Flynn Of The Inland

Idriess weaves a narrative a round the story of John Flynn - known as Flynn of the Inland - a padre who travels the sparsely populated interior of Australia visiting the remote stations, the miners and the cattle men, dispensing medical and spiritual care. Flynn founded the AIM - the Australian Inland Mission, and on a camel, with other camels towed behind he undertakes ridiculously long routes seeking out people one at a time, and as he does so he forms ideas on how to improve his methods. Motor cars come, and at first prove too unreliable, and Flynn begins to imagine a network of hospitals, or nurse care homes throughout the outback.

He is man to take hold of an idea, and works at it. He is a long-term planner. He spreads his ideas and gains support, and slowly he gathers up donations and can finance a first nurse home. It is immediately successful - providing care to a relatively small number of people over a large distance, who would otherwise perish, go without treatment, or travel many hundreds, if not thousands of miles.

From there, Flynn raises more capital, and as he criss-crosses the outback he assesses other locations for nurse homes. These are still remote places, and the nurses who work here (initially alone, but later they are paired up so that one may remain to look after the patients when the other is called on to travel out to help someone) are incredibly tough and resilient, enduring many hardships that can only be imagined today.

Over the years, Flynn made a network of contacts, many in high places. He was clearly a people-person, able to communicate in a way that shared his visions, his ideas and his enthusiasm. He could deliver a sermon to miners, chat around a campfire with a loner who avoids company at any cost, or seek money from politicians or big business. Idriess' narrative shows he was very capable of each.

As his nurse homes evolve, he begins to think bigger. The overland telegraph gives a line of communication, but is too restrictive. He dreams of radio communication, where a station or a small town could have a transmitter and receiver, to communicate with the nurse homes, and with doctors in hospital bases. He sows the seeds, and a team work to develop it. There are many failures and they start out large - one of the prototype was developed in a car, and there was barely space for the driver. Flynn himself took it out to trial, and it failed on all counts. A ‘successful failure' he called it, suggesting they had learned a lot. And so back to try something different.

Eventually he recognised that time and distance were such that building more nurse homes was not going the bridge the gaps in his network. Motor vehicles were becoming more accessible, and now Flynn considered planes. A Plane with a pilot and a doctor. Australia's first airline Qantas was not even formed when he started sowing the seeds on this idea. Those who didn't know Flynn well wrote off the idea, but as usual Flynn worked away at it quietly. Qantas came, and rolled out air travel, in a small way, and Flynn watched and learned. He rallied the support of many in the outback, but equally as important many in the cities, in government and in business, and of course the medical fraternity. He finds funding for a trial, and the worlds first air ambulance service is set up in Queensland, and gain is an unmitigated success. As the book ends, Flynn is explaining the roll-out he has planned (which did, of course happen).

Idriess writes an engaging book. Surrounding the story of Flynn (for this is essentially a biography), we read example after example of people in trouble, or things that have gone wrong, or situations where help was needed. Flynn, or one of the nurses, or another person assists, or, often there is nobody there to help. The are stories of miraculous survivals, and of sad loss. These stories are a paragraph, or perhaps a page, but they all contribute to the context of the story, and give the reason Flynn was so motivated to deliver.

A couple of quotes, which took my fancy.

P.120
Often no one knew where he was. He just disappeared to turn up months later, perhaps in the heart of Australia, perhaps in the farthest north, maybe the farthest west. He would reappear next in Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, no one knew where, to perhaps vanish straight away again in the silence of the centre.When he did reappear in the Sydney office he carried that winning smile of his, that softly spoken word and a head full of data and the strangest plans that, yet, had to be sorted and worked out to the minutest detail. The Board gave up all attempts at scolding. What was the use? When Flynn, all in his own good time, was ready with his very latest plan, they listened quietly...
P.188
The chief surveyor asked him [an Aboriginal guide] to show them the highest point the flood-waters ever reached.“up longa this way!” relied Jacky, and led the party up the almost inaccessible mountain.“By jove,” said a linesman as they scrambled ever higher up, “ I don't believe the waters ever reached this height.”“yeh! One fella time him did!” assured jacky.“Did you see it?”“No, boss, but I been told.”“Whoever told you that damned lie?”“That what I bin think!”“Well, who told you?”“Missionary. He been tellum us feller flood one time cover hills altogether. Drown him man, drown him wallaby, drown him emu, drown him everything.”

Well, I have written more than I intended.
4 stars.