An outback bite at Non-Fiction Literary Festival

The horse reared and the drover’s knife slipped from the saddlebag and cut a long, deep gash in the drover’s leg. He was a long, long way from help in outback northern New South Wales. A tough, nuggety young chap, he refused to go to the doctor in Bourke. But he was eventually persuaded to be seen by the patrolling Methodist Sisters. So they set up a clinic in the Collerina Post Office - a long distance north-east of Bourke.   

The young Queensland drover’s leg was smooth as silk and tough as leather from his years of growing up in the saddle. Not a hair to be seen on the insides of his legs. But when Sister Marj Wilkinson and her then colleague, Sister Winnie Bowmer, tried to suture the gash, their delicate suture needles broke. One by one, until Marj asked for a sewing needle. The drover was so tough, he never even winced.  

The postmaster’s wife hurried away and came back with her curved darning needles, which Marj and Winnie boiled (to sterilise). But the darning needles also snapped on the leathery leg. Then the postmaster got an idea and went out to a shed. He came back with a huge upholstery needle. That one did the trick! 

That nursing emergency occurred in the long 1940s drought, when sheep and cattle were droved thousands of miles from dry pastures of inland Queensland and New South Wales down south to the fertile pastures in rain-happy Victoria.  This drover’s accident occurred on one such droving muster. 

Author Stephanie Somerville recalled this account as one of the favourite stories that Sister Marj Wilkinson liked to tell when she entertained audiences after the publication of her biography. Stephanie was honoured to be invited to speak about Angels of Augustus at ‘Reality Bites’ non-fiction literary festival in Cooroy last Sunday – after the grief of losing Marj it seemed all the more special, like being a torch-bearer. 

Our very own much-loved Marj Wilkinson Somerville would have wanted to be there herself – as she loved public speaking and she entertained her audiences so delightfully - but she must have been looking in from heaven with her blessing all the same.   

Light drizzling rain set the scene for a quiet Cooroy on the Sunday afternoon as events across Noosaville and Cooroy were wound up for the first weekend.

There’ll be a second weekend that includes two workshops and a much-anticipated pitching clinic – with a panel comprising a former literary agent, a film producer, a non-fiction publisher from uqp and the theatre guru of zeal theatre. I wonder how many authors will pitch and what will result from it.

This is the third year for Reality Bites – a non-fiction literary festival on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast hinterland. It is a treat – with a wide range of authors and topics to please and inform all sorts of people. 

Author and speaker biogs: 

http://realitybites3.blogspot.com/search/label/the%20authors

The truth about us section:  http://realitybites3.blogspot.com/search/label/the%20truth%20about%20us

 

Author Stephanie Somerville by Noosa River, QLD

Marj Wilkinson Somerville tells it like it was.

Illness and grief are like the fangs of a beast – and thus are some terrible hardships that we go through. We have lost Marj – our hearts are torn open. Our pioneer nurse of the 1940s, Marj, really loved life and her biography and talking to people about her nursing adventures.

What sadly turned out to be her last talk was to a full courtyard at Possums Books & Coffee, at Cooroy, in the Noosa hinterland, on 11 July 2009. Afterward, one of the audience people sent her a CD of school songs from the 1950s Methodist Ladies College, Burwood, school choir. Marj enjoyed putting on her PC headphones to listen to the choir. She was a great people person - and it took insight to really unerstand the layers of her love for others.

She also loved the interaction with her audiences and their feedback. Marj was really tickled to see the local newspaper, the Cooroy Rag, head the column about her talk as “Marj tells it like it was!”

Yes, she could do that well. A gifted public speaker and a sage and wise, gentle and noble woman.     

Sadly, Marj died on 30 September 2009 in Buderim Private Hospital – and we have lost a living treasure. It’s hard to accept she is gone and she won’t come wheeling by in her wheelchair, smiling, letting her beautiful blue eyes sparkle as you wait for whatever message she planned to tell you next. She was the pulse in the veins of all who loved her.  

Marj was the last of the two 1945 pioneering nurses of the MNS. She now graces our new-look header.

WHO ARE ‘MARJ AND ETHEL’?

Pioneers of the Methodist Nursing Services - a free service for people of 'any class, colour or creed' - was established by these pioneer nurses, Ethel Helyar and Marjorie Wilkinson, in March 1946, in outback Australia.

MARJ SPEAKS OF TIM, from the Bre Wool Scour

Sister Marjorie Wilkinson Somerville made Tim the subject of her recent speaking engagement ,when she talked about her hey-day in the Australian outback. Tim (as written about in Angels of Augustus)was the little 7-year-old boy whom she and Sister Ethel came upon at the wool scour out of Brewarrina, in 1947. It was a dark, cold night and Tim’s aunt had died in the derelict wool scour building.

As usual, Marjorie kept the people focused and interested during her talk to the people at Noosa Coastal Uniting Cafe Church. The solitariness of her wheelchair belies the strong courage of the pioneer nurse, now 88 years of age.  

Tim still haunts Marjorie’s memory — the ambulance headlights had picked him out as the nurses drove into the compound and Tim looked so folorn as he stood there alone, in a man’s hat and coat. 

Marj is still on the lookout for news of what became of Tim after he moved to the Newtown region of Sydney in 1947 with his uncle, Mr Barney.     SRS

PIONEER NURSES CHIN WAG TOGETHER

Delightful ocean views from Olive and Ed’s beachside apartment are far, far removed from the dry, dusty conditions of outback Brewarrina, an arid inland region still so familar to Outback pioneer nurse, Sister Marjorie Wilkinson Somerville.

Before the rolling waves of the Gold Coast, laughs and memories were in high demand as Marjorie and Sister Olive Crombie Smith, pioneer of the Queensland Blue Nurses, re-united again in January and February 2009 for a bit of chin wagging and get togethers.

Their stories unfolded over many hours and cups of tea, on what they had accomplished for community nursing, and their experiences are to be recorded in the upcoming sequel to Angels of Augustus, a draft book in its early stages.  

                                       written by Jackie D’Bras, ELK & ICE BOOKS

Nancy Bird Walton at book launch

Did you know that pioneer pilot, Nancy Bird Walton, was a good support for author, Stephanie Somerville, when her biography first started to take off.

Nancy Bird kindly offered to be a guest speaker at one of the book launches. With the support of the Australian Women Pilots Association (AWPA) in March 2007, our fourth book launch for Angels of Augustus was set in a gorgeous Mudgee vineyards, in the cellar of a winery, to a packed house of aviation enthusiasts, listening to Nancy giving accolades to the pioneering spirit of the outback nurses. 

Nancy had fond memories of landing on the grass airstrip of Brewarrina when she was a pioneer herself, flying for the Far West Children’s Health Scheme in the 1930s.   

Stephanie Somerville responded with a moving speech about the impact Nancy Bird had made on her life many years ago soon after the death of her brother.

We sadly acknowledge the passing of Nancy Bird Walton and watched tearfully her memorial service at St Andrews Cathedral, Sydney, today.  Somehow, Nancy does not seem so far away. She is forever in the hearts and thoughts of the many people she inspired. JDB

Angels met in Brisbane

Since publishing Angels of Augustus by Stephanie Somerville, the surviving pioneer nurse, Sister Marjorie Wilkinson Somerville (who pioneered the Methodist Nursing Services in the Australian outback in 1946) has been delighted to meet fellow pioneer nurse, Sister Olive Crombie Smith. They met in March 2008, in Brisbane, after Marjorie moved to Queensland a few months earlier.

They struck up a lovely friendship immediately. Olive was thrilled to meet Marjorie, because she adapted Marj’s Newtown model to pioneer the Queensland Blue Nurses in 1953.

Marketing Angels of Augustus

Angels of Augustus has been professionally edited and marketed (part time) by our marketing manager, Jackie D’Bras. When she’s not surfing or enjoying a Thai beef salad, she’s on the phone for Angels of Augustus!

Angels of Augustus book

We’ve had great sales of Angels of Augustus by Stephanie Somerville to date when we were warned by a few big corporate publishers that books on nurses don’t sell in Australia — yet, mainly by word of mouth, we’ve watched nearly 2000 copies get sold in Australia which is great for an Australian biography about pioneering nurses. Huh-huh (cough) and so we attribute this pleasing success to the fine skills of Noosa author, Stephanie Somerville. Oh, that’s a bit of tongue in cheek – but it has been great to write and sell and book about 1940s outback nurses to an Australian audience when the big guys said we’d never do it.

All of those 2000 copies were autographed by the surviving pioneer nurse, 88-year-old Marjorie (Marj) Wilkinson Somerville. She simply loves her biography and is very, very proud of having made publication – a long wait for her, but worth it.