wfn.org | Support gives bishop's flying wife 'Wings over Willochra'

["Lambeth98" <storm@indigo.ie>]

ACNS LC068 - 30 July 1998

Diocesan support gives bishop's flying wife 'Wings over
Willochra'

by Roland Ashby
Bishops' Spouses Communications

"What are you going to do now you're in your late forties and
your last child is about to leave home?" a friend asked Marion
McCall six years ago.

For some time Marion had also wondered how she could help her
husband, Bishop David McCall, whose diocese of Willochra in South
Australia stretches over an area six times the size of England.
"Spending so much time driving thousands of miles was just
killing him."

When she announced at an archdeacon's party that she had been
thinking about learning to fly, but did not have the money,
someone suggested that she ask the people of the diocese to buy
$10 shares in her. But first she had to give the "enterprise" a
name. "Marion Over Willochra (MOW) was rejected in favour of
Wings Over Willochra (WOW)," she said.

It's "just extraordinary," how the money poured in, Mrs. McCall
said. "Before long thousands of dollars had been raised. It was
getting serious-I'd really have to fly!"

Learning to land

She recalls her first lessons: "Taking off was easy, but landing
was a problem. When the wheels are about 3 feet, 6 inches from
the ground you're supposed take the plane down very gently. But
even with three cushions on a seat clearly designed for men I had
difficulty seeing well enough to estimate the distance from the
landing strip!"

Another problem was that "unlike driving a car, there seemed to
be no sense in it," she said. "You have to steer with your feet,
and controls which intuition told me to pull usually required to
be pushed, and visa versa."

After a week of failed attempts at landing, Marion decided she
had had enough. "It was more than just not being able to master
the basics. I really thought I was going to kill myself each time
I tried to land," she said. "For the first time in my life I was
facing up to real fear-the kind which starts in the pit of the
stomach and moves up to the brain. Fear became a real presence."

Fear, she says, is the name she gives to the devil. "It's fear
which stops us doing anything. It's fear which stops us reaching
our true potential."

A friend gave her a book on alcoholism, where she read: "When you
notice . . . tensions (growing) into near-panic, and old fears
returning, this is the time to stop short and turn to God. You
can do nothing anyway, and you will find that if you supply the
willingness He will supply the power."

Trying again

This was the turning point. "I said to God, 'I'm willing but
you'll need to provide the strength.' I decided to take God with
me." 

At first she wasn't disappointed. "My next landing was beautiful,
for which I said out loud, 'Thank you, Lord.' I explained to my
somewhat bemused flight instructor, Des O'Driscoll, that bishops'
wives were given to saying that sort of thing," she said.
"However, my jubilation was to be short-lived. The next landing
was terrible, overshooting the runway into some rough ground
where we bumped along and thuddered to a halt. "Turning to me,
Des drily remarked in his broad Australian, 'He's gawn and left
yah!'" 

There were to be other mishaps. "Part of the training involves
teaching survival skills in the event of engine failure. After
climbing to 3,500 ft, you switch off the engine, and then follow
the procedure as outlined in the manual: 1) reassure your
passengers that you know what to do in the situation; 2) choose a
paddock; and 3) glide down into the paddock," she says in mock
seriousness at the suggestion that all this is to be achieved
simply and serenely.

On one such occasion, she continued, "We'd descended to just 20
feet off the ground when Des said, 'Take her home, the ground's
too wet. But I tell you what, you've upset that woman hanging out
her washing.'"

When the big day came to go solo, Marion exclaimed, "I said to
God, 'Zip! We're on!'" Flying solo, she reflects, "is a bit like
having a baby. Anybody can get a plane airborne, but it needs
every ounce of strength to land it."

Now an experienced pilot, her request from the Lambeth Conference
was for a course in basic airplane repair to help avoid getting
stranded in her remote destinations.

Embarassing moments

Marion has found herself in many embarrassing situations. "After
a meeting of the bishops' wives, I agreed to take them up.
Screaming down the runway I realised we weren't going to get
airborne. Because I hadn't wished to offend, I'd allowed the
largest ladies to sit in the back. So we had to stop and change
places. Although this time they were in the front, to make
matters worse I had to ask them to lean forward."

When she's lost, Marion explains, she likes to sing hymns. "On
one occasion, after singing through my repertoire several
times-including old favourites-Abide with me and Nearer my God to
thee-Des's voice came over the radio: 'Don't you know any other
hymns?' I'd left my radio microphone on!"

Another time, Archbishop of York David Hope, who recently visited
South Australia, asked to see the diocese from the air. Not only
did the radio fail at one point in the flight, but shortly after
leaving the Cooper Pedy airstrip, 50 feet from the ground, there
was an engine malfunction. Thinking she had managed to conceal
this from the Archbishop, a message later came over the radio,
"Hope your radio's working better than the engine."

Moments of danger

Marion also recounts the time in 1994 when she and David faced
real danger. "We suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a
severe storm and thick cloud. Cloud is particularly dangerous
because you lose the horizon and become disoriented."

She attributes their survival to a special course in flying in
dangerous conditions, which had been designed as a result of the
deaths of four women who flew into bad weather. In Marion's own
book of poetry, Out of Willochra, she pays tribute to the women
in Last Night:

Last night
Four women died for me
I knew them not.
Death is what they knew
And yet they died for me.

In 1974 - last night
Four women died
They know me well.
Skill is what I have
And yet they died for me.

In 1994 - last night
Four women hoped for me
I won that hope.
Faith is what they gave
But still they died for me.

1974 - 1994

Last night

To fly, she believes, is also to "leave the earth and enter a new
dimension." She says she now understands the heroine pilot in Out
of Africa who says, "In the air you're taken into the full
freedom of the three dimensions. After the long ages of exile and
dreams, the homesick heart throws itself into the arms of space,
the laws of gravitation and time."

But it is perhaps this favourite quotation from philosopher
Guillame Apollinaire, which comes closest to expressing her
profound joy in flying:

"Come to the edge, he said
They said: we are afraid
Come to the edge, he said
They came
He pushed them . . . and they flew."

For further information, contact:

   Lambeth Conference Communications
   Canterbury Business School
   University of Kent at Canterbury
   Telephone: 01227 827348/9
   Fax: 01227 828085
   Mobile: 0374 800212

   http://www.lambethconference.org