Read The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories Online
Authors: Bill Marsh
Tags: #Travel, #General
The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories
| The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories | |
| Bill Marsh | |
| ABC Books (2012) | |
| Tags: | Travel, General |
The Royal Flying Doctor Service is a unique icon of Australian culture. Since its beginnings with the Reverend John Flynn in 1928, the RFDS has helped build our nation. The Flying Doctors, and the remote stations and communities that they serve, have become enduring symbols of what it means to be Australian.
The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories is a fascinating, moving and often hilarious collection of true stories about the life in the Australian Outback. Hear of those whose very lives depend on the Royal Flying Doctor Service, like the man suffering from extreme burns who rode his motorbike eighteen kilometres back across his property to get help while opening and closing every gate along the way because you ′always leave gates as you find them′. Out here, stoicism and a sense of humour go hand in hand, as in the case of the stockman with a compound leg fracture who, when asked by the Flying Doctor if it hurt, replied, ′Oh, it itches a bit.′
Through fog, lightning, thunder, flooding rains and dust storms, the Flying Doctor braves the elements to get to the remote outback landing strips where they′re needed and the tales they live to tell will have you shaking your head in amazement.
Book One
: Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories
Book Two
: More Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories
Been Around, Done a Thing or Two
Stories about the Flying Doctor
The Tangle with the Motor Bike
Book Three
: New Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories
Publisher’s note:
The stories contained in this compilation are derived from interviews. In order to preserve the authenticity of these oral accounts the language used is faithful to the original story-telling. The publisher does not necessarily endorse the views expressed or the language used in any of the stories.
Warning:
This book may contain the names of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now deceased.
Quotation on page 682 from
From City to the Sandhills of Birdsville
, by Mona Henry, reproduced by permission of CopyRight Publishing. Quotations on pages 730–735 from
Outback Achiever: Fred McKay — Successor to Flynn of the Inland
, by Maisie McKenzie, reproduced by permission of Boolarong Press.
Lyrics from ‘Woman on the Land’, on page 648, written by John Williamson © 1977 Emusic Pty Limited, reproduced by permission.
Lyn Shea for her ideas, support and enthusiasm
The Royal Flying Doctor Service and its
supportive staff
Ian Doyle, Broadcaster
Angela Faraj, Public Relations, RFDS (National)
The Broken Hill Outback Residencies Program
All those who so willingly shared their stories with me
To Margaret and James Holdsworth,
and Jarrod Bonnici
Great Flying Doctor Stories is based on stories told to Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh by:
Joyce Anderson
Helen Austin
Bob Balmain
Joy Barton
Rosemary Chamberlain
Ben Dannecker
Maurie Denison
Ian Doyle
Jan Ende
Penny Ende
Brett Forrester
Anne Hindle
Campbell Holmes
Bob Irvine
Ray Jenner
Alf ‘Bomber’ Johnson
Verona Keen
Bill Legg
Geri Malone
Fred McKay
Marg McQuie
Lindsay Millar
Jack Mills
Mary Patricia Mitchell
Colin Munro
Liz Noonan-Ward
Fred Peter
Lorraine Rieck
Robert Ryan
Bruce Sanderson
Gabrielle Schaefer
Rob Seekamp
Chris Smith
Clyde Thomson
Audrey Tregoning
Penny Wilson
Maureen Woods
…and many others.
Just after my last book came out I was having a cup of coffee with ‘the lady down the road’ (Lyn Shea). ‘What’re you going to write next?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘Have you got any ideas?’
True to form, she had plenty, one of which was a collection of stories of the experiences people had with the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
And so began this book.
After receiving some funding from Arts SA I headed off to Broken Hill as part of a writer-in-residence program as well as to collect stories from a couple of friends of friends who worked out at the RFDS base. I was welcomed there, as I was at all the RFDS offices that I visited, with open arms and a swag of stories ready to be told.
‘I’ll knock this off in a couple of months,’ I said.
But friends of friends have friends of their own and before long, whenever I mentioned that I was collecting Flying Doctor stories, someone would say, ‘Oh, you’ve got to get in contact with so-and-so. They’ve got a great story to tell.’ So I did, and after I collected their story they, in turn, would suggest someone else who had ‘an even better story to tell’.
Then amongst all this story collecting I met a bloke, Ian Doyle, who was relieving on the ABC’s Sunday morning radio program, Australia All Over, and he interviewed me about the project. The response was astounding. People rang from all over Australia,
wanting to tell their story; unfortunately, more than there was space in this book for. I hope that, as time goes by, I get to meet many of the people I could only get to interview by telelphone.
The stories of the contributors’ experiences with the Royal Flying Doctor Service and of their triumph against the odds have been an inspiration. So sit back, relax, and allow me to introduce you to some of Australia’s unsung heroes and great characters…
Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh
I reckon it must have been back in about 1960 or ’61, whichever year it was that copped the worst of the floods. There was this bloke, Harry, who was the Head Stockman out on Durham Downs Station. A very knowledgeable bushman he was too. Anyway, Harry and his team of stockmen had been out mustering, day in, day out, for three months straight, in woeful conditions, so when they were given a week off they decided to exercise their bushman’s rite and go into Noccundra to let off a little steam in at the pub there.
‘Let’s get the hell outa here,’ Harry called to his stockmen as they clambered up on top of the two-wheeled camp trailer, cashed up and ready to go.
Now I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one of these camp trailers but they’re massive bloody things, and they have to be. Because when you’re out mustering for months on end they carry the whole kit-andcaboodle — all the food, the cooking gear, the swags, water, fuel, toolboxes, the lot. They’re like a bloody huge mobile kitchen cum garage, and they’ve got these gigantic truck tyres on them, so huge that you’d almost have to be Sir Edmund Hillary to climb up on the tray.
To complete the picture for you, this particular camp trailer was pulled by a Deutz tractor which was driven by the camp cook, an Afghan bloke who had extremely dark skin, so dark, in fact, they reckoned that the only thing you could see of him in the dead of the night was the whites of his eyes. That’s when
he wasn’t sleeping, of course, or praying, which was something he did quite regularly, being the extremely devout Muslim that he was. This bloke’s name was Frozella, Frozella the Afghan cook.
So off this mob of stockmen went through flooded creeks, rivers and tracks and, when Frozella finally pulled into Noccundra, Harry and his workmates went straight to the pub. And that’s where they spent the entire week, in the pub, except for one very important trip which Harry made. That was to the local store to buy a bottle of raspberry cordial. The reason behind that was on their return journey they were going past an outstation on Durham Downs. And on this outstation there was a man and his wife and their three or four children and Harry had solemnly promised these youngsters that he’d bring them back a bottle of raspberry cordial, for a special treat.
As you might imagine, during that week in at the Noccundra pub, a lot of fun was had. A lot of alcohol was consumed too, which led to the usual number of stoushes. But no harm done. Anyway by the time they set off back to Durham Downs, Harry and his team were so knackered from their week’s activities that not long after they’d crawled up on the camp trailer, to a man they’d fallen into a deep alcohol-induced sleep. And there, draped right up on top of the load, was Harry, snug and snoring under his military overcoat, and stuffed into one of the pockets of that coat was the precious bottle of raspberry cordial.
So there they were, in the dead of the night, a few hours out from Noccundra when they hit a bump. Off came Harry. Down from a great height he fell. And when he hit the ground he was not only knocked out
cold from the impact but also the bottle burst and raspberry cordial went all over him. Now, none of the stockmen realised that their boss had disappeared. Neither did Frozella. He kept on chatting away to Allah while negotiating the tractor along the muddy tracks until he reached the boundary gate.
It was while he was at the gate that Frozella did a number count and discovered that Harry had gone missing. Now the little Afghan realised that his life wouldn’t be worth living if he arrived back at Durham Downs minus his boss. So with the other blokes still fast asleep, he turned the camp trailer around and drove back in search of the Head Stockman. He’d travelled about twenty miles when there, illuminated by the mud-splattered glow of the tractor lights, Frozella saw Harry laying spread-eagled on the ground, covered in red gooey stuff.
So shocked at the scene was Frozella that he sat glued to the seat of the Deutz tractor. ‘Oh Allah, oh Allah,’ he prayed from the safe distance, hoping for a miracle and that suddenly Harry would arise and walk. But he didn’t. Harry didn’t even move a muscle. This caused Frozella to conclude that Allah had instigated the accident as a punishment for all his sins. Sins that kept multiplying in Frozella’s brain the longer he looked down at Harry, lying prostrate in front of the tractor.
Then the panic really set in. Without bothering to check the body, Frozella turned the camp trailer around again and raced to Kihee Station. It was there that he told the station owner’s wife, Mrs O’Shea, all about his sins, and how Allah had caused Harry to fall off the camp trailer, and about how the camp trailer had run over the Head Stockman.
‘Oh Missus, blood everywhere,’ Frozella kept mumbling. ‘Blood everywhere.’
So Mrs O’Shea contacted the Flying Doctor.
The doctor in this case was the legendary Irishman Tim O’Leary. And Tim at that particular time was attending an extremely ill patient in at Thargomindah. So when Tim got word that the Head Stockman had been run over by a camp trailer, he organised for his patient to be flown back to the Charleville Hospital so that he could go straight out to Kihee Station and see to things there. The problem being, that because of all the flooding there was a lack of suitable transport in Thargomindah.
‘I’ll have a go at taking yer out in me little Hillman,’ the husband of the nursing sister said.
‘What we need is a tractor,’ suggested Tim.
‘It’s the best I can do,’ replied the bloke.
‘Okay then,’ Tim said, ‘we’ll give it a go.’
So they jumped into the little Hillman and set off on a nightmare journey through the mud and the slush. When they weren’t getting bogged, they were pushing themselves out of bogs. And whenever they came to a swollen creek they placed a tarpaulin over the radiator so that the car’s engine wouldn’t stall, midstream, where the chances were that they’d be washed away, never to be seen again.
Now, while the Hillman was battling its way up the track, Jack O’Shea arrived home at Kihee Station homestead and listened to Frozella’s story.
‘Has anyone else seen to the bloke?’ Jack asked, which of course they hadn’t.
So Jack spat out a few choice words then drove off in search of Harry. A couple of hours later he
came across him. There Harry was, much to Jack’s amazement, sitting up beside a camp fire, attempting to dry his overcoat, the one that had been soaked in raspberry cordial.
‘Good God man,’ Jack said, ‘yer supposed to be at death’s door.’
‘Yer must be jokin’,’ Harry replied. ‘There’s nothin’ wrong with me that a couple of Bex and a good lie down couldn’t fix.’
So Jack took Harry back to Kihee and Mrs O’Shea rang through to Nockatunga Station, where the little Hillman had just chugged up the drive.
‘Look doctor,’ Mrs O’Shea explained, ‘Frozella’s made a terrible mistake. In actual fact, the Head Stockman’s got nothing more than a headache.’
After having just spent five and a half hours driving through hell and high water, in a tiny Hillman, then to be told that he’d been called out on a wild goose chase, well, it didn’t go down too well with the irate Irish doctor.
‘Let it be known, Mrs O’Shea,’ Tim replied, ‘that if ever this Frozella chap gets ill and I have to pick him up in an aeroplane, as sure as I stand here, drenched to the bone and caked in mud, I’m gonna toss him out and, what’s more, from a great bloody height!’
Now news travels fast in the bush and when Frozella heard what Tim had said, he started believing that the sparing of the Head Stockman had just been a warning from Allah, and the greater punishment of being tossed out of a plane from a great height was awaiting him. Amazingly, the little Afghan didn’t have a sick day for a number of years after that, not one. That was until the time he came down with
pneumonia. Real crook he was. And even then he refused to see Tim O’Leary, the Flying Doctor.
‘He’s a gonna kill me, Missus. Allah has foretold it,’ a delirious Frozella kept muttering to Mrs Corliss who was looking after him in at the Eromanga pub.
But eventually Frozella fell so ill that Mrs Corliss had to call Tim. And when he arrived in the plane, she pulled the doctor aside. ‘Look, Tim,’ she said, ‘Frozella’s locked himself in his room and refuses to let you see him.’
Now Tim had long ago forgotten the veiled threat that he’d made about tossing Frozella out of the plane from a great height. But Frozella hadn’t. Not on your life. So much so that Tim had to force his way into Frozella’s darkened hotel room. And when he did, the little Afghan wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Then, as Tim tells it, as he was about to leave the room he heard the faint mutter of prayers coming from under the bed. When he took a look, he saw the whites of two huge eyes, staring back at him, agape with fear.
