By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
PRECEDE: To celebrate Neighbour Day, the Gazette asked readers to tell their stories about living next door to good people. Here are some of the stories we found over the back fence.
Steve and Marlene Collett call their long-term neighbour, ‘Lucky Phil’ because if he hadn’t been rostered on for the afternoon shift, Steve and Marlene’s home would have gone up in flames.
Phil came to the rescue nine years ago when their son Brad saw flames flickering out of the exhaust fan.
“Brad was also on afternoon shift, he heard a noise and turned around to see flames coming out.”
“He didn’t know what to do, so thought I’ll just run over and get Phil, if he wasn’t on afternoon shift, we wouldn’t have a house,” Marlene said.
Lucky Phil knew what he was doing, having worked for the SES and turned off the gas straight away.
“He came through the back door with a hose, while Phil’s wife Wendy rang the fire brigade.”
“They called me at work and said don’t panic,” Marlene said.
Thanks to Phil’s quick thinking and courageous efforts, the family of six could continue living in their home while it was repaired.
“Phil’s always good in a crisis, they’ve been great neighbours, whenever anything needs to get done, we call on each other and the kids have grown up together,” Marlene said.
The Collett family had to replace most of the kitchen, a new sink, oven and stove top, with soot all through the house, the home was re-painted and slate re-sealed.
“We had a big insurance bill,” Marlene said.
Steve and Marlene were the first residents in the court and Phil and Wendy moved in second.
“I was so happy to see them move in 22 years ago, we haven’t had to rescue Phil just yet, hopefully we never do, but we owe him our house,” Marlene said.
