Everything you always wanted to know about The Flying Doctors. Dedicated to Lenore Smith and Christopher Stollery.
 

About the show

When was Flying Doctors filmed?

The Flying Doctors started as a mini series of six episodes in 1984. It was produced by Crawford, Australia. The mini series were such a success that Crawford decided to make a television show of The Flying Doctors. The series were produced from 1985 till 1991 and 221 episodes were made. It was broadcast all over the world during that time and many years later and still some countries show reruns of the series. After 1991 a spin-off of 13 episodes was made called RFDS with mostly new cast members, but this wasn't a success. The spin-off was never broadcast in the Netherlands, but I think that without the regular cast as Robert Grubb and Lenore Smith, it was too hard a job to create a simular success with this spin-off as with the real series!

What were the series about?

The mini series were about a young doctor Tom Callaghan, and the problems he has to face when he started working with the flying doctors. This is what Crawford themselves say about it (for Crawford's site, see Links):

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.

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 north-west Victoria & Mundi Mundi Plains on the South Australian border beyond Broken Hill.

The series The Flying Doctors were about all sorts of problems the flying doctors came across. There usually was a guest actor who had a disease, a problem or something else and the Flying Doctors came to the rescue. There were also longer story lines like the romance and wedding of sister Kate Wellings and doctor Geoff Standish. Every episode had some drama and some humour. It was never too bloody but it was never too predictable either. The actors who played in the series were no super models or fake persons like some actors in American series are sometimes (I think). I think this was a great credit to the success of the series.
Unfortunately the last season of the series was a bit different from the rest. It was more of a soap opera: there were almost no patients, just the regular actors and their personal problems. I think the best episodes were made in the beginning and the nicest ones were around the wedding of Geoff and Kate!

Where was Flying Doctors filmed?

In the series the small town in which it all took place, is called Coopers Crossing. This place doesn't exist. The town they used as a set is called Minyip which is situated three hours driving northwest of Melbourne. At first the people of Minyip didn't like the idea of becoming a set for a television series, but as the series turned out to be a success, they learned to live with it and even enjoyed it as nowadays the road sign to the town says both "Minyip" and "Coopers Crossing: home of The Flying Doctors"!
All scenes in the pub, in Geoff and Kate's house and inside, are filmed in the studios of Crawford in Box Hill, near Melbourne. The airport scenes are shot at the RFDS base in Point Cook, Victoria and the scenes inside the hospital were shot in a RFDS base in Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Cast Mini Series

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

Cast The Flying Doctors

Doctors

Dr. Harry Sinclair ... Keith Eden
Dr. Tom Callaghan ... Andrew McFarlane
Dr. Frank Turner
Dr. Chris Randall ... Liz Burch
Dr. Geoffrey Standish ... Robert Grubb
Dr. David Ratcliffe ... Brett Climo
Dr. Magda Heller ... Melita Jurisic
Dr. Guy Reid ... David Reyne
Dr. Rowie Lang ... Sarah Chadwick

Nurses

Kate Standish ... Lenore Smith
Annie Rogers ... Tammy McIntosh
Jackie Crane ... Nikki Coghill

Pilots

David Gibson ... Lewis Fitz-Gerald
Sam Patterson ... Peter O'Brien
Johnno Johnson ... Christopher Stollery
Debbie O'Brien ... Louise Siversen
Gerry O'Neill ... Justin Gaffney

Radio Operators

Sharon Herbert ... Kylie Belling
Joe Forrester
DJ ... George Kapiniaris
Clare Bryant ... Beverley Dunn

Other staff

Paula Patterson ... Vikki Blanche
Penny Wellings ... Sophie Lee

Mechanics

Hurtle Morrison ... Max Cullen
Ron Miller ... Mark Neal
Emma Patterson ... Rebecca Gibney
Marty Jarvis ... Mark Little
Nick Cardaci ... Alex Papps
Steve McCauley ... Paul Kelman

Pub Owners

Vic Buckley ... †Maurie Fields
Nancy Buckley ... Val Jellay

Shop Owners

Violet Carnegie ... Pat Evison
Maggie Hutton
Luke Mitchell ... Gerard Kennedy

Other people

Sgt. Jack Carruthers ... Terry Gill
Father Jacko Jackson
George Baxter ... Bruce Barry
Dougie

Cast RFDS

Vic Buckley ... †Maurie Fields
Nancy Buckley ... Val Jellay
Penny Wellings ... Sophie Lee
Dr. Jim Solomon ... Steve Jacobs
Laura Regan ... Belinda Davey
Dr. Sebert Blitho ... Lewis Fits-Gerald
Dr. Sissy Wetherall ... Elaine Smith
Dennis Taylor ... Peter Phelps
Rebecca Owens ... Simone Buchanan
Leanne Cassidy ... Lydia Miller
Ted Eastman ... Kevin J. Wilson
Blades ... Justin Connor
Jesse Solomon ... Simon Gray
Zoe Solomon ... Marieke Hardy
Cowboy ... Julian Branagan

Picture


Maurie and Val

Nikki and Brett

Robert