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on the return trip. Occasionally Lake Evella and Ramingining would be included. Another route was to Katherine,
Ngkurr (Roper River), Numbalwar, Groote Eylandt and again return in reverse order to Darwin the same day.
A longer return trip over two days was Port Keats, Kununurra, perhaps other several small ports in Western
Australia, Hooker Creek (Lajamanu), Yuendumu, then Alice Springs.
The Heron routes were also still maintained. In September 1974, the first land-based service to Lord Howe
Island was commenced after the flying boats were taken off the run. George flew the first three weeks of the
operation when Airlines of New South Wales, a subsidiary of Ansett, inaugurated it. The co-pilot on the first flight
was Roger Connellan.
At the time of Cyclone Tracy on 24 December 1974, George was on holiday in Darwin but quickly recalled.
On 27 December, he flew to Bathurst Island with a large number of Aborigines who returned to their homes.
That evening he took 26 Europeans on one of the first evacuee flights to Alice Springs, mostly families of airport
workers. He returned to Darwin in the early hours of the following morning and flew further evacuation flights
each day until 2 January 1975, mostly returning Aboriginal people to their own communities. George recalls that
one of his major problems at the time was in obtaining enough petrol to travel between his home and the airport
as all petrol was supposed to be used for emergency services. The problem was eventually solved by aviation
personnel using ‘av. gas’ in their own vehicles, though not before he had had a confrontation with a bureaucrat
over the matter. ‘Are you a public servant’, demanded George. ‘Well I’m the public!’ He then had a break for a
week during which time he found time to do something about his own home that had been damaged though was
habitable. George is a very skilled handyman and having built the house initially, he now began the necessary
repairs. With two neighbours, he managed to rig up a generator to run their refrigeration but it used to cut out with
monotonous regularity when the three motors started up together.
From about 11 January 1975 Connair’s regular services were resumed. George continued flying until the
company was bought out by East West early in 1980 and operated as Northern Airlines. The DC3s were phased
out, the last flight being in August 1980. He started training on Fokker Friendship aircraft in September 1980.
The new company was a disaster from its inception and it folded at the end of the year. Ansett Airlines then took
over Connair’s operation. The younger crews were taken into Ansett’s mainstream operation but the older men,
of whom George was one, ran a subsidiary company called Northern Territory Aerial Work (NTAW) and began
coastal surveillance and aerial medical operations flying Nomad aircraft. In 1983, a King Air service from Alice
Springs/Ayers Rock/Tennant Creek was begun in a chartered aircraft flying under the colours of Airlines of North
Australia.
In October 1983, George turned 60 and he then joined Air North, owned by Henry and Walker. A DC3 was
re-introduced into the Northern Territory with George as the check captain. He eventually flew all their aircraft;
the routes included charters to the Tanami desert for gold exploring companies, and to Troughton Island where a
base had been established for undersea oil exploration.
He finally retired in 1991 at the age of 67 having flown a total of 28 700 hours (16 700 hours in the Territory)
without any major drama, aside from one or two emergency landings due to aircraft malfunction. He lived in
retirement in Darwin with his wife, Betty. He was a regular at the Royal Australian Air Force mess and sometime
President of the Skal Club and member of the Beef and Burgundy Club.
Personal information.
HELEN J WILSON, Vol 3.WATERS, ANNA MARIA WOIDE nee GOODHART (1852–1938), artist, was born in Adelaide on 27 July 1852
to George Frederick Goodhart, gentleman, and his wife Sarah Louisa Goodhart, nee Meakin. Her mother’s maiden
name was Woide. On 1 March 1892, Anna married 37-year-old Territory policeman Nicholas Joseph Waters at
St Peters Cathedral, North Adelaide. Nicholas had been on a holiday to Adelaide when he married Anna. There
were no children of the marriage.
They arrived in Palmerston in late June 1892 and first lived in a house on the corner of Smith Street and the
Esplanade, later moving to a cottage next to the Church of England. When the women’s suffrage legislation
became law in 1895 Anna wasted no time in registering to vote, signing the enrolment form on 22 April 1895,
almost as soon as the rolls were distributed. By May the following year, when Anna was voting in her first election,
Nicholas became a founding member of the Masonic Lodge of Port Darwin.
By 1901, Anna was actively involved in a variety of fundraising activities, particularly for the church.
An accomplished artist, her stalls often raised the most money, presumably through the sale of her work, which
drew increasing praise and prices. She was particularly skilled at producing extremely lifelike and ‘very beautiful
paintings of native wild flowers’ of the Northern Territory. It would appear she sold some of her work overseas
as in November 1912 she received a letter from Florence G Buchanan, Deaconess of the Chinese Girls School,
Government Hill, Singapore, thanking her for her letter and sending her money for her baskets which she said sold
well.
During the First World War, she made considerable money for the Red Cross and the war effort through the
sale of her paintings, particularly her watercolours of butterflies and wildflowers that had become quite famous.
She was never trained in art but had a natural ability. Apparently, her work looked so real that people often made
the mistake of attempting to flick painted insects off the stems of the flowers.
Anna was associated with a great deal of charitable work; she provided the Church of England tennis court as
one of her gifts to the community. By 1910 Nicholas had succeeded Paul Foelsche as rank of Inspector and head
of the Northern Territory police force, a position he held until 1924 when he retired. He died suddenly only a few