ASHTON, my hero

Alison Jones, 24, Kilcoy, Qld

As the machines hummed,

I glanced at the clock.

Not long left, I thought.

I’d just turned 18, and was on the night shift at a cotton processing factory.

With only a few hours to go, I asked one of the new guys to clean the machine I was on with a high pressure air hose. When he finished, I went over to check.

But peering through the bars of the machine, I saw that it was still covered in