We’d just moved to a small town and didn’t know a soul. Then we all got sick at the same time. That food saved us

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t was 1996 when my husband was transferred to the small rural town of Healesville for work. In inner-city Melbourne, where we’d been living, we had a support network of neighbours, friends and family. In Healesville we didn’t know a soul. It was just me and my husband, our two little kids and two dogs.

We hadn’t been there long when we all came down with the flu. It wasn’t a cold, it was the flu – complete with aching, fevers and hallucinating. It was terrible.