Ten Years Online

Today my website celebrates ten years online with a current gallery of 1753 patches from Australia and around the world. I?opened the website in 2006 as a way to share my collection with others that had an interest in fire patches. Over that time I have had 1022976 hits and visitors from?many different countries including United States, Germany, France, China, Russia and many more.

My first fire patch I received was a Blue Mountains fire patch around 30 years ago, and from there I expanded to collect many patches from Australian brigades to patches from around the world. Today my collection has around 2200 patches, that I am slowly adding to the website. I am a member of PICCA (Police Insignia Collectors Association of Australia) and have found it to be a great way to discover many new patches and meet a number of collectors, who I consider great friends.

In 2008 and 2010 I was diagnosed with cancer and was thankfully able to beat the disease after a number of operations, chemotherapy and radiation. During that time I received a lot of support from fellow collectors and found my hobby of collecting patches a very positive activity to devote my time to while I was ill.

I am a volunteer fire fighter in Hill End (Chifley) in the Central West of New South Wales, Australia and joined around 30 years ago. Living in a rural community and bush fire zone, I wanted to support my community by volunteering my time.

I look forward to adding more patches to the website and thank you for visiting.