The Year of the Fire

June 26, 2023

The Year of the Fire

by Kerry Maguire

This is a true story of the Scott family who lived in Queenstown, Tasmania and the North Mount Lyell mine fire of 1912. All the tunnels in the mine were lined with King Billy pine, which has an incredibly high oil content. The fire took hold and it was an inferno; 42 men died. Another, Albert Gadd, died later from carbon monoxide poisoning after he went back in to help with the rescue efforts.

I got the story from letters stored in the local museum. Lennon was a former solider who was given a full military funeral. Louisa just couldn’t accept that her husband was dead. She kept visiting the mine for months after the fire complaining about the bastards who worked him to death.

Uncategorized

Kerry Maguire, song, Tas, Tasmania

Posted by:

melbournetunecollection

About Melbourne Tune collection

Melbourne Tune Collection records and publishes original folk tunes and songs from around Australia.

I started this project after realising that I barely knew any Australian folk tunes, even though I’ve been playing the fiddle for almost two decades. It wasn’t that Australians weren’t writing tunes, it’s just that there was limited publishing opportunities for them.

I thought maybe if I collect these tunes and put them together, they would have a better chance of getting played. So in early 2019 I set off with my camera and recorder, first around Melbourne, then across Australia.

This site is the result of these travels. Its purpose is to make Australian folk music as accessible as possible and promote the incredible music that’s being written today. I genuinely believe that there’s something special happening in the Melbourne and Australian folk music scenes right now.

I hope you enjoy playing through these tunes as much as I have!

Katherine Oleinikov