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involved were the great problem. Peel's letter gave Flynn the idea of solving it with air transport.
From then on, he endeavoured to develop a service that would fly a doctor to an outback
patient and carry that person back to a hospital. With the founding of Qantas in 1922, the
means became more possible, and Flynn sought the help of Hudson Fysh. But financially the
whole scheme was too much for the Presbyterian AIM, and the two-way communication by
wireless was impossible to set up on outback properties that had no electricity. Then, in 1927, a
friend of Flynn called Alfred Traeger devised and perfected a small radio set that was
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powered by a pedalling device. Messages could be sent on it in morse code, which was
eventually superseded (bush people found it difficult to learn) by a transmitter like a typewriter
keyboard.
Accompanied by Dr George Simpson, Flynn carried out a survey of the area by car in 1927.
They stopped for a while at Cloncurry in July, and Dr Simpson did a trial run, flying to Mt Isa in
a plane provided by Qantas, to tend to and bring back an injured miner to the Cloncurry
Hospital, established in 1879 and now the best equipped in northern Queensland. The town
also had an ambulance, operated by the volunteer Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade
since 1924.
So it was that Flynn chose Cloncurry, with its comparatively up-to-date telephone, telegraph,
road and rail links as the base for the Flying Doctor Service, the first in the world.
Its creation was announced by Flynn in October 1927. The AIM were now able to provide
some funds, and Qantas a plane, and a room at the rear of the Presbyterian Church in Uhr
Street became the Service's office. Pedal wirelesses were made and distributed, although this
took some time, and an advertisement for a 'flying doctor1 in the Medical Journal in December
produced 23 replies. The final agreement between the AIM and Qantas was signed in March
1928, and on 15 May the first official flight was made, in a Dragon. Arthur Affleck piloted Dr
Kenyon St Vincent Welch, late of Sydney, to Julia Creek, where he carried out two minor
operations in the Bush nursing-home there.
Dr Welch made 255 emergency calls in that first year, as well as many flights to carry out
vaccinations and set up local clinics. All medical care was free. The area covered was about the
size of Britain, but weather conditions were very different, and working conditions could be all
but unbearable in the searing heat of the insect-ridden bush. The flying doctors became very
well known, as did the pilots who flew them, chiefly Arthur Affleck and Eric Donaldson. One
day, a sister was taking a scripture lesson in St Joseph's Convent School (founded in 1909) and
happened to ask the class: 'Who was Pontius Pilate?' To which one of the boys brightly replied:
'Eric Donaldson."
All the pilots and flying doctors, like Drs Vickers, Alberry, Joyce and Harvey-Sutton, must have
been known by Sugar Honeycombe. Possibly, they also knew him.
Lawrie was 40 in 1928. In December that year two talking pictures, The Jazz Singer and The
Red Dance, were shown in Sydney. In 1929, Dame Nellie Melba made her last appearance in
a concert in Geelong, and a three-year-old chestnut called Phar Lap came third in the
Melbourne Cup. As a four-year-old, this huge gelding (17.1 hands high) won all but five of 40
races, and as the 11-8 favourite won the Melbourne Cup in 1930. Two years later he died of
poisoning, possibly intentional, in Mexico; he was six. In his short life Phar Lap became a
legend. Perhaps Lawrie backed him to win more than once.
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