Glen Duff didn't want to go down in history as the person who couldn't save the childhood home of Slim Dusty from a bushfire.

Bushfires, which have cut a swathe of destruction across NSW, have left houses razed, fences destroyed, and pastures charred and blackened.



The commmuty around Nulla Nulla rallied to save the childhood home and farm of music legend Slim Dusty from a bushfire. ( ABC TV )

One such fire has been burning for weeks at Nulla Nulla, on the New South Wales mid north coast, where legendary singer/songwriter Slim Dusty grew up in a two-bedroom timber cottage with a tin roof.

"A westerly wind had picked up pretty well. It blew the fire toward the old Slim house," said Mr Duff who manages the house and farm bought back by the Kirkpatrick family several years ago.

The home on Nulla Nulla Creek Road was built by Slim's father in 1915–16 and the paddocks that surround the home maintained a dairy herd.

Slim Dusty died in 2003 at the age of 76 after a protracted battle with cancer.

Glen Duff was instrumental in saving Slim Dusty's boyhood home while also running his own cattle property 30 kilometres away. ( Supplied; Makayla Duff )

Paying homage

Many Australian country music fans make the pilgrimage to the cottage to honour the man who many regard as being able to encapsulate the Australian bush in song.



It is that reverence that many hold for the now vacant residence that was very much at the forefront of Mr Duff's mind when he travelled from his farm 30 kilometres away to check on the property.



"Myself and my family take it as a huge responsibility," Mr Duff said.

"It wouldn't be a very good outcome if something happened to the old place.



"A lot of people come to visit the old homestead."

Smoke and flying embers threatened the two-bedroom cottage where singing legend Slim Dusty grew up. ( Supplied: Glen Duff )

Firefighters arrive in time



It was only four weeks before this that Mr Duff was battling a fire on his own property 'Riverview' where he runs cattle.

When he arrived at the farm, on which Slim's wife Joy McKean and children David Kirkpatrick and Anne Kirkpatrick have cattle, he was not too concerned despite embers showering the surrounding paddock.



"I was there at first by myself," he said.

"I was doing a bit of a hot shoe shuffle around the paddock trying to stomp on them or put them out with a hose."

He soon realised it was "getting beyond me" so he took off to another property also owned by the Kirkpatrick family to seek help.



Just as he was about to telephone for help, two fire trucks came into sight.



"I turned the tractor around and flew up along the road following them. They soon noticed the embers around the old house. Once they got there it was pretty much pressure off," he said.



A special place

With the roads around the property still difficult to travel because of burning logs and fallen trees, the Kirkpatrick family has been unable to visit to survey the damage.



But they have sung the praises of "the fantastic efforts" of Mr Duff, other neighbours, and the people from the Rural Fire Service and National Parks Service who assisted in saving the home.



David Kirkpatrick has recently retired as a doctor on the central coast, while also still playing in a band, whereas his sister Anne carved out her own music career.



The possibility that fire could have destroyed his father's childhood home, Mr Kirkpatrick noted is an example of what is happening because of the bushfires.



"It came very close to our own heart. It is very special to us. Slim and Joy were able to buy back the original farm," he said.



"Its been pretty special for Joy, Anne and myself to have that.



"It's obviously a special place for us and fans. It's a special place for historians of the valley.



"It would have been a great loss to us personally. It would have been a great loss to country music history."

Slim Dusty's childhood home at Nulla Nulla Creek. ( Supplied: The Slim Dusty Centre )

Flood song written in the house



Observing there were "no worldly possessions in the house", which could have gone up, he sympathised with those whose lives had been devastated by the infernos that have engulfed a large part of the state.



"It saddens us that so many people around Australia have suffered such dreadful losses," Mr Kirkpatrick said.



It was in 1945 while still living there that Slim Dusty wrote When the Rain Tumbles Down in July inspired by the floods that hit the Macleay Valley.



It was events like this that Mr Kirkpatrick said his parents were able, through song, to tell how adversity would bring the country together.



"He liked to believe that was the Australian ethos. Although sometimes you wonder if that is still the case.



"Things like this happen and you see those fantastic qualities come out.



"They're the things that my parents tried to write about. They wanted to bring that out in song."



No songs about bushfires

While other natural disasters helped inspire the music skills of the husband and wife team, ironically in the massive Slim Dusty catalogue bushfires do not figure.



Mr Duff's mother had told him that bushfires were one thing that Slim never talked her about in terms of Nulla," Mr Duff said.



"She told me he talked about floods, he talked about work and all sorts of other things that happened there while growing up, but he never mentioned anything about fires in that region.

Slim Dusty property manager Glen Duff initially tried to stem the blaze spraying water from a tank on the tractor. ( Supplied: Glen Duff )

"Just shows that in his lifetime there were no major bushfires."

'We have to save it'



Probably one incident during the battle to save the cottage best sums up its significance.



As various people arrived to ensure that an important piece of Australian music history remained standing, Mr Duff recounted how a young RFS captain and his colleagues had travelled from Nambucca Heads.



"They have sent us to save Slim Dusty's house," the firefighter said.

"I replied, 'Well you are here'. We have to save it, we can't let anything happen to it," Mr Duff said.



The young firefighter replied.