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Ansett Outlook, Vol. 20, No. 1 – Darwin Special ’75
(As recalled, Fifty Year’s on – Christmas Eve, 2024) At some point in almost everyone’s life, there will come a moment when you are faced with a situation that may be terrifying, tragic, impossible to comprehend, life threatening, or simply very unfair. My wife and I and our six week’s […]
Cyclone Tracy, 24 December 1974 Julie Brimson It was sometime in early June 1974 when I found out I was pregnant with our second child, with a due date of 29 January 1975. Given that our first baby, a daughter, was born in Adelaide, we were so pleased that this […]
Our Cyclone Tracy Memories (The Night from Hell) Michelle Walker Roberts (aged 21), Deb Walker Hendry (aged 14), and Jannine Walker Hardy (aged 12) It was Christmas Eve 1974, and Michelle’s 21st birthday was pending on Christmas Day (luckily, we had the party the weekend before). Our interstate relatives staying […]
Cyclone Tracy – Darwin, 24th & 25th December 1974 In 2014, on the 40th anniversary of Cyclone Tracy, I retyped our memories and added to them. Cyclone Tracy Meteorological Bureau Vital Statistics: Size: Gales extended to about 40 km from the centre. Diameter of the eye: about 12 km at […]
Cyclone Tracy Hi, my name was Gjoka Nicovic then, now Nicaj. I was 8 years old and remember most of it like it was yesterday. We lived on McMillans Road in Millner back then. Now I live in Sydney, having been flown out a couple of days after Tracy. It […]
I’m like most survivors; Tracy doesn’t go away. In the unforgiving grip of Cyclone Tracy on Christmas morning in 1974, our Nightcliff unit transformed into a battleground. Huddled in the bathroom, knowing this wasn’t going away, we endured harrowing noises, with walls seemingly pulsating in and out, inflicting pain on […]
I spent two years at Larrakeyah Barracks, arriving about a month after Cyclone Tracy with thousands of other troops. After many others left, I was asked if I would stay on with 711 Supply Company. The barracks had sustained a lot of damage—I remember them being open to the weather, […]
December 24, 1974. Living in Jingili near Rapid Creek. I was on maternity leave from the Attorney-General’s Department, approximately eight and a half months pregnant with my first child. Around 11:30 am, I attended a Christmas party at the Civic Centre. Before leaving home, I filled the bath, secured any […]
My wife Rosemarie and I lived in Darwin at the time of Cyclone Tracy. We arrived in early August 1974 from England with the object of earning money to fund future travels. We were newly married and as I had previously lived in Darwin I had contacts at the hospital […]
We all looked into our mirrors as we left Tracy behind we’d done nothing to upset her but she had not been very kind trashed Darwin in her anger dashed children’s Christmas joys scattered homes and houses all the wrapping and the toys Dawn on The Stuart Highway the year […]
TRACY…. DARWIN…. CHRISTMAS….’74 It started with a warning As one the week before A cyclone was arriving And trouble was in store We filled the bath with water Took pictures off the wall Put blankets in the bathroom But Selma did not call The wind was just a whisper […]
I think that I was one of four men who went through Cyclone Tracey twice! ————- On Christmas Eve 1974 I was working in Pilot Briefing at Darwin Airport. I was one of three recently qualified Air Traffic Controllers had been transferred from Adelaide to Darwin in July 1974, and […]
In 1974, I was the District Officer for the Commonwealth Department of the Northern Territory (formerly the Department of the Interior) in Katherine. I recall after the Christmas Day church service in the Anglican Church in Katherine, I was with Andy McNeill the local police officer. We were eating prawns […]
From my diary – Also online at http://www.pikle.co.uk/journal/1974/Dec1974.html 24-30 December, Darwin CYCLONE TRACY And suddenly it is Christmas Eve. Work [at the power station] isn’t really work (yesterday it was quite interesting – we had to take the complete two ton end of the cylinder off – I was a […]
Bath filled with water; windows taped. Ironically all the new sliding windows would be smashed to smithereens and only the kitchen louvres would survive Tracy. My mother Flo wisely put some children’s clothing in a suitcase. Swinging power lines gave way to the din of roofing hitting the bitumen in […]
Christmas in Darwin was always something quite different from that experienced anywhere down south. There really was no ‘silly season’ as such, probably because the ‘silly season’ lasts twelve months up there. Before the introduction of Remote Locality Leave Travel, it was normal for personnel on a two-year posting to […]
In approximately October 1972 my family (Dad, Mum and 4 kids aged 2, 4, 6 + 8) moved from Victor Harbour South Australia to Darwin, as my Father’s employer, Mr Ian Cocks had tasked him to build a Darwin branch of the Adelaide based concrete production business known as “Direct […]
The below files are copies of pages from the now no longer published Electronics Australia Magazine. The article outlines the role Myself and my wife along with the many Australian Amateur radio operators played in the immediate post cyclone communications out of Darwin. We moved from Darwin to Northern NSW […]
My husband Lou and I had only arrived in Darwin 6 months before Cyclone Tracy with our three little sons, Justin, four years old, and twins Shannon and Paul, three years old. We had settled happily in our Thornton Crescent, Moil home, a very sturdy home built by Watkins Builders […]
This is not my story but that written by late wife, Mary Fox, shortly after Cyclone Tracy. It is the personal account of our experience during and immediately after CT. Mary passed away on 30 May 2022. Robert Fox An Account of Cyclone Tracy by Mary Fox, January 1975. […]
At the time of Cyclone Tracy I was living as a young Army wife in Larrakeyah Barracks where my husband was posted. I was in the early months of my first pregnancy and working as a Community Nurse based at the Parap Centre. At the time of Tracy I was […]
I flew, with our four children, to Darwin on 2 November 1974, my birthday, with a couple of suitcases, just clothes, bedding and a few bits and pieces. The rest of our belongings were very few and arranged to be delivered in about 2 months. John had secured a home […]
By Christmas 2024, it will be the 50th Anniversary of Cyclone Tracy, the fiercest and most destructive cyclone that destroyed Darwin. Here is our story of escape and survival of Cyclone Tracy. At the time, my wife Penelope and I were staying with my wife’s parents, Colin and Clara Royes, […]
Each year during “Cyclone Season” (November to February) every week or two we would listen to the “Woomp Woomp Woomp Cyclone Alert ! Cyclone Alert !” on radio and television until most people including Velia (my wife) and I just became very complacent. In fact 3 weeks before Tracy I […]
The War Cry – Salvation Army – Saturday, December 17, 1994 – Cyclone Tracy 20th Anniversary Special
The Weekend Australian 1994 – 20th Anniversary Cyclone Tracy special Part 2
The Advertiser – Weekend Magazine – Life After Tracy to Hell and Back – 10 December 1994
The Australian Magazine 16-17 December 1989 – After Tracy Darwin, 15 Years On
The Christmas Santa Never Came (Santa never came, instead Tracey came) Christmas eve 1974 had more than the usual anticipation. Cyclone warnings had beenblaring on the hour all day. We could almost say it off by heart, but did not really thinkall the precautions would be necessary. After all we […]
According to folklore, there’s two eras in this town: Before Tracy and After. A simplistic assessment—just ask the Larrakia People—but it’s still an accepted ‘fact’. Merry Christmas, 1974. Take that up your clacker, Darwin. Plenty has been said about that mean little system—that bitch Tracy who almost wiped this northern capital off the map.