The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories Read Free

the part where he read out their names… ‘Do you Mark Spears take Alison Tucker to be your lawfully wedded wife?’ he said.
    At that point the service ground to a halt. There was a gasp from the outer audience. Phantom went a bright red. The bride went white with shock.
    The wind dropped. The flies ceased flying. The bridesmaids turned to each other with questioning looks. The bride did the same at her bridesmaids. The bridesmaids looked questioningly at Phantom’s best men. They gave a shrug. They didn’t have a clue. Then everyone turned to the groom.
    In his embarrassed state, Phantom leaned over to the Father. ‘Excuse me, Father,’ he said, ‘but no one around here knows me by that name.’
    ‘Not even the bride?’ enquired Father Tony.
    ‘Nope. Especially not the bride.’
    Then Father Tony, always the professional, took up from where he left off and he said… ‘Mark Spears, who’ll be from here on known as Phantom, do you take Alison Tucker as your lawfully wedded wife?’
    ‘Yep,’ said Phantom.
    ‘Yep, I do,’ said Alison.
    Then, apart from the odd smirk or two from his mates and a bit of ribbing from the outer, the remainder of the ceremony went off like a dream.

A Mother’s Love
    Like I said, in the days before the Royal Flying Doctor Service was set up here in Tasmania, back in about 1960, basically the only aircraft that were available for evacuations from the Bass Strait islands and other remote areas were aircraft owned by the state’s two major Aero Clubs. Those clubs were the Tasmanian Aero Club, which was based at Launceston, and the Aero Club of Southern Tasmania, based at Hobart.
    Now I wasn’t ever a commercial pilot and I’ve never flown for the Flying Doctor Service, as such. I was just a private pilot who flew out of our local Launceston club back in those early days. The aircraft we were using at the time was the single-engine Auster J5 Autocar, which was a small four-seater fabric aircraft.
    But the most heart-wrenching trip I ever made was after a couple of children had been severely burnt, out on one of the islands. These kids got inside a car and were playing with matches or whatever. There they were, mucking about, when the vehicle exploded in flames, leaving them trapped inside. So we got the call during the night and I think it might’ve been Reg Munro, our Chief Flying Instructor, who flew out and brought the children back to the Launceston Hospital.
    Anyway, the following day I went over to the island to pick up the children’s mother. Now just before I took off I heard that one of the kids had died. The problem was that, when I picked the mother up, it was obvious that she hadn’t yet been informed about the death. Toremind you, I was just doing the job as a private pilot through the Aero Club so it wasn’t really up to me to inform her that her son had just passed away.
    But, God, I felt for that poor woman.
    I reckon that there’d be nothing worse than to lose one of your own children, especially one as young as that little feller was. So there I was flying this woman back to Launceston, knowing that her child had just died, and knowing that she hadn’t yet been told about the death. And there she was sitting in the plane with me, full of a mother’s concern, full of a mother’s hope, full of a mother’s love.

A Piece o’ Piss
    I wasn’t working at the time so the only company I had at home, apart from the kids that is, was a little transistor radio. Now in saying that, there wasn’t much to listen to around Broome in those days, other than Radio Australia. So what I used to do was to tune into the Royal Flying Doctor base and listen to all the telegrams, and the gossip, and in particular to the medical schedules.
    The reason why I kept such a close ear out for the medical schedules was that my husband, Tony, was the Flying Doctor, and by listening in on the tranny I was able to find out when, and if, Tony was coming home. Now that might sound like a