The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories

by Bill Marsh

  Gone with the Wind

  It was around the beginning of 1969. The Flying Doctor base was about three or four miles out of Broken Hill, on the Wilcannia road, and they had an auditorium there where they used to show a promotional film, for the tourists, about the RFDS and what they did.

  Now, the actual RFDS doctor, at that particular time, was Dr Graham Ambrose and the pilot was Vic Cover, or just ‘Cove’ as he was known amongst his friends and enemies. I knew both of them very well. Cove had a reputation as an incredible pilot, plus he was a bit of a larrikin, to boot. He had a weekender out at Menindee, along Sunset Strip. I went to a couple of his New Year’s Eve parties there and they were events to remember, that’s if you could, of course. Cove was well-known in the district and, as I said, a terrific pilot. Graham Ambrose was a young doctor, forty-ish, and a nice bloke. We were in Rotary together. He was President and I was Vice-President, and quite often he’d be away on Flying Doctor visits and so forth and I’d step in for him on Rotary nights.

  Anyway, Graham said to me one day, ‘Fred,’ he said, ‘the Stuyvesant cigarette company are keen to improve their corporate image so they want to make a film along the lines of a day in the life of the Flying Doctor.’ He said, ‘Fred, would you be willing to act as a patient?’

  I’d done a bit of local repertory so I said, ‘Yes, of course, I’ll only be too willing to play the part of a patient.’

  Well, out come this film crew from Sydney. Now I don’t know whether it was because I’d built my expectations up too high or not but, I must say, I was a little surprised that there were only three in the film crew. Still, there you go. There was the director, who was quite well-known back in those days because he’d made a bit of a name for himself introducing ‘This Day Tonight’ or ‘Today Tonight’; you know, one of those television news-type shows in Sydney. He was a corker bloke and so was his crew. There was a cameraman. Now, the cameraman had recently broken his right leg, I think it was, in a motor bike accident and was in plaster from heel to hip. So he had a bit of trouble getting around. Then there was the sound man who had this big recording box and a microphone set up.

  It was planned that we’d meet out at the RFDS base at a certain time and we’d fly out to Mooleulooloo Station to shoot the first part of this film. Anyhow, who should suddenly appear in Broken Hill, none other than some heavy in the Flying Doctor Service. He was either a Group Captain or a Chief Pilot or a Chief something-or-other. Now, whether he arrived in town on purpose or just by accident, I don’t know. But he rocked up and, sort of, invited himself to come along with us.

  So at the allotted time we all met up out at the RFDS base. The plane we were flying in was an old Drover. I think it was made by De Havilland. The Drover was originally a two-engined aeroplane that’d just been recommissioned and had a third engine put in it so that it now flew higher, faster and had shorter take-offs; something like that.

  Anyway, before we even got to the stage of taking-off there was a brief debate between this Group Captain, or whatever he was, and Cove. The Group Captain wanted to fly the plane and Cove dug his heels in. ‘No,’ Cove said, ‘I’m responsible for the aeroplane so I’m gonna fly the damn thing and that’s all there is to it.’

  So there was already some friction between this Group Captain feller and Cove. Anyway, Cove wouldn’t budge on the matter and eventually the Group Captain gave in and Cove flew us out to Mooleulooloo Station, which was about 70 or 80 miles north-west of Broken Hill, over the border, into South Australia. I reckon the Treloars had the place back then and probably still do.

  Now, there was no script or anything. It was only while we were flying along that this director feller and Graham had a bit of a discussion, along with a few interruptions by the Group Captain. It came down to my problem being either a heart attack or a burst duodenum ulcer. So that was going to be my part, because I’m going to have to have something very dramatic that’s going to cause an emergency call to the Flying Doctor. Anyway, they settled on a burst duodenum ulcer because they thought it best that a cigarette company, like Peter Stuyvesant, wasn’t associated with a heart attack. Then they decided that I might be doing some welding on the front of a trailer and that’s when I’d have this burst duodenum ulcer and it’d hurt very much and I’d fall down on the ground and roll around in agony and they’d call the Flying Doctor.

  Anyway, we landed at Mooleulooloo Station and, first, they set me up in a room where I’m pretending to talk to a mate over the radio. This was all supposed to be taking place during one of the infamous ‘Galah Sessions’. We were talking about stock prices or oil prices, or what have you, then I said, ‘Look mate, I’ve gotta get off the air now because I’ve gotta go and weld this trailer up before we head off into town.’ And I get up and out I go, outside. Cut. They were my major lines in the film.

  Meantime, while they’re doing all this filming, not only is Cove having continuing problems with the Group Captain, but the cameraman’s also having trouble with him. Unfortunately the Group Captain somehow just happened to have brought his little camera along and each time they’re about to do some filming, he’s forever tapping the cameraman on the shoulder, checking the light reading or some such, and telling him where he’s going wrong. So the Group Captain fancies himself with the camera as well as being an expert pilot.

  So to the next scene and I’m welding this trailer. Well, I’ve never welded before, but I’ve got this mask on and I’m making lots of sparks and all of a sudden I’m hit by this burst duodenum ulcer. I fall down and I start rolling around on the ground in agony — gyrating and contortionising — because I’m supposed to be in such a bad way. Cove reckoned that Burt Lancaster couldn’t have done it better.

  Then it must’ve been the lady of the house who called the Flying Doctor because the next scene is where they’re carting me out to the plane, which is conveniently parked nearby. I’m on a stretcher, Cove’s in front and Graham’s at the back. The Group Captain’s offering advice. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the old Drover but the aeroplane door’s about six feet off the ground. So when they get to lifting me up into the plane, there’s a problem in getting the stretcher so high up and then getting it in line with the door. You could liken the situation to a couple of heavy weight-lifters, where they have to lift the weight up to the waist then do a jig and push it right up and over their heads. But Cove and Graham were struggling and I was stuck there on the stretcher, halfway between a clean and jerk and a snatch and lift.

  Anyway the director said, ‘Hang on, we’ll fix this.’

  So, with a bit of mastery of filming, they managed to get one end of the stretcher balanced just inside the plane door. Then, while Cove’s holding it up, with his arms outstretched, they cut the filming so that I can crawl out of the stretcher and lay down in the plane before they get the action going again. So that fixed that problem.

  Then behind Mooleulooloo Station there’s this monstrous hill — it’s a tiny Ayers Rock — and they decide to go up there to film the Drover while it’s taking off, then as it’s landing. The only trouble is that the cameraman’s got his flipping leg wrapped in plaster. Anyhow, he declined the offer of the Group Captain to take over the filming and, with a lot of effort, the cameraman stumbles up the top of this hill. When he’s settled, the director gives a wave of his arms to start filming and Cove takes off, does a couple of circuits, then he lands again. Cut. That shot’s completed.

  Anyway, after a quick lunch, we’re on the plane and we’re flying back to Broken Hill, over the border, into New South Wales. There we were, we’re flying sedately at about 3000 feet, with the Group Captain keeping an eagle eye on Cove, just to make sure he’s doing everything right when, all of a sudden, the plane rears up in the air and points skyward. It’s vertical. And Vic’s got the stick back like we’re in big trouble. Oh, it was gut retching. Then just as suddenly, the nose drops and down we come again, then we flatten out again.

  ‘Christ, what was that?’ the Group Capta
in shouts.

  And Vic says in that slow laconic voice of his, ‘Oh, didn’t you see it? We just flew over the border fence.’

  So Cove got him in the end and the Group Captain shut up after that.

  Anyhow, after we arrived back in Broken Hill we went up into Graham’s house where they’d set up a little room to double as a single hospital ward, with all these electrical things around the place. So I’m lying in bed with all these ECG things stuck on me, left, right and centre, because I’m still supposed to be in bad shape. Graham’s all professional in his white coat and he’s got his stethoscope and he’s telling me that I’m going to be alright, thanks to the Royal Flying Doctor Service getting out to Mooleulooloo Station, just in the nick of time, and that no permanent damage has been done, and I’m going to be safe. I’ll live.

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘Thanks very much.’

  And really, that was pretty much it. But I tell you, when the film come out, it wasn’t actually too bad, even if I do say so myself. It went for about twenty minutes and, as Cove says, ‘They ended up playing that film in the RFDS auditorium, three times a day, seven days a week, for about ten straight years.’ And when you come to think of it, that’s a pretty long run for a film, maybe even longer than Gone with the Wind.

  Got the Scours

  My father, Charlie Shultz, owned Humbert River Station, which was 32 miles west of Victoria River Downs Station, in the central west of the Northern Territory. Humbert River runs into the Wickham River, which Vic River Downs was on, and that ran into the Victoria River. My father sold the property in about 1972, and I grew up there and left when I was about twenty-five.

  I’d surmise that, around the end of 1945, there was still no Flying Doctor Service in Wyndham because when I was a baby I was quite ill and my mother had to take me on the mail plane from Vic River Downs Station and I ended up in the Derby Hospital for a couple of weeks. We didn’t have an airstrip at Humbert River and Vic River Downs had a big landing strip. Back in those days, the mail run came out from Wyndham to the bigger stations like Vic River Downs, then back to Halls Creek and on to Derby. That’s why I ended up over in Derby rather than going to Katherine where they also had a larger hospital.

  Humbert River was virtually at a dead end and during the wet season we had to ride on horseback the 32 miles to Vic River Downs to get our mail. Usually we’d head off early in the morning with a couple of changes of horses, along with a couple of packhorses, and you’d go over one day and come back the next. I mean, you didn’t go over every week, you’d only do that once a month or something. In the dry season we could drive over but even then it took two and a half hours just to get there, which might give you some idea as to just how bad the road was.

  Then we only got in food supplies once a year. Those supplies would come up by boat to Wyndham and we’d pick them up in about August or September. My mother was the cook. We had about thirty to forty Aboriginals in all and of those only about ten actually worked for us and the others were their family members; you know, the older people and young children who also stayed on our property and were kept by my family. That was in the days when a lot of the half-caste children were being taken away from their Aboriginal mothers and my parents took on about four part-Aboriginal children and schooled them on the station so that they weren’t taken away. In fact, later on, my parents took on some more.

  So, it must’ve been later in the 1940s before the Flying Doctor Service started coming out. Then we got a radio in about 1952, maybe ’53, which was linked into the Royal Flying Doctor Service network out of Wyndham. And, oh, it was just like having a lifeline, you know, for all sorts of things. As you might imagine we were quite isolated and they were something that you were really in touch with.

  I remember the RFDS radio contact sessions. The first one was at eight o’clock in the morning, which would’ve only been 6.30 am in Western Australia. The doctor would be at the hospital, on a direct line, and he’d come on air and say they were open for medical appointments. First, he’d ask if there were any emergencies and they’d be dealt with while everyone else waited their turn to have their questions answered.

  Now, with the Wyndham RFDS base, the furthest easterly cattle station that they broadcast to was south of Katherine, in the Top End of the Northern Territory, just near Mataranka. Then the furthest south would’ve been, perhaps, Inverway Station, which is virtually on the Northern Territory–Western Australian border plus, of course, there were a lot of places in Western Australia.

  We actually had a normal 12-volt car-battery operated wireless — it was a Traeger. All the two-way radios in the outback were Traeger. And we all had a different call sign. So you’d give your call sign and say who you were and tell them if the patient was a female or male and what their age was and so forth. Then you told them whatever was wrong or, you know, that somebody had fallen off a horse and what their injuries were.

  After listening to all the information the doctor then had to try and judge what to do. If the patient was critical they’d fly out and get them and if they weren’t critical, the doctor would prescribe some treatment or medication from the cattle station’s medical chest. Really, it must’ve been pretty hard to work out what medications they should take, especially if the person at the calling end wasn’t trained or even educated in any medical sort of way.

  All the medications came from the Royal Flying Doctor medical chest. It was quite big, probably about 4 foot wide by about 2 foot 6 high and 2 foot 6 deep. On the inside of the lid there was a plan to let you know what medicines, or what-have-you, all the trays in the chest contained. Originally the trays were named by their medical terminologies but because people didn’t understand the medical names of the drugs they later numbered them, which made it much easier. If you could imagine, it was like ordering a Chinese meal where the numbers related to a specific medication. And when you ran out of anything you just wrote away and asked them to send you the refills.

  Now, I don’t think the RFDS medical chest was absolutely free. I think, back then, it was heavily subsidised because I do remember we paid a certain amount to be on the radio network and, obviously, we paid for telegrams and such. Then I have a vague memory of the medical chest rental being on the bill at the end of the year.

  As far as the medications went, one of the favourite items in the medical chest most certainly would’ve been the sulphanilamide powder. This must’ve been before antibiotic or penicillin powders came out and the sulphanilamide powder was sprinkled like a talcum powder on open wounds and things like that. Of course, being in that sort of country, a lot of it was also used on the horses, which I don’t think the Royal Flying Doctor Service would’ve been too happy about. We got it in big packets, like in 2-kilogram bags. You know, we didn’t waste it, but my father certainly used it on horses. It was very good, actually.

  Then there was the Golden Eye ointment, which was also very good. I think it was another sulphur-based ointment, and that was used for all sorts of eye infections. The flies were really bad and the Aboriginal people always had sore eyes. You know, you’d try to teach them to chase the flies out of their eyes but you were still always using the eye ointment. Actually, the Golden Eye ointment seemed to fix most things, so, once again, it was also used on the horses.

  But that was just the way it was and, of course, everybody listened in on these sessions so everybody knew everybody else’s intimate business. I mean, the men in particular seemed extremely embarrassed if they had to get on the radio and talk about medical problems; you know, especially if they were talking about their wife. But that wasn’t unusual because the men out there were far more comfortable describing what was wrong with a cow or a horse than they were with a female. I can remember one funny occasion when the wife of one of the pastoralists was ill. She had a bad case of diarrhoea and her husband came on the radio and said to the doctor, ‘The wife’s crook.’

  And there was a lady doctor up from Perth, filling in for the usual male doctor in W
yndham. Anyhow, it was obvious that the pastoralist felt very awkward talking to a woman about what his wife’s problem was because he was humming and haring a lot and not quite getting to the point. But the female doctor kept probing him in an attempt to get a clear and proper understanding of just what he was on about. Anyway, in the end it all got a bit too much for the pastoralist and he blurted out to the female doctor, ‘For heaven’s sake woman, don’t you understand? My wife, she’s got the scours.’

  Hans from Germany

  You must know, it is ten years ago that Germany founded the fan club of the Flying Doctors from the Australian television series. It was translated into the German language and many Germans liked the actors of this series, and so they founded a fan club. I am a member of this fan club, too.

  My name is Dr Hans Henschel. In Australia they know me as ‘Hans from Germany’. That is my name in Australia. I am a paediatrician in Germany; a doctor for babies and kids and youth to eighteen and I have a big practice. We are three paediatricians in this practice. I am the senior doctor. Two paediatricians must always be in the practice. This is our agreement so that the door of my practice is always open for the sick children. Parents can always find an open door. And, you know, I am a workaholic. I work Sunday, Saturday, seven days a week. I work, work, work, and then I think, I must come to Australia.

  But I have always loved Australia. I don’t know where that comes from — perhaps from the heart — but when I was much younger I was always very interested in Australia. In my life before I think I was an Australian, perhaps I could even have been an Aboriginal, I don’t know. But it’s a long time that I’m very interested in Australia.