South Yorkshire Times February 18, 1967
Mexborough Doctor Busy in Tasmania
A description of Tasmania before the bushfires took their terrible toll has been received by the parents of a Mexborough man, in practice there as a doctor.
Dr John Ainley Bisby (28), the only son of Mr and Mrs Ainly Bisby, of 18 Hall Ave, Mexborough sent this account of the days before the bushfires developed.
“There are a lot of bushfires now are most days one can see smoke in the hills. Everything is as dry as tinder so it goes up at the first spark.
We are fire danger periods when we cannot light a fire outside without permission from the fire wardens.”
Large area
Dr Bisby, who lives in Campbeltown, about 80 miles north of Hobart, as a practice which covers hundred and 20 mi², extending 30 miles North, 40 miles East to the sea and 30 South.
He and his wife, Heather, flew to Tasmania in September.
Yes.experiments that temperatures are in the 90s and that on February 4 they had a thermometer out in the sun and it registered 136°.
Mr Missy Bisby and not heard from their sons is a big fire occurred, Mr Bisby said “We expect that you will have been too busy.”
Hunting
In his last letter, written on his 28th birthday, Dr Bisby tells of his hunting experiences after rabbits, hares and kangaroos.
“Kangaroo is very good,” he writes. “We have had it in spaghetti Bolognese instead of beef. It is rather like lamb.” The tale, he said, makes lovely soup.
A former pupil of Mexborough Grammar School, Dr Bisby later attended St Marys medical School, London University. His wife has just taken a part-time teaching post at a public school 40 miles away.