One Man’S Back-Yard

Few lives, even in the Australian Outback, can have been more purposeful than that of Father Frank Flynn, who has a Northern Territory parish bigger than many European countries.

STRICTLY speaking, Fr. Flynn is Regional Superior of the Sacred Heart Mission for the Darwin Diocese —having graduated to that after being parish priest at Darwin for 13 years.

But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the man is that he em braced the religious life comparative ly late and had already made his mark as an eye specialist and oph thalmic surgeon before he was ordained in 1942. He is probably unique, too, in that he served in the RAAF in the double capacity of Chaplain and Consultant Eye- Specialist.

Since 1946 he has worked in Australia’s north—for the aboriginal inhabitants no less enthusiastically than for the Europeans. This he has now described in a book called Northern Gateway, which he has written with the assistance of Darwin journalist, Keith Willey.

In informal style he discusses everything within his vast parish: Aboriginal lore; outback station life; the £2O million Ord River scheme which could bring a new dimension into European settlement in the North; or Arnhem Land bark painting that now has a vogue in the South.

To each he brings long experience, knowledge and a down-to-earth sense of humour which will appeal even to the irreligious who have no inter est in the work of Father Flynn’s church or any other.

Whatever his faith, or lack of it, it would be a poor specimen of humanity who could fail to be im pressed by the energy and far-reach ing interests of this one man, in whose life is no room for fashionable, mid-century feelings of futility.

Drawings are by Elizabeth Du rack; jacket by Susan Wright and photographs by Jack Mulligan. (NORTHERN GATEWAY. Published by F. P. Leonard, 156 Castlereagh Street, Sydney. 30/-.)

A line drawing from "Northern Gateway".