The Flying Doctors

Synopsis

Tom Callaghan, a young, ambitious city doctor, joins the Royal Fling Doctor Service on missions to the homesteads, stock stations and mining camps of outback Australia. His arrival at remote Coopers Crossing coincides with the return to the district of Beth Drever, an Australian who married an American soldier, and her daughter Liz, a New York advertising photographer. Beth has returned to her home country to make crucial decisions about her future and that of the family homestead and sheep station, Corindabella. Liz, a witty and sophisticated New Yorker - the “golden spitfire” - believes her mother’s home country…parched and sweltering outback Australia…is hell on earth.

Callaghan teams with Doctor Harry Sinclair, a veteran practitioner with the RFDS, who is in ill-health, close to retirement which is not welcomed by the folk at Coopers Crossing. They hold the old doctor in esteem and affection. Not so with Callaghan. The people out-back say the city doctor is too young, inexperienced, too outspoken and too smart ever to become one of them. Their minds are set when Callaghan’s first patient dies. It is in this setting - alien to them both - that the dedicated Australian Doctor, Callaghan, and the driving American career woman, Liz Drever, become irresistibly drawn together…surviving a spectacular introduction at an RFDS emergency landing.

Coopers Crossing is populated with the colourful characters who adorn Australia’s outback…their loyalties tested at every turn of the story as Callaghan and Sinclair go about their work, often perilously, of healing…and protecting the RFDS base itself from political closure. For Coopers Crossing is home to the men and women of the Royal Flying Doctors Service. Callaghan, Sinclair, Nurse Kate Wellings and Andy McGregor, the pilot who will fly over, under or around any weather to make a house call. For Callaghan and Liz, it determines their lives apart…or together.

Cast

TOM CALLAGHAN … Andrew McFarlane
LIZ DREVER … Lorna Patterson
HARRY SINCLAIR … Keith Eden
BETH DREVER … Vikki Hammond
DUSTY MILLER … Bill Hunter
JEAN HENNESSEY … Monica Maughan
ANDY McGREGOR … Steve Bisley
GEORGE BAXTER … Bruce Barry
VERN DANIELS … Fredric Abbott
ROSEMARY DANIELS … Maureen Edwards
KATE WELLINGS … Lenore Smith
JOE FORREST … Gil Tucker
PAULINE McGREGOR … Carole Yelland
RHONDA LOVEJOY … Jacqui Gordon
VIOLET CARNEGIE … Pat Evison
HURTLE … Max Cullen
VIC BUCKLEY … Maurie Fields
NANCY BUCKLEY … Val Jellay
DIANA DANIELS … Linda Hartley
LUCY DANIELS … Simone Buchanan

SUPPORT CAST:
BILL HENNESSEY … Barry Donnelly
YOUNG DOUG … Stefan Dennis
DR FRANK TURNER … John Frawley
MATRON INGRID FISCHER … Carmel Millhouse
RUSSO … Peter Finlay
TIGE … Keir Saltmarsh
PAMELA STONEHAM … Catherine Wilkin
KEN STONEHAM … Bill Pearson
SGT JACK CARRUTHERS … Terry Gil
PHILLIP NANGARI … Steve Dodd
RON THE ROUGHNECK … Mark Little
RAY WILLIAMS … Nick Waters
TIM HENNESSEY … Matthew Apps
PETER HENNESSEY … Alex Duke
BOBBY (ABORIGINAL) … Daniel Mitchell
SALLY HENNESSEY … Michaela Abay
GREG HENNESSEY … Tim Nelson
HOSTESS … Jane McNamara
FREDA … Kati Edwards
GLADYS … Pamela Morrissey
CLARRY … Neville Thurgood
BILL … Tony Allison
CLEM … Jim Ewing
JACKO … Vern Weaver
CLIFF … Harry Stapleton
MRS WATSON … Diana Mann
JUDY WATSON … Melony Hymen
MARGARET BUCKLEY … Jody Yemm
ALF … Sydney Jackson
RONNIE … John Armstrong
PETE WILSON … Leo Taylor
TED FOSTER … Ed Thurley
GARY FOSTER … Glennen Faye
RED JACKSON … Doug Bowles
CHARLIE THE POSTMAN … Cliff Ellen
PENNY … Maroochey Barambah
FRAN … Debra-Lee Furness
MICHAEL … John O’May
HARVEY … Col Salvaris
MISS CHARTERS TOWERS … Desiree Smith
MISS BOULIA … May Sojnovics
PAM AM ASSISTANT … Mirrin Lee

Production

6 hour mini-series produced in 1984 (2 hours x 3)
Executive Producers: Hector Crawford, Ian Crawford & Terry Stapleton
Producers: Charles Tingwell & Graham Moore
Associate Producer: Mike Lake
Director: Pino Amenta
Writers: Terry Stapleton & Vince Moran

Filmed on location at Nulla Station in the far west of New South Wales, Minyip in the wheatlands of north-west Victoria & Mundi Mundi Plains on the South Australian border beyond Broken Hill