Carol Rudolph is sifting and sorting, looking for important family papers and her own precious diaries. But it is no good. They’ve gone. Lost in the fire.

“It is really hard,” she writes in a letter thanking the Freemasons Charity for  a speedy supply of food vouchers, when the family of six suddenly lost their personal belongings – clothes, everything – in a recent house blaze. They count themselves “so lucky with the wonderful people” who have come to their rescue, and helped clean up the charred shell. Shocked and homeless, they moved in with Carol’s  parents, then “a really nice family” offered the use of their guest house until February. A donated, second-hand kitchen will go into the rebuilt home, and generous help is forthcoming in other ways including furniture restoration – by a Masonic brother who is a master in this particular craft.

For now, “what we want most is to go home and we can’t,” sighs Carol. “The house is a mess, but we are blessed to still have floorboards and plumbing.”  Some roof trusses will have to come out. The once-handsome house is on a lifestyle block at Auckland’s Albany – “our chickens and sheep are still grazing there, waiting for us.”

She had just got home after taking the four children aged 8 to 17 to school. Husband Tim (46), a builder, was at work. Carol opened the kitchen door and realized the faint haze within was smoke. The atmosphere flashed into flame. An electrical fault is blamed. The fire brigade was there in minutes, but the damage is reckoned at about $100,000. There is a $500,000 mortgage and no insurance, its maintenance being a casualty of hard times earlier this year.

‘We appreciate all the kindness and support so much,” writes Carol. “Our kids now know Christmas may be lost for us this year… We have a long road ahead of us.”