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Mission of mercy that keeps giving
A conversation with Sophie York, barrister, lecturer, author and mother of four
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| By Marilyn Rodrigues
4 December, 2005 |
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| The book cover |
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When anaesthetist Paul Duncan left Sydney on December 29 last year as part of Australia’s surgical response team to the tsunami disaster, he knew nothing of where he was going, only that he was leaving his wife Sophie York and their four young boys – one only 15 weeks old – for an assignment that was sure to be harrowing, if not downright dangerous.
The Combined Australian Surgical Team Aceh (CASTA team) was the first international surgical team to visit tsunami-devastated Banda Aceh, just days after the massive earthquake hit the region.
From his first mobile phone text message – “things R worse than expected” – Sophie would follow the team’s gruelling work as details of the extent of the horror began to emerge.
She tracked Australia’s emotional and practical reaction to the emergency, from politicians’ responses to people’s letters to the editors’ pages and the flood of donations for relief and rebuilding efforts.
She began to keep a diary, and asked Paul to do the same. This was not always a pleasant task for him, because it meant he couldn’t simply block out some of the more horrific sights and experiences in the tsunami’s immediate wake that he might have otherwise preferred to.
The 28-strong team of medical doctors, nurses, paramedics and firefighters got stuck right in, braved the real risk and danger of sickness, attacks by terrorists or bandits and with the barest materials helped countless people with a spirit of professionalism, inventiveness and good humour.
Any help offered was graciously received, says Sophie. “The Aceh people are so gentle, loving and kind,” she says. “They are very dignified, beautiful people of deep faith.”
The medical team’s experience has now become the subject of her first book, Angels of Aceh: The compelling story of Operation Tsunami Assist, published by Allen and Unwin, now on sale in bookshops.
Sophie is donating 50 per cent of her author royalties for the first 12 months to the Jesuit Refugee Service which is re-building the community in the north-westernmost part of Sumatra.
“They want to build a school and a mosque, and also help buy new land for more than 100 families who lost their homes and land when the shoreline moved inwards permanently, following the tsunami,” she says.
“Many more are homeless but can rebuild where their property was situated.”
The CAST team has a strong connection to the Jesuits, says Sophie.
“Not only does our son attend St Aloysius’, Milsons Point, but some of the team have Jesuit connections, too. Dr James Branley went to St Aloysius’, and Dr Mike Flynn, the leader of the CASTA team, sent his sons to a Jesuit school, as did Dr Brian Pezzutti.
“My brother Bernard, who is a lieutenant-
commander in the Navy, assisted the Australian embassy in Jakarta in managing the aid and help which was flying in immediately after the tsunami. He also went to St Aloysius’.”
The book “began as a personal story about Paul’s experience for our boys to keep, and evolved into a story about the team”, she says.
Back home people were equally generous, but with their money. Private donations reached $200 million and continued to climb, and the Australian Government gave $1 billion in aid to Indonesia.
“I felt strongly that some record should be made of this amazing event, and the incredible response by Australians,” says Sophie.
“Some record should be made for the Australian public, it shouldn’t be forgotten.”
Sophie wrote the first chapter in 48 hours and the rest of the book over 16 weeks, interviewing the team members and several others, doing other research and then scribbling away between midnight and 5am.
Sophie would also write in snatches through the day when baby Pierce was sleeping (“I kept putting him down to sleep; I think he was the most well-rested baby,” she jokes) or Paul could arrange his hospital schedule to be at home.
The couple and their boys, Liam, 11, Darcy, 5, Francis, 2, and Pierce, now 1, are parishioners at Sacred Heart parish, Pymble.
Sophie, a barrister, a member of the Naval Legal Reserve Panel and a law lecturer, is also a Dame of the Equestrian order of the Holy Sepulchre.
Cardinal George Pell invested her into the order at St Mary’s Cathedral in September this year and her proud sponsor on the day was her mother, Peta, herself a Papal dame and mother of 12.
Sophie’s papal honour was for a range of things, including her work as a councillor of the St Thomas More Society and promotion of the practice of ethical and Catholic values in professional legal practice through spiritual events, meetings and papers. “We have put in submissions for consideration on legislation such as stem cells and cloning.”
She addressed a Right to Life conference last year about certain legal cases involving compensation to the parents of disabled babies who would have aborted them if they had been advised differently.
“The court correctly held that life of itself – even a disabled one – is not a compensable injury when the other option is death, and the doctors did not cause the injuries,” she says.
She organised a successful vote to overturn a pro-choice policy planned to be adopted by the NSW Women Lawyers’ Association.
“I believed that a non-religious professional association should express the official position that there were a range of views held on this contentious issue, especially given the political weight of such a policy by such a body,” she explains.
She also researched and wrote a paper published in the Bar newsletter and contacted the Chief Judges at each court level in relation to the possibility of a twin session court which would accommodate family needs, while she was research convenor in 1999.
Then there are her “general parish duties and charity support” as well as “raising four boys as Catholics”.
Sophie’s pride in her husband is so tangible. First there is the book itself, but she also mentions that in August he was named Father of the Year by their local paper, the North Shore Times, after being nominated by their two older sons, Liam and Darcy.
“They wrote about how he plays with them and things like that, but also that he was very loving and kind and that he loved me, their mother, a lot,” she says.
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