THE OUTBACK HISTORIAN
  • Home
  • About
  • Stories
  • Buy the Book
  • Contact
  • Australia's Invisible History

More Than Mills & Boon

3/29/2025

0 Comments

 
It’s amazing how a fragment of story can glitter when it’s brought into the light of day. The other day a friend sent me a coffee table book celebrating some amazing characters who’d been quietly serving the remote areas of Australia for a hundred years. Its title gives the game away, ‘Never Too Far, Never Too Few’ – it’s the story of a group humbly calling themselves ‘Bush Church Aid.’
 
It was launched at a time of crisis in Sydney in 1918 - the Spanish influenza pandemic was gripping the post-war world. Everywhere Australians were withdrawing into self-protection mode while some in the Anglican Church took this initiative to reach out to the forgotten people of the Bush.
 
The photo of a strong-featured face grabbed my attention. It was the image of a confident woman, upright and looking straight into the lens, full of conviction.  And the bones of her story say she was. With her good looks and a noble name like Madaline Rose Delacour de Labilliere, she could easily be the heroine of a Mills and Boon romance.
 
She was in fact a romantic, but a lady of a much more robust stamp than a paperback hero.
Picture
​Born in 1898 in Canada, college-educated in France, Switzerland and England, Madeline was
barely twenty when she trained as a driver for the Royal Air Force. She didn’t baulk at getting down and dirty - Madeline could service engines and ride a horse and was forthright in declaring she was at home with an axe, saw, spade or hammer. She was athletic - tennis, hockey, swimming, gymnastics were her games. She read novels and classics in her downtime.  
 
After the painful, destructive years of the Great War, the young teacher set her gifts to work, undaunted by driving a van across two to three thousand miles of lonely Canadian prairie. But it was more than mere adventure Madeline was seeking - she was energised by a higher calling. The faith she learned in her home, she publicly declared when baptised as a fifteen-year-old in Scotland.  This rector’s daughter was not drawn to a cloistered life, but a quest that would challenge her skills.
 
Madeline’s spirit showed when she wrote in her application to Bush Church Aid that what attracted her was ‘real pioneer work in the lonely parts of the Australian Bush’. Madeline had a passion to reach isolated families with the good news of Jesus., ‘When in Canada driving the van and visiting house to house with those great distances between, I had a great longing to be able to continue this manner of work when I arrived in Australia, if such a work existed, or even to start it if the way opened.  I found in many ways that I was very well suited to do this work on the prairies and that all my past experiences both in training at Ridgelands College and my outdoor work (with cars and horses) were of great value.’
 
During the tough years of the Great Depression, women scattered across back-country NSW in remote towns and isolated stations, welcomed the rumble of the BCA truck and the ready smile of the woman behind the wheel. Children anticipated the Bible stories and novelties that came as bright spots to break the routine of survival on the farm.  Workers and travellers along the road met with the same Christian kindness. It was not unusual to find Madeline with her head under the bonnet repairing the van or digging it out of a bog.
 
Some characters in the theatre only get a brief moment on stage. Apart from a few news clippings, the story of Madeline’s journeyings in the NSW Outback remains shrouded from sight. It would be intriguing to know more of her adventures.  These brief glimpses say she played more than a bit part in the epic of bringing the story of Jesus to life in the wider narrative of Australian spiritual life.

Footnote: 
​Since writing this blog, I came across this Facebook story of other courageous women doing something similar in the mountains of Kentucky during the Great Depression.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1EtCPinBnS/?mibextid=wwXIfr
​
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Join The Outback Historian, Paul Roe, on an unforgettable journey into Australia's Past as he follows the footprints of the Master Storyteller and uncovers unknown treasures of the nation.

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    April 2020

    Categories

    All
    Anzac Day
    Aviation
    Bourke
    Bushrangers
    Bush Services
    Business
    Cemetery Tours
    Christmas
    Colin Buchanan
    Concert
    Dubbo
    Education
    Entrepreneur
    Explorers
    For Schools
    History
    Immigration
    Indigenous
    Invention
    Leadership
    Listen
    Media
    Medical
    New Year
    Outback
    Pastoral Care
    Philanthropy
    Pilgrimage
    Politics
    Radio
    Read
    Social Services
    Sport
    Storytelling
    Sydney
    The Arts
    Watch
    Worldview

    RSS Feed

Picture
Sponsored by
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Multimedia Centre
Media Assets
Bourke and Beyond Book Resources
Picture
Copyright 2020 by The Outback Historian
Site powered by ABRACADABRA Learning
  • Home
  • About
  • Stories
  • Buy the Book
  • Contact
  • Australia's Invisible History