Bonzer Words!: The Sugar Bird Lady
...Robin approached the Western Australian Department of Health for permission to carry out a vaccination program in the North and North West of the state. Permission granted, she borrowed money and bought a Cessna 182. On 22 May 1967 she boarded her plane and headed out alone to the remote areas of the state to hand out her sugar cubes...
Paula Wilson tells the astonishing and inspirational story of flying nurse Robin Wilson.
When Robin Miller’s red and white Cessna circled an isolated settlement preparing to land, Aboriginal children would gather calling out that 'The sugar bird lady' had come. She stepped down from her plane on a mission to eradicate polio from Australia.
Robin arrived armed with sugar cubes containing the oral Sabin vaccine. This vaccine replaced the Salk vaccination for immunisation against polio in 1967. The development of the Salk vaccine had been essential in the fight against a disease that affects the nervous system. In Australia alone between 20 000 and 40 000 people contracted polio from the 1930s to the 1960s.
With the introduction of the oral Sabin a mass immunisation campaign began. The size of Australia with many isolated communities meant that it was not going to be an easy task. Step in Robin Miller.
Robin, a triple-certificated nurse, was also a very competent pilot. Her father, Captain Horrie Miller had been instrumental in cultivating her passion for flying. She obtained both her private pilot’s and commercial flying licences while training as a nurse.
Robin approached the Western Australian Department of Health for permission to carry out a vaccination program in the North and North West of the state. Permission granted, she borrowed money and bought a Cessna 182. On 22 May 1967 she boarded her plane and headed out alone to the remote areas of the state to hand out her sugar cubes.
Two and a half years later and the program completed Robin had clocked up 69,200 km and administered over 37 000 doses of vaccine. During this time she made a couple of overseas flying trips. The first as co-pilot with her future husband Dr Harold Dicks to fly a Beechcraft Baron from California to Perth for the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS). She would eventually bring back nine planes to Australia for the RFDS. In 1968 she also flew a single-engine Horizon on her own from Paris to Perth.
Robin was an accomplished pilot and in 1969 her flying skills were recognised when she was awarded a diploma of merit by the Associazione Nazionale Infermieri, Italy, followed by the Nancy Bird (Walton) award as Australia’s woman pilot of the year for 1970.
With the polio immunisation program completed Robin began flying for the RFDS. She replaced her Cessna with a Mooney Mark 21 and obtained her first-class instrument rating.
Constantly on call she went out in all types of weather to many kinds of emergencies, often alone and in dangerous conditions. Her mother, author Dame Mary Durack, wrote in the foreword to the book Sugarbird Lady; 'Robin home after hair-raising trip with mentally deranged woman intent on throwing herself from the plane.' And 'Robin to Rottnest Island last night in bad storm to pick up sick baby.'
Robin recorded her adventures in the book Flying Nurse. Her husband compiled a sequel Sugarbird Lady from Robin’s diaries, notes and tape recordings after her death.
Robin married Harold Dicks on 4 April 1973. Later in that year she competed in the thrilling trans-American race for female pilots, the Powder Puff 'Derby', with Rosamary de Pierres.
In 1974 Robin found a lump on her thigh. It was cancerous and a lymphatic gland was removed. Within a month Robyn was back in the air with her husband, headed on a third Pacific flight. She had also crossed the Atlantic twice, the first time in 1970 when she realised her dream to fly over all the oceans in the world. These were not easy little trips but arduous adventures that took skill and courage. On one occasion despite freezing temperatures Robin and Harold fought the urge to turn on the plane’s heater just in case something might go wrong. Upon landing they discovered the petrol tank had been leaking and the heater was sitting in a pool of fuel. If they had turned it on they would have been blown out of the sky.
Robin’s cancer was inoperable but she refused to be grounded. She continued flying for the RFDS until the end of October 1975, and was answering emergency calls and organising medical flights up until two weeks before her death on 7 December 1975.
Robin was only thirty-five when she died. She single-handedly immunised a big chunk of the continent against polio, and clocked up many flying hours all across the world. Her courage and dedication was posthumously recognised when awarded the Paul Tissandier diploma by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale and the Brabazon cup by the Women Pilots’ Association of Great Britain.
© Paula Wilson
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Paula writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
