The Royal Flying Doctor Service

A tv serial??

• Maybe you know the Australian tv-serial The Flying Doctors about the people and the doctors in Coopers Crossing.

• This serial has made the real Royal Flying doctors famous all over the world

John Flynn

• The real Royal Flying Doctor Service was founded by John Flynn

• John Flynn was a presbyterian minister

• He moved to the outback in 1911

Problems

Life in the outback was dangerous, hard and lonely

People needed:• contact with other people• education• medical service

Contact and education

• Flynn found pen-friends in the cities for the lonely people in the outback

• Flynn wrote a book called The Bushman’s Companion – with information and advice for people in the outback

• He collected books and newspapers in the cities for the outback people

Patrolling Padres and nurses

Flynn sent out: Patrolling padres• ministers, who visited

isolated places on horseback or camels.

Nurses• He also set up more

than 10 nursing centres in the bush

Clifford Peel

• A young medical student and pilot in the army gave John Flyn the idea of using aircraft

Alfred Traeger

• Alfred Traeger invented a radio driven by a pedal generator so people could communicate over long distances and call a doctor

Jimmy Darcy

• To raise money, John Flynn told the story of Jimme Darcy – a young stockman who died a terrible death because he couldn’t get at doctor.

H.V. McKay

• The factory owner H.V. McKay, who invented the Sunshine Harvester left Flynn a big sum of money in his will

1928

• The first flight was in 1928

1934

• In 1934 the Flying Doctor Service became an independent organisation seperate from the Presbyterian Church

Television serial

• A television serial about the Royal Flying Doctors was made in 1984

Television serial

• The service became famous all over the world because of a new and longer serial about the doctors and the people in a small outback town – Coopers Crossing