A Beautiful Sunset
My novel A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET is an integral part of the campaign to have Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation voted into law in the Queensland Parliament in mid-September this year and soon afterwards in New South Wales.
This powerful review of it has been written by Paul Inglis, an influential leader within the Uniting Church.
Please send it on to your local MP and ask him or her to vote YES, then click here to buy and enjoy the book yourself.
Book Review: A Beautiful Sunset by Everald Compton
A novel about the final curtain call of life. Echo Books, 2021.
Everald Compton’s passionate advocacy for Voluntary Assisted Dying (voluntary euthanasia) shines in this respectfully compelling narrative based on the lives of four people who have the same doctor. In a carefully crafted and authentic set of vignettes the author manages to touch on and carefully handle many of the moral dilemmas confronting people who have learnt of their imminent death. He has chosen the vehicle of a novel to present the case for VAD. This works very well as the experiences of VAD are unique. By placing them in the context of a close portrayal of each person’s intimate thoughts and relationships, he manages to capture some of their incredible psychological journeys through highs and lows. It is a story of the triumph of life over death.
For those reading this book who might have been given notice of their pending death, it might help them to look death in the face and turn from fear and despair to calm anticipation. For the rest of us it will help us to re-appraise death in positive and real terms and that cannot be a bad thing.
Despite the inherent sadness of a termination of life, the stories are written in a way that raises our anticipation for the ‘event’ and how it will be handled. It is this culminating event that brings out the best and worst in the characters in
the stories. Relationships evolve and change. Lessons are learnt and many surprises eventuate.
Along the way many tensions arise within families, partnerships, colleagues, and faith perspectives. There are also the dual conflicts of self-pity and goal setting as each person considers their situation. The significance of a trusted, thoughtful and compassionate doctor, families, good listeners and a willingness to share opinions and counter the negative aspects, all contribute to the empowerment of someone who has learnt that they are losing control
of their destiny.
Compton has clearly drawn on situations he has witnessed as the stories are models of human existence themselves. He also brings into focus the different views that people hold about God or no God. He manages to address many of
the issues raised by believers in eternity, atheists and agnostics. For the author, bad religion can make dying miserable and he uses the ultimate example of Jesus making a deliberate choice to go to his death to illustrate the integrity of VAD.
Within the narrative are clear concise and transparent descriptions of situations and people. The stories give balance to the many arguments for and against VAD and how in many ways we have failed the older generation in the provision of quality of life and concern for their dignity at the end. The emphasis is on the ‘voluntary’ nature of VAD and the importance of those who are mentally and rationally able to have the final say about their life.
It is very likely that we will at some time know of someone who is dying, and this very sensitive and critical subject may emerge for us. We may even consider VAD at some stage. I recommend a reading of this book as the stories in it are ultimately our own.
Dr Paul Inglis, Group Moderator UCFORUM
http://www.ucforum.unitingchurch.org.au
Chairperson, Progressive Christian Network Qld.
https://www.facebook.com/pcnqld
The Man on the Twenty Dollar Notes
In his book titled “The Man on the Twenty Dollar Notes”, Everald Compton does a great justice to a man to whom the nation owes so much – John Flynn known as “Flynn of the Inland”.
Read this review by Greg Cary – renowned and popular broadcaster, writer and publisher.
Book review by Columnist for The Australian – Ross Fitzgerald (Published in The Weekend Australian, July 2016)
Decades ago, when I was a student at Melbourne High School, I was entranced by reading a battered biography of John Flynn, founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. First published in 1932, Flynn of the Inland was written by that vastly underrated Australian writer, Ion Idriess.
Now, 84 years and eight books about him later, yet another biography of Flynn, who was born at Moliagul, central Victoria in 1880, has seen the light of day. Self-published by veteran author Everald Compton, this is a peculiar but fascinating book.
Blessed with a catchy title, The Man on the Twenty Dollar Notes, the book reveals that as well as creating the RFDS, in partnership with legendary aviator Hudson Fysh, Flynn helped found the School of the Air, pioneered the pedal-powered radio and built numerous bush hospitals throughout inland and remote Australia for the Australian Inland Mission.
Compton regards Flynn as a prime example of muscular Christianity and of faith in action. Indeed, as he notes, in 1912 Flynn — an ordained minister — was commissioned by the Presbyterian Church of Australia to create what it termed “a mantle of safety” across what was then for many non-indigenous people an extremely lonely continent.
In this clearly produced and well documented book, Compton confesses that he has been a huge fan of Flynn since he first learned about his exploits at bush Sunday schools in the mid-1930s.
Yet The Man on the Twenty Dollar Notes is not an easy book to read or to understand.
Even though Compton claims, I suspect in the main rightly, that his tale is based on the known facts of Flynn’s life, the copious dialogue in the book is what he thinks would or could have occurred at the time, given what he says is his knowledge of Flynn’s “unforgettable personality”.
To take another example, the sermon in the book that Flynn “delivers” at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Brisbane is not the one he in fact delivered there shortly before his death in 1951. Instead, Compton admits, it is “an amalgam of words” based on selected themes from speeches Flynn made across many years, including some of the words that he actually spoke that evening.
While most of the characters in this book are real people with whom Flynn is known to have lived and worked, others are invented. These include a young volunteer nurse Flynn “meets” just before his death and a handful of pilgrims who, decades after his death, relive and review Flynn’s life of service to others. The role of these made-up characters Compton endeavours to explain in a postscript, not altogether successfully.
One of the many pluses in this biography is how Compton documents and explores how Flynn’s successes were based on partnerships, not just with Fysh and Alfred Traeger — with whom he created a pedal radio that connected the bush with the wider world — but with the ‘‘cattle king’’ of inland Australia, Sidney Kidman, and also with leading politicians.
The latter included Country Party leader Arthur Fadden, who was famously prime minister for 40 days and 40 nights in 1941.
Flynn also worked well with Liberal PM Robert Menzies, who publicly mourned his death, and especially with the ALP’s Jim Scullin, a devout Catholic who regarded the pioneering Presbyterian doctor as a mate.
From time to time Flynn also co-operated with Labor’s Ben Chifley and even with the notorious political turncoat WM “Billy” Hughes.
Even though I remain a committed atheist, it is hard to disagree with Compton when he concludes that Flynn leaves a great legacy and a fine example to modern Christianity, which so often continues to struggle with a crisis of belief.
But ultimately this is not a book about religion. It is based on what its erudite author calls “a power beyond ourselves” that manifested itself in Flynn’s life of service to others. This force or power Compton vividly describes in a non-religious way. He regards it as being deeply relevant to our secular society in the 21st century.
It seems to me that Compton’s creation is a vintage and authentic Reverend Dr John Flynn who, according to this well-written book, seldom preached but simply yarned with the diverse men and women he met along the way, including members of his many congregations.
Ross Fitzgerald is emeritus professor of history and politics at Griffith University.
The Man on the Twenty Dollar Notes: Flynn of the Inland
By Everald Compton
The Man on the Twenty Dollar Notes: Book Review by Sarah Hudson of The Weekly Times 14 July, 2016
JOHN Flynn was a Presbyterian minister who founded what became the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the world’s first air ambulance.
His story is legend in our national history, with books dedicated to the man and his mission.
Author Everald Compton, however, believes few Australians are aware of the man who founded the RFDS and is memorialised on our $20 bills.
As such, he has penned this 250-page book to retell the story of Flynn of the Inland.
As Compton explains in the introduction, The Man on the Twenty Dollar Notes is not a biography, nor is it a novel.
“The tale is told through conversations that bring to life the fascinating relationships that Flynn had with great pioneering characters of the outback,” writes the 84-year-old Compton, a self-confessed Flynn fan since Sunday school in the 1930s.
“In reality, this book is my attempt to write an account of Flynn’s life in a way that I think he would have liked to have it told.”
As such, Compton has taken the possibly audacious step of writing a nonfiction novel, depicting Flynn and actual events woven together with fictitious conversations.
“The dialogue is what I reckon would have occurred in those circumstances because it is grounded in his being and the unforgettable personality he was,” he says.
It’s a style that takes some getting used to. If readers are comfortable then they — like Compton — will become a devotee of Flynn’s lifework.
Aside from the RFDS, Flynn, who died in 1951, pioneered the pedal radio, founded the school of the air, and built bush hospitals around rural Australia.
“I am also very aware that he made errors of judgment and I have highlighted them at the same time as recalling his quite staggering accomplishments,” says Compton.
The Brisbane author has also written books on fundraising and family history.
Book Review by Stephen Loosely on The Spectator Australia Newsletter – 6 August 2016
A Hero Recalled
In these times it seems that heroes are acclaimed readily and easily. A single television appearance coupled with a politically correct question elevates the newcomer to heroic status in the twitter universe. Only days later, it seems too often the case, a modest due diligence reveals our latest ‘hero’ actually has feet of clay.
But David Bowie was absolutely right in his Heroes album: it is possible to be a hero just for one day.
John Flynn, the subject of Everald Compton’s engaging new biography, The Man on the Twenty Dollar Notes: Flynn of the Inland was an authentic Australian hero, who bequeathed the nation a very great deal by virtue of good judgement, hard work and continuing sacrifice. Flynn is best remembered as the founder of the forerunners of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which has saved countless Australian lives through bringing medical care to the most remote corners of Outback Australia. However, this is but one of Flynn’s achievements, in a life seen as perhaps even more remarkable when viewed at a distance.
Born in Moliagul, Victoria in 1880, John Flynn developed an early affinity and affection for the Australian bush and its people. While in theological school, he worked on a shearer’s mission, resulting in the 1910 publication of his ground breaking Bushman’s Companion. Ordination in the Presbyterian Church followed and two comprehensive reports on the Northern Territory, on the needs of indigenous and settler communities, convinced the Church to appoint Reverend Flynn as superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission, founded also in the year of 1912.
With a handful of staff and a modest base at Oodnadatta, Flynn’s remarkable service began, eventually entering Australian folklore. Flynn and his organisation’s achievements would earn his team international acknowledgement. Most significantly, both Flynn’s reputation and legend endure to this day.
It is the legend which draws Everald Compton to his subject, as he intersperses the historical record of Flynn’s life with imagined conversations with other great and good Australians – from Prime Ministers to Presbyterian leaders; from figures in the landscape of our national identity like John Bradfield or Hudson Fysh to those dedicated men and women who built the AIM & the RFDS.
Compton’s metaphor is a train journey, with Flynn travelling back from a Church Conference in Adelaide to his home in Sydney. The train has been used by creative artists as different as Heinrich Boll or Alfred Hitchcock to Agatha Christie. It has direction and purpose, always contrasted with the possibility of surprise, as Compton understands, having Reverend Flynn meet Ben Chifley on a platform at Albury Railway Station, as the passengers disembark to change trains, courtesy of the interstate railway gauge lacking uniformity.
Everald Compton is a character of the Australian outback himself, having been inspired by Flynn’s story while attending bush Sunday Schools in the 1930s. Compton endorses Flynn’s practical Christian faith, getting things done while downplaying doctrinal imperatives. Compton admires Flynn as a great nation builder, and he too has sought to build railways and to see Bradfield’s vision of turning rivers inland to water the continent, finally realised.
And like Flynn, Compton knows the value of bipartisanship. Flynn counted ALP PM’s Scullin and Chifley among his friends, along with Queensland Premier Forgan Smith. But equally, PM’s Menzies, Hughes and Fadden were close to Flynn and supported his initiatives, to bring a mantle of safety to remote Australia.
Great strengths of this book lie in the tales describing how it all began. The best is the story of Jimmy Darcy, badly injured in a cattle stampede in the Kimberley and taken to Hall’s Creek where there was perhaps hope but no doctor. The year was 1917.
Hope rested with Fred Tuckett, the Halls Creek Postmaster, who was qualified in First Aid courtesy of St John’s Ambulance in Perth. His tutor had been a Dr Holland, whom Tuckett telegraphed for advice on what to do. After answering Holland’s questions, Tuckett was staggered by the response.
‘All the evidence makes me believe he has a ruptured bladder. You must operate immediately. I will send step by step instructions.’ Tuckett sank to his knees, his face wrapped in a look of sheer agony. He reluctantly rose so he could send a message back to Holland. ‘I am only a first-aid man and have never done an operation in my life. I will kill him.’
‘If you don’t operate he will die. This way you give him a chance,’ Holland pleaded. ‘I have no scalpel.’ ‘Use a pen knife.’ ‘The patient will have to stay awake.’ ‘May God help me?’. ‘He will.’
The whole country followed Jimmy Darcy’s agonising struggle, courtesy of repeater stations and newspaper bulletins. The need for a flying doctor service was beyond argument.
And Reverend Flynn knew how this might be achieved, for a young lieutenant in the Australian Flying Corps, Clifford Peel, en route to Europe during the Great War, had written to him, outlining how it could be done. Tragically, Peel was killed in action, but he left a bequest for the service and he was an inspiration to Flynn.
So too was Mrs Jeannie Gunn, author of We of the Never Never, who drew Flynn’s attention to the problem of isolation in the outback. Again, couple Flynn’s drive with Alfred Traeger’s insatiable curiosity and inventiveness with radio, and the ‘community of the air’ was born.
At times, it is difficult to discern where Flynn ends and Compton begins, so closely aligned are the famous Reverend and the Presbyterian Elder. At times, too, the dialogue is a little stilted, while nonetheless conveying meaning.
Nonetheless this is a very good book, reminding every Australian of just how tough life in the Outback was, and still can be, and of the need for a voice for those Australians far from urban comforts.
One of Flynn’s critics, Charles Duguid, consistently argued that Flynn’s Mission had neglected indigenous Australians but the evidence strongly suggests otherwise. Flynn was no saint and Compton does not suggest so. But he was justly deserving of Ion Idriess’s famous description; Flynn of the Inland.
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