by Bill Marsh
Well, that was one piece of coincidence.
Strangely enough, another happened about three years after that particular event. I’d left the small tourist operation by that stage and was working in the Adult Literacy Program in Broken Hill. Anyway, I got a call from a woman who said her granddaughter was staying with her and she was having a bit of trouble with her writing. So I got together with this girl, a nice kid she was, and as always with these cases I made the comment, ‘So, you’ve missed a little bit of school along the way, have you?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I was on a dialysis machine for a while when I was living out on a sheep station.’
Well, that girl turned out to be the exact same girl who was picked up when I was stuck in White Cliffs all those years ago. You wouldn’t read about it, would you?
MORE GREAT AUSTRALIAN FLYING DOCTOR STORIES
Acknowledgments
In memory of previous contributors and supporters: Gordon Beetham, Chris Cochrane, Joe Daley, John Dohle, Slim Dusty, Doc Gregory, Pro Hart, Bill Hay, Don Ketteringham, Mrs Luscombe, Pep Manthorpe, Clive McAdam, Neil McTaggart, Jack Pitman, Les Rourke, Mavis St Clair and John ‘Spanner’ Spencer.
Special thanks to: HG Nelson, Todd Abbott and the crew at Summer All Over 2006, Angie Nelson (Program Director, ABC Local Radio), Perth contacts Jan and Penny Ende, RFDS — Gerri Christie (Vic), Sally Orr (Brisbane), Monique Ryan (NSW), John Tobin (SA), Stephen Penberthy (Qld), Lisa Van Oyen (Kalgoorlie), Cheryl Russ (Derby), Clyde Thomson, Barbara Ellis, Robin Taylor and Becky Blair (Broken Hill), Luke Fitzgerald (ABC Rural Radio, Port Pirie), Brian Tonkin (Broken Hill City Library).
Thanks to: Kerrie Tuckwell and Bill Rawson (Media Monitors).
Dedication
For ‘the lady down the road’ — Lyn Shea — with many,
many thanks.
Contributors
More Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories is based on stories told to Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh by:
Rhonda Anstee
Laurel Anthony
Rod and Gail Baker
Bob Balmain
Peter Berry
Reverend John C Blair
Colin Bornholm
Etheen Burnett
Donna Cattanach
Jane Clemson
Ruth Cook
Graham Cowell
Dave Crommelin
Jack Cunningham
Heather Curtin
Phil and Sue Darby
Rick Davies
Bill Day
Jan and Penny Ende
Lionel Ferris
Norton Gill
Jack Goldsmith
Alex Hargans
Judy Heindorff
Hans Henschel
Bill Howlett
Micky Hunter
Wayne and Robina Jeffs
Ruth Ko
John Lynch
Lady Ena Macpherson
Susan Markwell
Rod McClure
Neil McDougall
Michael McInerney
David McInnes
Noel McIntyre
Anne McLennan
Norm Meehan
Laurie and Coral Nicholls
Barry O’Connor
Emily Pankhurst
Stephen Penberthy
Fred Peter
Peter Phillips
Jacqui Plowman
Graeme Purvis
Kitty Powell
Charlie Rayner
Sharon Reddicliffe
Cheryl Russ
Monique Ryan
Chris Smith
‘Myf’ Spencer-Smith
Graham Townsend
Kim Tyrie
Esther Veldstra
Dr Rob Visser
Nick Watling
Margaret Wheatley
Graham Winterflood
…plus many, many more.
Introduction
The early 1970s was a time of turmoil, not only for this country but also for many of us who lived here. The Vietnam War was coming to an end, the political climate was heading for a huge shift and a large section of my generation felt a sense of loss of ‘self’ and ‘self-identity’. Along with many others, I felt that Australia had little to offer so I decided to travel the world with my then girlfriend. We sought solace amid the tumult of India. We visited a war-torn Kashmir, climbed to the heights of Nepal. We lived on a Greek island. We worked through a freezing winter in London. We drove through Europe, crammed up, along with two Australian friends and all our gear in what must’ve been the smallest Fiat ever manufactured. We travelled in the bilge of a Portuguese immigrant ship down the coast of Africa. We lived and worked amid the Apartheid regime of South Africa and drove through troubled Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) to view the well patrolled Victoria Falls. In many ways those couple of years were my life’s education and I came to realise just how lucky we really are in this country and what huge potential we have.
I remember the day of our return: we were picked up from Fremantle docks by some people we’d never met before and, as the sun set on that warm night, we were welcomed into their house. Neighbours arrived from far and wide, the barbecue was lit, the outside beer fridge received a hammering and — for what seemed the first time in ages — I felt completely comfortable among people. What’s more, they understood my humour — those one-liners, those small turns of phrase that we Australians, and virtually only we, can fully understand. Then as we all stood around an old upright piano singing out of tune, it suddenly struck me that I was home, and just what a precious place this ‘home’ is. As I said in the Introduction to Great Australian Railway Stories:
…after returning from that two-year trip overseas, Shirley and I travelled on the Indian Pacific from Perth, across the Nullarbor Plain, where just outside the window lay so many of the answers to the questions I’d spent the previous couple of years wandering around the world trying to sort out.
Since then, I’ve tried to write and collect as many Australian stories and songs as I can in the hope of saving them before they disappear. Because these are ‘our’ stories; the ones that belong to all of us; the ones that ‘glue’ us together as a reminder of who we are; the ones that this nation was built on regardless of colour, race or creed. To that end they should be taught in our schools, sung about in songs, shown in our cinemas, performed on our stages. Yes, we must remain open and learn from others — and we have a lot to learn — but if we allow our stories, songs, films and plays to be overshadowed by those from different countries then we’ll be the lesser for it. We’ll lose that all important sense of ‘self’.
So, after many of life’s twists and turns, I began my series of ‘Great’ books, which includes my first collection of Great Flying Doctor Stories plus Great Australian Shearing Stories, Great Australian Droving Stories, Great Australian Railway Stories and now More Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories.
Before beginning each book I try and contact as many of my previous contributors and supporters as possible, just to see if they have a yarn to tell or perhaps they might know of someone who has. Sadly, many of those great, old and not so old characters have passed on. I have given those people a mention under ‘In memory of’.
Still and all, the support continued and More Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories grew out of the efforts of many, many, like-minded people. It’s impossible for me to get to all the little far-out places to meet and interview people, so it was with much appreciation that HG Nelson and his Summer All Over team found the time for an interview on ABC National and Local Radio to help get the word out there that I was looking for stories. The response to that interview was nothing short of fantastic. Also, many thanks for the support I’ve received from everyone in the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS), especially to those wonderful people in Broken Hill who always give so freely of their time, encouragement and expertise. In addition, I’d like to thank those who helped so much when I was in Derby, where I was lucky enough to travel into the beautiful Kimberley area of Western Australia.<
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On a more personal level I’d like to thank my partner Margaret Worth for her continuing support, encouragement, patience and understanding, David Hansford, my musical mate — who can fix anything from a light bulb to a laptop, and has had to do so on many occasions — and Stuart Neal and his staff at ABC Books. Since my first publication, back in 1988, David and Christine Harris have given me a $50 emergency fund to take on each of my travels — ‘just in case’ — and eight books later they’re still doing it…and it still gets spent along the way through one debacle or another. I’d like to thank my family: my dear little mum who, as I write, is a ‘healthy’ ninety-three years of age, my ‘big’ sister, Barbara, who doesn’t want her age published, and my second ‘biggest’ sister, Margaret, who was such a support with transcribing my poorly recorded interviews. That also goes for Ian Bourne and Shannon Lore Blackman. I have two mates who are doing it a bit tough at the moment and I’d like to mention them, Shaw Hendry and Gerd Janssen. Their courage is inspirational.
My next venture is going to be ‘Great Australian Stories from Little Outback Towns’. If you have a quirky, interesting, funny, sad, entertaining or dramatic story concerning an outback town with a population of less than two hundred, please feel free to contact me via my web site — www.billswampymarsh.com — before the cutoff date of July 2008.
Please don’t send in any written material as all the stories in my books are adapted from recorded interviews.
I’m sure you’ll enjoy this second book of great Flying Doctor stories as much as I have enjoyed collecting and writing them. The Royal Flying Doctor Service is an organisation quite unique to us and our environment. It was born out of Reverend John Flynn’s dream to create a ‘Mantle of Safety’ for all remote and outback people. There’re some great characters in here, some extremely humorous moments and there’re some frighteningly dramatic ones — ones that had me on the edge of my seat as I was listening to them being told.
In conclusion, I’d like to acknowledge the staff of the RFDS. As one of my contributors said:
On a daily basis they put their lives on the line for people who are complete strangers to them. They don’t care who these people are, or what their nationality is, or what religion they are. And it doesn’t matter…how those very same people probably wouldn’t take a similar risk for them. In fact, they wouldn’t even realise the risk. What’s more, the RFDS do it for free.
So I’m sure you’ll appreciate that it wouldn’t be possible to run an organisation which has 41 aircraft, 71 doctors, 115 nurses, one dentist plus a dedicated support staff without the public’s help. If you wish to make a donation to the Royal Flying Doctor Service, you can call 1300 669 569 or 1800 467 435.
My First Flight
I did my General Nurses’ Training in Brisbane, then went to Sydney to do my Mid (Midwifery Training) before coming back to Queensland to do Child Health. In those days they used to say that you had to have your ‘Mid’ and your Child Health if you wanted to work in the bush. And I wanted to work in the bush. I’m from the country, anyway. I come from Mareeba, in far north Queensland.
After I’d done my General and Midwifery Training I went to Thursday Island, which is just above the tip of Cape York. I was there getting experience in Midwifery and filling in time before I could do my Child Health in Brisbane. Then after completing my three certificates I went to the Northern Territory and worked in the Darwin Hospital for two years — this was before Cyclone Tracy.
I then left Darwin in 1974 and went to work in the Gulf of Carpentaria, in the Normanton Hospital. This hospital was serviced by a doctor from the Royal Flying Doctor Service on a weekly basis. I gathered lots of skills and a fair bit of experience while I was there and I think that this was where I got the idea of becoming a nurse with the RFDS. By then I’d also put a little money away so I decided to go overseas for a year, not working, just travelling around. And, as you do, when I came back home from my travels I had no money left. So, I looked in the paper and I saw that the RFDS in Western Australia was looking for a flight nurse, in Derby, up in the Kimberley. In those days Western Australia used to snap up all the nurses they could. So I applied for the job and they wrote back to say that the position had already been filled but they could offer me some Relief Community Health Work, out of Derby, and when a flying position became available I’d be given first option.
‘Good,’ I thought, ‘that’s what I’ll do.’ So, I flew to Perth where I had three weeks’ orientation — two weeks with Community Health and then a week out at Jandakot for the Air Medical part of it. After that I came to Derby to do Relief Community Health Work. And I remember that I wasn’t all that long in Derby when they came to me and said, ‘Here’s a four-wheel drive vehicle. Go south to La Grange Aboriginal Mission. The nurse there has been by herself for three months and she needs a break.’
‘Okay,’ I replied, ‘but where’s La Grange Mission?’
‘South of Broome,’ they said.
Anyway, even though I’d never driven a four-wheel drive vehicle in my life before, they put me in this huge thing and said, ‘You’ll find the place easy enough. Just head south and turn left at the Roebuck Roadhouse, then right when you get to La Grange. There’s no bitumen. It’s all dirt. A distance of well over 300 kilometres.’
And, oddly enough, I found the place.
Of course, I was a little petrified at first but I got through it okay. I just ran the clinic down there for about ten days and the RFDS would fly in and do a doctor’s clinic every week. Then after my relief at La Grange I came back to Derby and I did other small stints out at places like Looma, which is another Aboriginal community about 100 kilometres south of Derby.
But I’ll always remember my first RFDS flight. At that stage I was still doing Relief Community Health Work but I was very keen because I really wanted to get in the air as a flight nurse. Anyhow, I was living next door to the normal flight nurse. Even though she was just about to leave she hadn’t quite resigned as yet. And in those days, in Derby, there were only two flight nurses, one plane and one pilot and the nurses used to have alternate weekends on and the person who worked on the weekend had the Monday and Tuesday off. Also, with there being just the one pilot, he’d always use up his flying hours pretty quickly and when that happened the RFDS would charter a plane, if they thought it necessary.
Anyhow, this weekend the flight nurse who was on call wasn’t feeling well, or so she told me, and she got asked to go out on this two-and-a-half-hour flight, down to Balgo Aboriginal Community [Mission], to pick up an Aboriginal lady who was in labour. So then the nurse asked me if I’d like to go in her place and, of course, me being all green, I immediately said, ‘Oh yes, I’ll go.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Our pilot’s out of hours so it’s going to be a charter flight.’
‘That’s fine by me,’ I said.
Anyhow, the charter turned out to be the local pest controller who had a little one-propeller Cessna. He used to fly around the communities spraying for ants and termites and things like that. And I clearly remember that on the side of his little Cessna he had a sign that read ‘Phantom Sprayer’ along with a photo of the Phantom character, from the comic books.
When I saw that, my first thought was, ‘Dear me, this looks a bit odd for a RFDS retrieval.’
But it was still okay, just another part of the adventure. So then I worked out that, with this Aboriginal lady being in labour and with it being a two-and-a-half-hour flight out there to Balgo then two and a half hours back to Derby, I really needed for her to be able to lie down in the aeroplane. My main concern was that if she had the baby while we were in the air, I wanted to be sure she could deliver safely and wasn’t going to haemorrhage or whatever.
With all that in mind I rang the pilot and asked him, ‘Can you take the seats out of the plane? You know, the back seats, because this lady will probably need to lie down.’
And his reply was, ‘Gees, I wouldn’t have a clue how to do that. I’ve
never taken the seats out before.’
But in those days in Derby we had MMA (McRobinson Miller Airways) who I knew had an engineer. MMA had an Otter, which is a type of aircraft that they used to fly across to Koolan Island and back. But the thing was, they had an engineer who looked after all their aeroplanes so I said to the Phantom Sprayer, ‘Look, how about we get the MMA guys to see if they can take the seats out?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’d be really good if we could.’
So, eventually he got the MMA guys to take the seats out and we put a mattress inside the little Cessna and then we loaded in all the emergency equipment and so forth. This was back in 1976 when we didn’t have any telephone so it was all radio contact through the RFDS base. So there I was, out at the airport, all keen to go on this flight and we set off and because I’m as keen as anything I’m sitting up there and I’m checking a map to see where we’re going.
Actually, at one stage, I thought I was looking at the map upside down. ‘Oh, where are we now?’ I said to the pilot, you know, wanting to get a bearing of where we were on the map.
‘Well,’ he said, and he pointed out the window, ‘in about ten minutes, out on that side of the aircraft, you’ll see Christmas Creek.’
On the map, Christmas Creek was about halfway between Balgo and Derby. ‘Oh, okay,’ I said. ‘Good.’
Anyhow, there I am, I’m peering out the window in the direction of where he said I’d see Christmas Creek. And after about another ten minutes had gone by and still nothing had appeared, I’m thinking, ‘Well, surely we’re going to get there sometime soon.’
Then fifteen minutes went by and I’m thinking, ‘Hey, what’s going on here?’
So I said to the Phantom Sprayer, ‘Where’s this Christmas Creek you said we were going to pass?’
‘Hang on,’ he said, and he gazes up over his dashboard and he’s looking over here and he’s looking over there — like he’s pretty lost — then he says, ‘Oh, there it is, over there.’