The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories

by Bill Marsh

  Matchmakers

  HG Nelson: HG Nelson with you on ‘Summer All Over’. We have Jacqui from Yandina on the line. Jacqui, how are you this morning? Now, you’ve got some connection with the Flying Doctor Service.

  Yes, well, back years and years ago I used to live with my then husband, John, and my two baby boys, in the south-west of Queensland at a place called Yaraka, which is unheard of. Yaraka’s at the end of the railway line that goes out from Rockhampton then down past Blackall. And once a month the Flying Doctor people used to fly out from Charleville to run medical clinics in each little area around the place and, when they came down our way, sometimes they’d stay overnight with us.

  So I think this was probably in the late ’60s, when I was in my mid-twenties, and we were all reading the Peanuts comic books. Do you remember those? Well, we kind of thought that the Snoopy character from the Peanuts comics would look good on the nose-cone of the Flying Doctor aeroplane. You know, the drawing where Snoopy’s doing his ‘Red Baron’ act and he’s sitting in a plane with his flying goggles on and a scarf blowing out behind him.

  Anyhow, we teed it up with the RFDS pilot and doctor that the next time they were going to come out to Yaraka on a clinic run we’d have the paint and brushes all ready. Of course, we didn’t know if it’d be approved by Tim O’Leary, who was the Head of the Flying Doctor network back then, but we decided to do it anyway. And if Tim asked any questions when they got back to Charleville, then the pilot and the doctor would tell him that they didn’t have a clue how the painting got there, nor who did it.

  So on the day, as soon as we heard the plane buzzing overhead we whooped out to the airstrip and, while my two little boys were looking on, we painted Snoopy on the nose-cone. The actual plane was named the ‘Allan Vickers’ — Allan being one of the original doctors who worked with John Flynn. After he retired, I think he actually died while he was coming back from England on a boat and they buried him at the Cape of Good Hope.

  Anyhow, so we did this paint job on the nose-cone of the aeroplane and when Tim O’Leary saw it he thought it looked great and so it stayed on, and everybody loved it. After that, each time the ‘Allan Vickers’ was serviced, the engineers painted an extra whisker on Snoopy. So I reckon he might’ve got a bit hairy before that particular RFDS plane was replaced. Then, when they finally did replace it with a new plane, they even got a sign writer to paint a new Snoopy on the nose-cone of that one as well. And they’ve had new planes since and I gather that Snoopy’s still on there. He’s become, more or less, the mascot for the Charleville Flying Doctor Service.

  HG: So if you see a Flying Doctor plane with the Snoopy character from Peanuts drawn on the nose-cone, now you know the story of how it got there.

  Then, of course, the Flying Doctor Service had an awful lot to do with my ex-husband and I getting engaged. Both Tim O’Leary and Allan Vickers were incorrigible romantics who seemed to want everybody in the same miserable state of marriage because both of them were always trying to match-make people.

  HG: Well, that’s an aspect of the Flying Doctor Service I didn’t know about. So it’s not only a medical service?

  No, they did all sorts of things. They’d find you a partner whether you wanted one or not. I remember with John, my husband-to-be, though I didn’t know it at the time…

  HG: Tell me more.

  Well, this was long before the Snoopy episode because I was working out at Dalby, which is west of Brisbane, and John had a property with his brother out at Yaraka. We’d met a couple of times, that’s all, and we used to write to each other occasionally, but just as friends. I mean, it was a bit far to pop down to Yaraka from Dalby just for a dinner. Anyhow, one time, John wanted to survey a boundary track because he was thinking of taking a tank-sinking plant out to the edge of his property. Mind you, these were pretty big properties. So he set off and, as you do in the country, you always have a gun in the vehicle with you.

  Anyway, John was on his way out when he met up with Jimmy Davies, 100 miles from nowhere. Jimmy was an old ‘dogger’, meaning that he made a living out of the bounty money he earned from shooting wild dogs, dingos in particular. So they started having a chat, out in the middle of this nowhere, and Jimmy asked John, ‘What’re doing out here?’

  So John explained how he was thinking of taking a tank-sinking plant out and he just wanted to survey the area.

  ‘I may as well come along with yer, then,’ said Jimmy.

  So they both jumped into John’s vehicle and while they were driving out they saw a dingo and John grabbed his rifle and took a pot shot at it. The only trouble was that he had some faulty ammo in his rifle and the gun blew up in his face, damaging his right eye. So then Jimmy had to drive John home and when they got there they called the RFDS. Anyhow, both Tim O’Leary and Allan Vickers came out in the plane and by the time they finished patching John up and got him settled, it was too dark to take off, so they decided to stay the night then fly John to hospital the next morning.

  As I said, John and I had only met a couple of times before and while we did write the occasional letter, there was really nothing in it. Now the accident must’ve occurred on a Melbourne Cup day or close thereafter because I’d won some money in a sweep so, feeling a little flush with money, I decided to ring John on impulse, that particular night. Then when I rang up to have this chat with John, the phone was answered by someone who had an Irish accent. It was Tim O’Leary and so he told me about the shooting accident and he mentioned that they were going to take John to Brisbane the next day. So a couple of days later I rang around and found the hospital where John was and I went down to visit him.

  Then, when Allan Vickers found out that I’d been to visit John, he suggested to the doctor — the eye specialist — that the best thing for John to do, in his current situation, was to spend a weekend in the country to recuperate; perhaps even a short trip to some place like Dalby, even. It was all a set-up, of course, so John then caught a bus out to Dalby and he arrived on my doorstep. I didn’t know he was coming or anything. In actual fact, I was doing the ironing and I heard this knock…knock on the door and when I opened it, there was John.

  ‘I’m here,’ he said.

  And ten days later we were engaged.

  HG: Well, that’s an insight into the Flying Doctor Service that I didn’t know about. Not only can they analyse mystery photographs, as John in Ingleburn is about to inform us, or solve crossword clues as I suggested they might, but they also match-make as well as fix a myriad of ailments such as broken arms and bung eyes…and all at the same time.

  Mystery Photograph

  HG Nelson: And now we have John from Ingleburn on the air. So what’s your Flying Doctor story, John?

  Thanks HG, I’ve got one that I thought was a bit interesting. I’ve flown over Australia quite a number of times and, I mean, it’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I’ve taken shots of Lake McKenzie. I’ve taken shots from across the centre. Actually, one time I was coming back home and I spotted the Birdsville Track. I knew what it was straight away because I’d been out through there quite a few times, you know, and it’s just fascinating to see the beauty of this land. You know, the colour, it’s just brilliant.

  But back in ’98 I was flying over to Europe with Singapore Airlines and we were about 10000 metres high. Anyway, I’d had a couple of scotches and, as we were passing over Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, I thought I’d take a photograph out of the plane window. Anyway, we weren’t on the right angle for me to get a shot of the Alice and, naturally, I couldn’t get the bloke — the pilot — to turn around so I took a shot out of the left-hand side of the plane.

  Anyway, I didn’t think much of it and when I got back home a few months later, I got the film developed and there was something there, on the ground, and I just couldn’t work out what it was. It sort of resembled an airstrip, but I knew that there wasn’t one there — well, there wasn’t supposed to be one there. Anyhow, I was stumped so I had a bit of a thin
k about it and my reckoning was that the Royal Flying Doctor Service were always in the air around the Territory and, if anyone knew what this thing was, they would. So just on the off-chance, I sent the photo to the Flying Doctor base in Alice Springs and in the letter I asked them if they could help me identify it. And anyway, an RFDS pilot, I think it was, he wrote back and said, ‘Yeah, as soon as I seen it, I knew what it was.’ And it turned out to be the Jindalee BEA ‘over the horizon radar transmitter’, which is just north of Alice Springs.

  HG: Isn’t that interesting? So you’re telling me that the Flying Doctor Service, in its spare time, answers questions from people flying across Australia. Absolutely fantastic.

  So, yes, they’re a great service, and that was an aspect of their work that I was completely unaware of. Well, I didn’t know, I just thought, well, who else could help me identify this shot — this photograph — and then straight away I thought of the Flying Doctor Service. I mean, they’re in the air all the time up that way, so I reckoned that if anyone knew, they might.

  HG: Well, that’s a terrific call there from John in Ingleburn and, obviously, about how the Flying Doctor Service solved the mystery of his photograph.

  You know, they’re better than the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Say if you got stumped on a crossword puzzle question. For example the clue is, ‘Monkey’ — three letters. You’ve already got the P and you can’t work it out or you just completely can’t think of anything, well, just ring the Flying Doctor Service and they’ll solve all your crossword puzzle problems as well. Oh, they can do anything. I mean, I’d love to think that if people had barbecuing problems, you know, like how to clean barbecues, all they had to do was to contact the Flying Doctor Service. And they’re also very good if you need to know how to get stains off carpet or off sheets, for that matter, or, let’s face it, if you have any sheep crutching problems, well, all you have to do is get in touch with the Royal Flying Doctor Service and they’d be able to help you.

  Next to Buckley’s

  This happened many years ago, when I was working up bush, at the Moomba gas and oil fields. Moomba’s in the far north-east of South Australia so it’s usually a desolate, dry country, as you might be able to imagine. But at this particular time there’d been a lot of rain and it’d caused flooding all through the north-east, and there was this guy who’d always dreamed of doing a walking trek from Innamincka, north-west through the Sturt Stony Desert and up to Birdsville, which is just over the border into Queensland. He was a very experienced bushman and he’d done all his research and all that sort of stuff, so he was well prepared. Then he decided to take a younger mate along with him, an English feller, who was a very inexperienced bushman. So they decided to do this walk.

  Now, it was the middle of winter and by then the weather was okay: bitterly cold at night, mind you, but the days were okay, and not too hot. As I said the experienced bushman had done his homework, right. They had a radio with them, plus all the maps and they had backpacks and a cart to carry their supplies. They’d even organised rendezvous points along the way, where they’d meet people and pick up fresh supplies.

  So they set off from Innamincka and they’d been walking for a couple of days. But what happens up in those regions is that, when you get big rains, a lot of water comes down all the little creeks and what-have- you, and they overflow and then you get these huge floodplain areas — like surface water spreading out everywhere. Now all this surface water doesn’t appear on a map because it’s rarely there. So they were walking along and they came to this big lake, over a floodplain, which wasn’t on the map. They then had to make a decision: what do we do? Do we take a couple of extra days to go around it or do we try and wade across?

  As a trial, they walked out a couple of hundred yards and it was only, you know, a foot deep or something like that. ‘Well, it can’t be too deep,’ they said, and they decided to walk across this lake.

  But there must’ve been a washaway or a creek that they didn’t know about or wasn’t on the map, right? So they were wading along, carrying all their gear — the experienced feller was strapped to the supply-cart — and suddenly they went from water that was about a foot deep to water that was right over their heads. They both went under and because they had lots of gear strapped onto them, they sunk like rocks.

  Now, somehow the inexperienced Englishman managed to struggle to the surface. Then, when he got to safety he realised that his mate, the experienced bushman, wasn’t there. So he went looking for him and some time later he found him, but unfortunately he’d drowned.

  Anyhow, the Englishman’s first thought was, ‘I’d better get this guy back to the shore.’

  So he unstrapped all of the dead feller’s gear, and he left his own gear there and he started dragging his dead mate all the way back through this stretch of water. Eventually, he got the body to dry ground but then, when he went back to retrieve his gear, it was gone. Everything. He couldn’t find it. So there he was, trapped out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the clothes he’s wearing, which were, basically, just a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. That’s all. He’d even taken his shoes off to swim. So now he’s thinking, ‘Well, what do I do now? How do I get myself out of this mess? I’ve never been in the outback before. I don’t know how to navigate. I don’t even know where I am. I don’t have any maps. Nothing. I’m going to die.’

  Then he remembered that two days previously they’d crossed something that resembled a road, so he thought, ‘If I can get back to the road I might be able to find someone or track someone down.’

  Obviously, he couldn’t take his dead mate with him so he had to leave the body there and he starts backtracking. There’s plenty of water because there’s lots of waterholes, you know, but he hasn’t got any food. Not a crumb. Nothing. So for two days he walks back the way they’d come and eventually he stumbles across this road, right. But, unbeknown to the Englishman, the road wasn’t a real road, it was what’s known as a shot line, okay? Now, what a shot line is: with oil and gas mining they sort of bulldoze these tracks like grid lines so that when they fly over them, they can use them for survey lines, you see? Vehicles don’t drive up and down them, they’re basically put in and abandoned, right? But this guy thought it was a road. But it’s not — it’s a shot line.

  So he thinks, ‘Good, I’ve got to this road but now, what do I do? Do I sit here and wait for a car to come along or do I keep moving?’

  Well, he sat and waited for a while and there was no sight of a car so he decides it’d be better to keep moving. But then he was faced with another problem: do I turn right and walk and see what I can find or do I turn left and walk and see what I find?

  Now, what you’ve got to realise, this’s out in the Sturt Stony Desert and the nearest town is Innamincka, and that’s like 100 kilometres away. What’s more, the guy’s got no idea where he is; not even a clue. But he decides, for whatever reason, he doesn’t really know: I’ll turn left and walk down the road a bit and see how I go.

  So he turns left and starts walking down this shot line, which really isn’t a road. Then about 100 yards further on he walks over a rise and sitting there, in the middle of all this nowhere, is a wrecked telephone booth.

  Now, what had happened was, about fifteen years before the Englishman arrived on the spot, there’d been a little camp there that they’d used when they were grading the shot lines, and maybe drilling a couple of holes or something like that. So years ago there’d been a small camp there, you know, with five or ten guys, living in caravans for about four or five weeks before they moved on. And back then, what sometimes happened was that, with these little camps, they never used radios for communication. They only had one of those old wind-up telephones, right, and they’d just plonk it in the middle of a camp, stick a bit of a telephone box around it and they’d run maybe 20 or 30 miles of telephone cable, above ground and, when they happened to come across another telephone cable, they’d just cut into that, alright. Then, when they abandoned
the camp, they’d pick up the telephone box, wind the cable up and move on to the next site and set it all up again. But for some inexplicable reason, on this one and only occasion, they’d up and left and they’d abandoned this telephone and the wires.

  So, you know, this guy sees this telephone box like it’s an apparition. But it’s been exposed to the elements for donkey’s ages; the doors are hanging off, there’s no windows, the old Bakelite receiver’s all cracked, wires are hanging off it and, you know, there’s a dirt floor. So the Englishman thinks, ‘Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.’ And he jumps into this telephone box, picks up the receiver, he winds the handle and, all of a sudden, out of the deadness comes this voice. ‘Hello Santos, Moomba Coms, can I help you?’

  Now, for some strange reason this telephone box was not only still there but it’d never been disconnected, as well. And this guy just couldn’t believe his luck, right? He’s out in the middle of nowhere and finds a telephone box and an old wind-up receiver and he gets straight through to Santos Communications at Moomba. So the Englishman told his tale of woe to the communications guy. Then the Coms guy said, ‘Look, okay, but do you have any idea where you are because we can’t track you on this telephone line. We didn’t even know it existed.’

  ‘I’ve got no idea,’ the Englishman said. But he tried giving him a basic outline, you know, like, ‘We were walking between Innamincka and Birdsville and then two days later this accident happened and I backtracked for a couple of days and I came across this road and I turned left and I think I headed south, but I’m not quite sure.’

  So the guy at Moomba said, ‘Alright, well, tell you what, stay on the line, I’ve got a couple of old blokes who were out on the surveying camps years ago. They might remember the area so perhaps they can give us a rough idea of, maybe, where you might be.’