“If you want to commend your gospel to men, first of all do something for them they understand.” (Rev. John Flynn’s favourite saying.)
 
A century ago, ‘Tragedy Corner’ was an undefined space where the borders of South Australia, NSW and Queensland and the 5000 km long dingo fence, jostled each other. Scorching winds, summer heat and the fitful flows in the Diamantina River and Cooper’s Creek had made it a graveyard for exploring parties like those of Charles Sturt and Burke and Wills.
 
It was the tragic toll it took on families that caught the attention of the Rev. John Flynn in the war years, 1914-18. Twice he had received anonymous letters containing the white feather suggesting he was a coward for not going to the War. But he believed the remote Inland was his battlefield and threw himself recklessly into the effort to raise money for a hospital and recruit high grade nurses for the tiny settlement of Birdsville. The conquest of Tragedy Corner had begun.

​“Jessie Sinclair Litchfield (1883-1956) is well known in the Northern Territory yet barely appears as a blip on the radar of people south of Alice Springs.”
 
Sydney born Jessie Litchfield lived life in the Northern Territory as ‘a pistol packing momma’, often alone when raising children in isolated jungle mining camps. In time she became a crack shot with a rifle. She grew into an unflinching spokeswoman for the Northern Territory. She proved a prolific writer, authoring five books, plus numerous short stories and poems.