By Michael Doran
One of the first visible signs of bushfire recovery is often a green shoot on a burnt trunk or new fronds on a tree fern. Around Chum Creek one of the first signs that things were on the way back came with the appearance of Russell Clements’ cream 1953 FX Holden, affectionately known to locals as the GAP Mobile.
Sighted regularly around Healesville and throughout the Yarra Valley, the original GAP Mobile was destroyed on Black Saturday, along with two other FX Holden Utes, when fire ravaged the family’s Chum Creek property.
“The car had been in my family for a long time,” he said. “I brought it from my brother in 1956 and Faye and I courted in it before we got married.”
“With the number plate being GAP 692 it was the GAP Mobile around town when I drove it to Healesville High, where I was a teacher for 31 years. It was so well known and meant so much to us that I knew we had to rebuild another one to replace it.”
Russell says that ten years on things are often referred to as being either “before the fires or after the fires. It seems like it was a long time time ago and then it doesn’t.
“We were lucky because we didn’t lose anything that was critical to our existence, just a shed, a few cars and a lot of trees. All around us were people who had lost everything.
“The house next door was gone and lots of others around us were lost. After the fires we did a lot of tidying up and just wanted to get everything looking the way they used to as quick as we could.
“Apart from registering we were okay, we stayed away from town for a fortnight or so. I slept out on the verandah for days because I was wanted to be there in case the fires took off again.”
Faye says, “We were totally in our own little bubble. We had a young family here and we were not going to leave the house and didn’t know a lot about what was happening out there.”
Russell said he is a bit puzzled there is a radio aerial on the new version. “The original car had a radio but this car doesn’t. For some reason I put an aerial on it anyway, it was just something I had to do.”
In February 2009 Russell told The Mail that the community would see the GAP Mobile again and despite all of the issues he and Faye have had to deal with since then he has made good on that promise, a great piece of re-generation on his part.
