- Family lost everything in 2009 bushfire which destroyed their Australian farm
- Newcastle comedian took wife and baby daughter and moved back to Britain
By Spencer Bright
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Noble philosophy: Ross now lives for the moment
Were it not for an apparently trivial series of events, Ross Noble, his wife Fran and baby daughter Elfie would have perished in the bushfire that destroyed their Australian home.
It is four years since that traumatic day in February 2009 but this is the first time Noble, one of Britain’s most popular stand-up comedians, has felt able to talk about it at length.
It has changed his outlook on life, and resulted in the family uprooting from their 100-acre farm just outside Melbourne and settling back in Britain, where he was born.
‘Normally, at that time of year, I would have been touring Australia and we would most likely have been in the house together just before the tour started,’ he says.
‘For various reasons, I’d decided to do a European tour instead and was preparing with some warm-up gigs in Australia.
‘On the day of the fire, Fran was due to come to meet me after a gig so we could spend some time on our own while her parents looked after Elfie at our house.
‘The day before, she took our two dogs to stay with some friends. When she got back, it was so hot in the house that, instead of waiting for her parents to come to us, she decided to drive over to them, about 45 minutes away, and return later when it was cooler.
‘Once there, her mum said: “Why don’t you just stay here tonight? Ross is away, and the dogs aren’t in the house. I’ll cook the tea, the baby is asleep, and we can head back to the house with Elfie tomorrow.â€
‘She agreed to stay, but first she wanted to go home to pick up some things. However, when she turned into our road a fire truck ordered her to turn around. She drove back down the road as fast as she could, with flames chasing her.
‘If she’d got there ten minutes earlier she would have been in t he house when the flames came through. Or if she hadn’t decided to go to her parents, she would have still been in the house.’
As he says this, the sense of narrowly avoided loss is still palpable.
Noble, now 36, had converted his cellar into a vault housing a 2,500 DVD and vintage vinyl record collection, rare comedy memorabilia and collectable toys. He lost it all, as well as his beloved classic motorbikes.
All he had left was an overnight bag and a change of clothing for his tour.
After a few weeks sorting things out in Australia, and feeling the urge to cling together, Fran and Elfie accompanied him on his UK tour. Fran is Australian, but Ross comes from Northumberland. Â
‘We’d be in a different hotel every night, with a four-month-old baby and our three bags â€" which was all we possessed.
‘But at least we had somewhere. Some people had lost everything and were living in tents.
Ross leaves Oz: Ross Noble and his family left their 100-acre farm in Australia after it got destroyed in a bushfire and moved Britain
‘Me and Fran were messed up by it all. I talk in my sleep and sleep walk with my eyes wide open at the best of times. Fran was suffering from post-traumatic stress and having horrendous nightmares. Elfie was waking up â€" because that’s what babies do.
‘I had these nightmares where I’d wake up and think they were dead, and I’d have to check the bed and cot to make sure they weren’t. Then I’d be able to go back to sleep.
‘I had to do a gig in Glasgow and the thought of dragging them up there from London was just too much, so I went on my own. I woke up in Glasgow to find I had trashed the hotel room. I had obviously freaked out, gone round the place going mad looking for Fran and Elfie, and then gone back to sleep.
‘Doing the comedy shows helped, because a show is all about being in that moment. It stopped me dwelling on what had happened.’
They set about trying to r ebuild their lives, and six months later were sitting in an empty house outside Melbourne awaiting delivery of their new furniture.
‘It might seem like a weird thing to say, but we felt very lucky,’ says Noble. ‘Yes we lost our house, we lost our lifestyle, all our stuff, but none of us died or was burned.
‘Considering what happened to a lot of people, we got off lightly. We lost 15 friends and neighbours in our street that day.’
In the remote area where Noble lived â€" which he calls ‘Paradise on Earth’ â€" the locals were well-drilled in fire precautions.
‘There were a lot of people we knew who died who were as prepared as you could possibly be. But if a fire of that size comes through, you don’t stand a chance. There is nothing you can do to survive.’
When things settled, they considered moving north to Queensland, but when there was torrential flooding th ere, Fran said she wanted to move to the English countryside.
‘I loved the Australian bush but it’s a harsh place to live, especially with a young family [their second baby is due any moment]. When children are playing outside, you have constantly to be on the lookout for poisonous snakes and spiders. We wanted to live that life, but we didn’t want such risks.’
The loss of all his possessions made him more philosophical, too. ‘It’s not that you appreciate what you’ve got more, but you realise it could end in an instant. It makes you enjoy the moment a lot more. The main thing I learned when you lose everything is that you are the curator of a collection that no one cares about. You think it’s an important collection, but if you died it would end up in a charity shop.
Scream with laughter: Ross Noble as Stitches the clown in horror comedy with the same name
‘I’ve got very few things now, and everything I do own feels like there’s no history to it. I try to buy old things with some kind of story.
‘Just after the fire, I was left with just the one pair of sandals. The Red Cross set up a stall to help people out locally. Hundreds of new boots were donated, and someone had put their old fire-fighting boots amongst them.
‘They were knackered, but I thought “I’ll have them.†They had a big hole in them, but they’re probably my favourite shoes because they have a history.’
This eccentric side of Noble has been an integral part of his success as a comedian. He was no less eccentric as an 11-year-old child, riding the ten miles from Cramlington to his school in Newcastle on a unicycle and carrying his books in a pizza box.
‘I used to shave my head, leaving a long fringe which I dyed blond.
‘One of my sc hool reports â€" I wish I still had it â€" said: “His eccentric classroom behaviour will be a real handicap for him in the future.†Really?’ He laughs at the memory. Of course, it’s been the making of him and his fortune.
‘As soon as I said I want to be a comedian, my mum and dad said, “Well, that’s a natural progression.†Most parents would probably say, “Oh, he’s going to be destituteâ€, but they just went: “Brilliant!â€.
‘There are people who say “Oh, you need something to fall back onâ€. I just think that’s the very thing you don’t need, because you will fall back on it. I started stand-up when I was 15, then at 18 I moved to London. Cracking the London circuit was almost like starting again.’
But crack it he did, and by 1999 he was nominated for a Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival, he has now become a TV comedy fixture, and toured the UK every year â€" only taking a year o ff last year to settle into the family’s new home near Rochester, Kent.
He’s back in Australia for a tour in March, and at the same time the comedy horror movie he made last year, Stitches, is released on DVD in the UK. The film won the Best Death award at 2012’s Frightfest.  Â
His stage shows are famously unscripted. Surely it’s terrifying to stand on stage and not know exactly what you are going to say?
‘You know what is scary to me? Getting up in the morning and working in a factory. Or if someone said to me: “Oh, you are in charge of running a children’s home.†That would really terrify me.’
Ross Noble’s DVD Nonsensory Overload is out now. Stitches is out on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 4.
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