A Newport man who lost his wife to cancer before a fire destroyed his home in March says he will build a new family home for their three children.
Stuart Pike and his children – Arleigh, 13, Sabrina, 8 and Kiowa, 10 – lost their wife and mother Debra to cancer eight months before their Graham Street home was destroyed by fire in March.
Mr Pike said that Westpac bank had been helpful in “very, very difficult” circumstances.
He said accommodation for the family had been made available until a new house could be built on the site of the house they bought 12 years
before.
Mr Pike, an army officer, said that on the morning of the fire he thought he was having a bad dream.
“It wasn’t obvious what was going on because it was two in the morning, but then there were little flashes of, ‘This is real, OK kids – out, out, out’,” he said.
“Then I remembered the car and thought, ‘Oh, the LPG gas tank’.”
Thinking of the two families on either side and fearing an explosion, he said he pushed the Holden Kingswood as far away as possible to save the neighbouring houses.
A Boxing Kangaroo flag flies above the ruins of their old house as a symbol of “down but not out”.
Mr Pike said his infantry training had instilled in him a mindset of: “Keep going, no matter how hard it gets.”
Newport Baptist Church, the children’s schools and members of the local community rallied around the Pike family in the aftermath of the fire, raising more than $20,000 and donating necessities.
Mr Pike said he wanted to thank publicly all those who had supported them.
“It’s just really a huge thanks to the local community, particularly the Newport Baptist Church, the support from both of the children’s schools – Bayside Secondary College and Newport Lakes Primary School – they’ve bent over backwards to help the children out,” he said.
“Some of the neighbours’ children go to Sacred Heart Primary School and the school surprised us with a cheque that the schoolchildren had raised themselves.”
“But I really wanted to say thank you to the bank because it could have gone either way … having the stability of being here for at least 12 months has provided an element of stability that, particularly with the young children, is absolutely crucial.”
