“We were all young and free and innocent,” recalls Minoeska Teeuwen of the backpackers she met in the tiny farming town of Childers, Queensland, half a lifetime ago.
Most of them were teenagers or barely older, travelling outback Australia seeking adventure and experience. But then the Childers Palace backpackers hostel was set alight in the early hours of 23 June 2000.
The fire killed 15 people. For the survivors, it was a cataclysm that has defined each of their lives since.
“That innocence got brutally taken and could never be returned,” Teeuwen says. “Trauma does this to people. You see it in their eyes, you hear it in survivors’ voices when they finally let you in for a moment. But you will never grasp the depth of what has been taken from them.
“The spirit of the backpackers who lost their lives continues to roam with us.”
Those who died were mostly young travellers – from the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, Ireland, Japan, South Korea and Morocco. Nine women and six men aged between 18 and 48-years-old.
The fire had been set by an itinerant fruit picker, Robert Paul Long, then 37, who had been kicked out of the hostel. Almost a week later, Long was shot and arrested by police in dense bushland to the south. The following year he was convicted of two counts of murder.
Soon after the 20-year anniversary on Tuesday, Long will be eligible for parole.
As that anniversary approaches, the Guardian has spoken to several survivors.
Each tells a similar story about fleeing into the dark hallways of the crumbling hostel. A blind dash for safety through the suffocating smoke and cracking noises and panic. The recollections are all so vivid most prefer not to share them.
After the fire, it continues to shape their lives. For many of the 69 survivors, the next two decades have brought post-traumatic stress, guilt, anger. But the experience – and a determination to honour those who died – has also served as a source of purpose, inspiration and love.
Minoeska
“[There was a ] loud crashing and crackling noise was waking me up that night,” recalls Teeuwen, then a 24-year-old backpacker from the Netherlands.
“The only roommate I had jumped off the third level of the bunk bed, he opened the bedroom door and left. Instantly a suffocating thick tar-like wall of black smoke entered the already smoke-filled room. No more light, no more oxygen. From here on, all happened in the most heavy, suffocating darkness.
“Somehow I managed to grab my shirt and covered my nose and mouth. I was already experiencing the fading of my hearing and sense of being awake. But then a clear calm voice told me to go to the balcony. I followed this voice blindly. I walked into the corridor by feeling the opposite wall and was just hoping I could reach the corner to the small corridor leading to the balcony.”
In the scramble for the exit, Teeuwen says, she almost collapsed. Someone tripped over her. The jolt somehow helped her stand up and walk onto the balcony.
“Trembling towards the edge I looked back and there was an explosion. Nobody else came out after me.
“I have lived and will always live with a level of survivor’s guilt. Not just the wider question why did they all have to die, why did I make it out? My guilt also refers back to the person whom tripped over me. Why didn’t I grab that person and take them outside with me? Who was it? Are they the one whom died in front of my room’s doorway?
“Rationally I know it is not a guilt I should serve a lifetime for. The killer does.”
The Palace backpackers was a massive place; it had less of a party atmosphere than other hostels, as most of the guests were staying in Childers while fruit picking or working in the cane fields.
Teewuen had been staying at the opposite side of the hostel to James Whitehurst, a UK-national. Both volunteered to speak at a memorial service a few days later.
They later exchanged emails and eventually met up again at a reunion for survivors in London a year later. Eighteen years ago Teeuwen decided to move to London to “give [the relationship] a go and see what happens”. They have now been married for six years.
“I can without a doubt say my life would have been different if it hadn’t been for the fire,” Teeuwen says. “I would not have likely ended up living in England and therefore some of my most valuable friendships I have made would not have occurred. Some survivors from around the world are adopted family now.
“We attempt to live life to he fullest. We have chased adventure and challenged the norm. Is this our personalities? Or perhaps our response to needing to grab every second of life as if it is our last? We will never really know the answer to that.
“We have had a full life so far and we are immensely grateful we survived. But we will never forget those who lost their lives that night.
“We never lose sight of the fact we should always remember their names. Always take them along on our adventures, always carry them with us.”
Kate
The night of the fire, Kate Smith (nee Morris) remembers having farewell drinks for Sarah Williams, from Aberfan in Wales, who had planned to return to the UK the following day for her brother’s wedding. Williams was one of the 15 people who did not make it out.
Kate says her sister, Lauren, saved her life.
“I’m asthmatic so I collapsed on the floor,” Kate says. “While I was laying on the floor I was thinking ‘it’s OK, just go to sleep and everything will be OK’. In the back of my head I could hear my sister saying ‘Kate, wake up. Kate, wake up’ but all I wanted to do was go to sleep.
“It was completely dark but Lauren somehow found my arm. I woke up when she started pulling me into the hallway.
“She pulled me along the corridor. Lauren was feeling the wall with her hand as she was pulling me. We had to go down one corridor, turn left, then head along another to get to the back fire escape. The ground was hot as the fire was directly underneath us.
“The noises were something out of a horrific nightmare. Explosions, glass smashing, screaming … people screaming that were stuck, others running into us in the dark corridor.”
Kate and Lauren were 19 and 17 when they left Mandurah, Western Australia, “for an adventure” in the opposite corner of the country. They took a five-day bus ride to Queensland, where they travelled and worked until reaching Childers.
After the fire they continued travelling, including meeting up with survivors in the UK and Europe. Now they treasure being close to family.
“I’ve been happily married for 10 years and have two gorgeous girls,” Kate says. “My mum, brother and sister all live very close by. We are extremely close but we also understand how lucky we are to have each other.
“From that moment on, the rest of our lives have been significantly changed. We have both been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and for a few years could not lead our normal lives.
“The nightmares still occur to this day. We have both suffered flashbacks and anxiety in some situations. As I remember the night … my heart is beating faster, I feel nervous and distressed about remembering it all.
“The one positive I’ve taken out of it is to never take your life for granted as just like that it can be gone in a second. Tell the people you love them often, surround yourself with good people, and live the best life you can for our friends that never made it out.”
Brett
For some, the shadow of Long remained after his capture and conviction.
The itinerant fruit-picker had been kicked out of the Palace hostel when he set the fire. After almost a week on the run, he was shot and arrested by police in dense bushland to the south. Long’s confession – the words “I’m dying anyway. I started that fire” – was famously written by a police officer on a $10 banknote.
Brett Parker says he “finally broke down” about six months after the fire, while working on Lindeman Island in the Whitsundays.
“For a long time I had a fear of men with beards, [which] sounds crazy,” Parker says. “Trust was a big thing for me.”
The night of the fire, Parker, who was 22 at the time, went to bed about 11pm. He says he was in a deep sleep after a hard day working.
“There were two Japanese boys still fast asleep, so I punched them in the stomach to wake them,” he says. “I told them to grab my leg and crawl out, keep low. It was only a short passage.
“I was unaware at the time that I had lost contact with my roommates. I did not see them till we all gathered at the pub across the road, possibly 30 minutes later. They were black as, I remember apologising profusely for losing them. They had very little English but I will never forget the terror in their eyes.”
Parker says he did not think he would ever understand the full impact of the fire, or whether it had made him a more resilient person.
“Being a survivor definitely shaped my life,” he says. “I only surround myself with good people, I don’t give dickheads the light of day. For a long time I said ‘yes’ to just about everything knowing that you only get one chance at life.
“I have continued to travel and live in places all around the world and here in Australia, never really feeling settled until recent years. I’m lucky to have a great wife and a little girl who is almost two. They have helped me cope with reliving what happened.
“Family and friends known about this at the time but we have never really spoken about it at length mainly due to me not wanting to burden them with the horrors of what happened.”
Parker says Long is a “murderous bastard” and should not be released in the coming weeks, when the 20-year non-parole period of his life sentence expires. He and other survivors have called on the Queensland government to keep him in prison.
Jessica
“I very nearly died that night.”
Jessica Wiegand, then 19, had been at the Palace backpackers hostel only a few days. The only exit path she knew – towards the front entrance – was into the fire.
Battling through thick smoke, someone took her hand and told her a different way out. Twenty years later, she does not know who.
Wiegand, from the UK, says her perspective has been shaped by the generosity she experienced immediately after the fire. The people of Childers cooked meals and provided clothes for the backpackers. The avocado farm where she had been working gave two weeks’ wages.
“They took care of everything we needed,” she says. “I don’t know when or how the organising feats happened, but whatever we needed, it was there. And they were so amazing – they must have been in shock themselves but they really looked after us. We recently found out that they still refer to us as ‘the kids’. It’s made us laugh as most of us are in our 40s now.”
But Wiegand’s life since has also been moulded by the trauma of the fire; of escaping death, and knowing those who could not escape.
“I struggled, I can’t lie,” she says. “When everyone I met seemed so connected and open and warm, I was so locked in my head, on the outside looking in, for a long time. I was really disconnected. I think if someone had just been able to tell me ‘you’re traumatised, it’s OK, you’re normal, you’ll heal’, it would have made a big difference.
“Am I tougher? I don’t know. The fire was by far the most traumatic event I’ve ever experienced.
“I’m always acutely aware of how quickly life can end when you don’t expect it. I find it so strange how little we consider that. Every year is such a huge blessing. Every day, really.”
Wiegand says she has rarely spoken about the fire since the first few years and that many friends don’t yet know about it. But she says telling the story now – including for a new podcast about the fire – has been a powerful experience.
“It’s exactly half my life ago,” she says. “After this anniversary the amount of my life since the fire is longer than the amount of life before. It feels like the right time to tell the story, and let it go. It’s terrifying telling it, but people really connect with it.
“I guess I just know that shit is bound to happen in life. Stuff which is just hard, and draining, and desperate. And initially you wonder if you’ll ever get through, if this is the thing which breaks you.
“But while it might take a while, you do recover. And then you live a bit, and then something else happens, and then you recover, and then several things happen in a row, and then you recover. And that just seems to be life.
“I know that I don’t roll with it. It’s not like I just take things effortlessly in my stride. But I’m able to pick myself up and work out how to keep moving forward.
“I’m always acutely aware of how fragile this life is. It does make me notice the tiny, incredible things that perhaps I might not have otherwise.”
The victims of the Childers hostel blaze
Twins Stacey Louise and Kelly June Slarke, 22, Australia
Sarah Anne Williams, 23, England
Michael Ernest Lewis, 25, England
Clare Louise Webb, 24, England
Natalie Morris, 18, England
Gary John Sutton, 24, England
Melissa Jane Smith, 26, England
Adam John Rowland, 19, England
Joly Van Der Velden, 23, Holland
Sebastian Westerveld, 22, Holland
Julie O’Keefe, 24, Ireland
Atsuski Toyona, 31, Japan
Moulay Lahcen Lalaoui-Kamal, 48, Morocco
Hui-Kyong Lee, 23, South Korea
