few times we went out together for morning tea – we both absolutely loved the passionfruit kisses (sponge, real cream and passionfruit icing) at the cafe close by.

I went to visit him regarding further work on his papers in March 2008 and took Iris, my then 11 month old daughter. She was in to everything of course, knocking over wine bottles and curious about it all. I thought that perhaps Dr Law, not having had children of his own, might find her annoying. But he didn’t. He thought she was wonderful and loved her curiousity. He held her for this photograph, and said it had been the first time he’d held a baby in a very long time, and I know it gave us all pleasure. If she grows up to be half as curious as Phillip Law, she’ll be lucky, like him.

Vale Phillip Law.

Media

• Antarctic pioneer dies, ABC News website (Melbourne), 1 March 2010.
• Australian Antarctic pioneer dies at 97, Australian Antarctic Division website, 1 March 2010.
• ‘Mr Antarctica’ Phillip Law dies in Melbourne aged 97, Courier Mail (Brisbane), 1 March 2010.
• Antarctic pioneer Dr Phillip Law dies, aged 97, in Melbourne, Herald-Sun (Melbourne), 1 March 2010.
• Mr Antarctica, former Geelong teacher Phillip Law, dies at 97, Geelong Advertiser, 1 March 2010.
• Phil Law ‘Mr Antarctica’ dies, The Mercury (Hobart), 1 March 2010.
• Mr Antarctica dies in Melbourne, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 March 2010.
• Dr Phillip Law 1912-1910, (Audio interview with Tom Maggs, AAD) ABC News website (Canberra), 2 March 2010.
• Pioneer who opened up Antarctica dies at 97, The Age, 2 March 2010.
• Antarctic pioneer dies at 97, The Canberra Times, 2 March 2010.
• Australian Antarctic explorer Phillip Law dies, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 2 March 2010.
• Geelong’s Antarctic explorer Law dies at 97, Geelong Advertiser, 2 March 2010.
• Pioneer who opened up Antarctica dies at 97, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 March 2010.
• Vale Dr Phillip Law (1913-2010), Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery website, 3 March 2010.
• Phillip Law was the ice master, The Warrnambool Standard, 3 March 2010.
• Scientist planted strategic flags on Antarctica: Phillip Law, 1912 – 2010, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 March 2010.
• Phillip Law, Telegraph (London), 5 March 2010.
• Phillip Law: Antarctic Explorer, The Times, 9 March 2010.
• The Daily Goodbye (obituaries), The Washington Post, 9 March 2010.
• Great explorer left footprint in Antarctica: Dr Phillip Law, Antarctic Explorer/Educationalist, The Age, 12 March 2010.
• Phillip Law (obituaries), The Scotsman (Edinburgh), 12 March 2010.
• Australian Explorer Established Three Antarctic Stations: Phillip Law 1912-2010, The Wall Street Journal, 13 March 2010.

I remember now the thrill I felt on seeing place names on the green road signs familiar to me from the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books on a conference trip to Gaborone, Botswana in 2005 – tantalising confirmations of the reality of being in a different place.

Before we reached St Andrews last Saturday the green road signs started including the distance to Kinglake and I felt sad.

The market was enjoyable, higgledy-piggledy amongst the forest in the town. It has a hippy feel. There are handmade soaps, the ubiquitous South American knitted items, true handmade knits and children’s clothing, African baskets, pony rides for purchase and gas bottles, recycled into mesmerising marimba-like instruments. I bought a McCalls Afghan book for a dollar and a prim little century-old tome, Homely Words for Mother, along with some very nice tasting French-style candied nuts and chai from the Chai Tent.

We were done by ten, so extended our morning by driving from St Andrews to Yarra Glen via Kinglake.

The road is extremely windy and narrow. The signs advise large vehicles not to enter. Not long after leaving St Andrews signs of the bushfires became evident, and very soon, signs of the inferno. We stopped talking in the car. I don’t know how the people who live in this area cope with driving this desolate road on a daily basis. As far as the eye can see – and that was a long way because the way was clear – miles upon miles of matchsticks. I’ve seen burnt trees before, and they have burnt brown leaves. These trees had no leaves. All that remain are charred trunks, hence the incredible clarity of the view and the grimness.

People are still living in caravans and tents. People are out rebuilding fences and lives. They are also remembering lost loved ones, harrowing mementoes strapped to trees. I wept.

Reflecting on this, I phoned my father. He told me that the death toll from Victoria’s bushfires, still burning, had risen from 93 confirmed dead at 5.45am this morning, when I turned on the radio at breakfast, to 108, and is expected to rise.

We spent Saturday indoors, of course (apart from an insane outing by my mother and I in her new air conditioned car to buy craft and food supplies). I looked out the window mid afternoon and felt drawn outside. It wasn’t that the sky looked menacing or spoke of the horror that was going on elsewhere. I couldn’t even smell the smoke from the fires, as we could in January 2006.

The sky looked flat and dead. Everything looked dead.

I took a handful of photos that capture nothing of what it was like at that time, which turned out to be precisely when the temperature peaked at 46.4 degrees celcius (around 115 on the old scale), the highest ever recorded here in Melbourne.

The dead grass crunched underfoot. No metaphors other than the obvious can describe the wind. It was straight from hell. It was as if it were lying in wait for me, swirling around my bare legs, piercing blazing needle sharp fingers into my flesh. The camera felt like it was melting in my hands and I went straight back inside.

I couldn’t stop listening to the ABC radio emergency broadcast. There were fires around Bendigo, and between Camperdown and Pomborneit, where I have family. At one point the town of Cowwarr, where my parents lived for 15 years was threatened too. They are all okay.

But Marysville. A whole town. Gone. Many’s the time we’ve spent lovely long weekends there, part of our honeymoon there, even a week of peace working on my book back in 2004. We stayed at a family friend’s house just outside the town. Like almost every other dwelling in Marysville it has gone, including the houses of all the neighbours. Those friend’s son’s house and business in nearby Narbethong has gone too. They are all okay – but people died in Marysville. It is all gone. A whole town. The 100 year old houses and trees and the new.

If only the sky would darken and rain would fall. I don’t want to see the sun today.