There had been no electricity for a few hours. No TV, no radio, no warning. By the time Marcus had grabbed his wallet and beloved cat, the wall of fire was just two streets away and thick smoke had turned day to night. Leaving his house in McDowell Street, Yarloop, and driving down Railway Parade past the historic workshops, the roar of fire and raining embers made it clear that little would survive.
Racing down Railway Parade, Marcus saw a woman standing, bewildered, in her front yard holding a garden hose but without water. He stopped and cried out, “What are you doing?”
Dazed and confused the woman said, “I don’t know what to do!?”
“Get in your car now and GO!” Marcus shouted, as the bushland behind her house erupted into flame. Startled into reality, the woman jumped into her car and followed Marcus down the winding back roads through to the Forrest Highway and on to the Australind evacuation centre.
Like Lot’s wife, Marcus stopped briefly to look back at Yarloop when he was just outside of town, and witnessed the firestorm in full fury as wooden heritage houses burst into flame and gas bottles exploded. After 11 years living in this sleepy hollow he knew it was over.
Having moved to WA from Melbourne in 1984, Marcus Lindsay spent several years living in Perth, bar tending at the Red Lion Hotel, cheffing in a few Mount Lawley eateries and working for Homeswest as a painter. However, his desire to live in the southwest came true in 2004 when he was able to buy a dilapidated worker’s cottage in Yarloop.
“I had to borrow $100,000 to make it liveable, but my handyman skills made this possible and for the first time in my life I wasn’t renting,” Marcus said.
Being ‘The only gay in the village’ was never a problem for him, though he admits he led a fairly private life. “I kept to myself but the townsfolk were friendly if ever I needed anything.”
In 2014 Marcus was successful in prosecuting an Anglican priest in Melbourne for sexual abuse as a child. The following year he gave evidence at the Royal Commission.
“Living in the peace of Yarloop helped me focus on my past and pursue these issues through the courts. When I flew to Melbourne to appear before the Royal Commission, locals in Yarloop pitched in to get me a suit, tie and spending money for the three days over east,” he said.
Living a solitary life in the country, Marcus struggled with post traumatic stress disorder and related alcoholism, exacerbated in 2006 when three local thugs invaded his house and bashed him with a lump of wood, breaking his jaw. They are in jail now.
“It’s sad to say goodbye to Yarloop but I can close that chapter of my life now. My insurance will allow me to build a new home in Busselton and start again. I have survived worse than this and I won’t let it get me down,” he said.
Brian Greig, image: the remains of Marcus’s house, insert: Marcus in his house in happier times before the fire.
This story appeared in the January edition of OUTinPerth magazine, you can read the whole publication online here.
