All my reading for
pleasure seems to be based around the people of the Centre. At the moment I’m reading a biography of John
Flynn – ‘John Flynn – Apostle to the Inland’ by W. Scott McPheat. (See previous post about the Royal Flying
Doctor Service)
The biography mentions
a book written by Robert Bruce Plowman one of the early Patrol Padres -
Presbyterian ministers who did their best to looked after the white folk in the
remote areas. In the style of John
Flynn, this care extended to medical, dental, labouring, letter-writing, and
spiritual – sometimes even church services.
Plowman was told to “Get a pipe
and learn to smoke. It will be a good introduction to bush folk.”
Around 1913 Plowman’s
beat ‘was a parallelogram extending roughly 400 miles north and south of Alice
Springs, and 150 miles east and west. In
an area larger than that of the British Isles, the white population numbered
400.’(p. 73) The current population of
Alice Springs is 28,000.
Plowman wrote three
novels, one of which was published in 1932 entitled ‘The Man from
Oodnadatta’. I was particularly
impressed by the words quoted from the Foreward of that book, written by
Professor Walter Murdoch:
Our capital cities are mostly plagiarisms. If there is anything
distinctively Australian, in nature or in human nature, to find it you will
have to leave the city and wander in the outback. If you shrink from wandering there in the
literal sense – an enterprise not wholly free from inconveniences – you can at
least wander there in imagination, companioned by the padre whose simple record
lies before you.’
(McPheat
p. 75)
Isn’t the first
sentence brilliant! I believe this whole
observation is as relevant today as it was 80 years ago. I’m privileged to be able to do my own
wandering. If you don’t get to make the journey yourself, I’ll do my best to be
your distant companion.
Now my challenge is to see if I can track down
a copy of ‘The Man from Oodnadatta’ to add to my reading list!
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