Ash Road

© 1965

The Text Publishing Company

Melbourne, Vic

ISBN 978-1-922147-49-3

Set in the old growth forests of the Dandenong Ranges 60 odd kilometres southeast of Melbourne, this bushfire drama in which teenagers are heroes is a product of its time. Written by a man in his mid-forties who’d reached adulthood fighting in WWII, it’s just what an RSL doctor would have ordered for a nation marching to the beat of an Imperialist drum. There’s no militarism here but the powers-that-be would have been satisfied to know that the up and coming generation of cannon fodder was being initiated into the ‘boy faces death and becomes a man overnight’ mysteries.