As winner of the Queensland Australian of the Year Award 2005, Mr. Bill Bristow has been recognised for his dedication and commitment to Australia's less fortunate by instigating and building a successful and badly needed community service, known as Angel Flight .

Bill is a third generation Australian; he was born in 1944 into a family that knew what it was like to suffer deprivation, to work hard and to show compassion to others. Bill's first memory of planes was when he was about eight-years-old and flew to Sydney from Parkes in an old DC3. After leaving school, Bill studied Arts at Sydney University majoring in English and Psychology but says at the time he had no real idea what he wanted to do with his life. "I liked to write, with English being my best and favourite subject both at school and University," he said. "Because I had always been interested in people and fascinated by all their different personality traits, I really enjoyed Psychology. I think I've always been good at knowing what people are thinking, and whether my life in advertising taught me that or a natural ability made me comfortable in advertising, I'm not really sure which came first."

Defining Moments

"Whilst my mother was very much a home person, she was extremely creative and innovative both inside and outside the home," he said.

"She knew what it was like to have to make do during the last days of the depression and she helped the family by earning extra money making furniture covers and from picture framing. But as busy as she was she still found time to help the less fortunate."

With an obvious sense of pride, Bill recalled how his mother started a company of Girl Guides in a school for the blind at Hornsby in Sydney.

"It seems what she was doing was against Guiding regulations which said you couldn't be blind and a Girl Guide, but Mum was a bit of a rebel and continued to run the troupe," he said.

"There's one particular memory I have about my mother that still moves me," he said.

"One of the blind girls had a brain tumour that had taken her sight. Mum found out that Johnny Ray was coming to Australia on a concert tour and she managed to somehow make contact with him and persuaded him to visit the girl in hospital where he sang at her bedside."

"I suppose some of Mum's character must have rubbed off on me and deep down I think I have always wanted to be like her and for her to be proud of me."

By contrast it seems that Bill's father was a hard man. "He was very demanding and didn't suffer fools lightly; in the category of fools he seemed to have me. In fact he and I didn't become friends until I was in my late twenties and then I realized that the driving force in me to succeed probably came from a desire to please him."

An opportunity arose for Bill while he was still at university that set him on a career in advertising. Starting as a trainee with a major Advertising Agency in Sydney he was quickly promoted to the role of Assistant to the Manager of a company division where he ran the traffic department. It was at this time that he wrote his first advertising copy enabling him to apply his passion for writing, which is still with him today.

A couple of years later, Bill took advantage of an opportunity to extend his knowledge and experience when he was offered a trainee position with a creative advertising agency, The Marschalk Company, in New York.

For Bill this was a defining moment, learning to cope alone in one of the biggest and most dangerous cities in the world where he admits "I was lonely for the first time in my life".

Perhaps it was this experience that helped mould his character and may also have had some bearing on his later decision to launch the Angel Flight service which is designed to bring some comfort to those isolated by geography, finances and illness.

1970 - Significant Year

Upon his return to Australia after eighteen months in New York, Bill worked briefly in a creative boutique in Sydney before moving to Brisbane in 1970 to take up the position of Creative Director with Queensland Advertising Agency Jones Knowles. It was also in 1970 that he married Wendy, an art teacher, who has now been the love of his life for more than 35 years.

In the same year Bill learned to fly at Archerfield in Brisbane with no idea that his first lesson in a small Victa aircraft would later lead him to set up an Australia-wide team of volunteer pilots.

When asked whether he had ever experienced a fear of flying Bill commented that it did frighten him a little and still does to some extent.

"A wise old man once said that if it frightens you do it and in flying, if you are not frightened to some degree then you are dangerous.

Upward and Onward

Clearly Bill is someone who enjoys a challenge, and over the last thirty-five years has welcomed every opportunity to test his skills achieving success in both his career and the world of flying.

On the professional front, after proving himself with Brisbane Advertising Agency Jones Knowles, Bill started his own agency in partnership with Bruce Knowles and at a later stage [after Knowles's retirement] entered a working partnership with Paul Cornwell and Kevin Moreland; they now head Queensland's largest agency, BCM, winning numerous national and international awards.

Over the years BCM has been involved in many pro bono and social marketing campaigns for entities such as The Cancer Fund, the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, Surf Life Saving Queensland, the Playground Association, Queensland Health and more.

As a pilot, Bill has spent many hours and years honing his skills to become a highly qualified and experienced airman but he is always looking for ways to extend himself further.

"The most challenging step for me after initially learning to fly was acquiring an instrument rating which has enabled me to fly in all kinds of weather day or night and this is really stimulating," he said.

"It doesn't matter how good you are, there is always a plane that is more difficult so I have continued to learn to fly aircraft that are more demanding such as multi-engine, pressurised and high altitude aircraft as well as helicopters. Next on my list is a turbo prop aircraft that go faster and higher. I think I constantly need to challenge myself."

Bill's willingness to take on new challenges, combined with his consistency of purpose and intrinsic compassion for anyone in trouble, are obviously the qualities that have enabled him to keep on going when others would have given up. Undoubtedly it is these qualities and his positive attitude to life that have sustained him through good and bad times and helped bring him to this very special point in his life.

As Queensland Australian of the Year 2005 Bill's achievements as a pilot and citizen are self-evident and yet he is very quick to place the credit elsewhere.

"The real winners of this award are the hundreds of volunteer pilots who carry out their flights largely at their own expense. I must add to these the many 'Earth Angels' who support them during their Angel Flight missions," he said.

"Angel Flight has helped Australians of all ages with many different needs, from a six-month-old baby who had suffered a stroke, to a teenage boy with rickets unable to walk and then there's the elderly man dying of cancer who had no family. If along with thousands of other people I can at least lift some of the weight and some of their pain then it is an extremely good thing to do. You can't give them your luck, but at least you can help them up when they are down on theirs."

Vision for the Future

"The vision I have for Angel Flight is that no financially disadvantaged person in need of fast and comfortable travel will ever be denied," Bill said.

"There are hundreds of people who do not meet the conditions offered by other air transport services, either State or Federal. Angel Flight has been created to provide a safety net to counter unnecessary pain and discomfort and the stresses that living in remote areas with minimal resources brings."

With more than 850 pilots currently registered, after only 21 months Angel Flight is already coordinating an average of 400 mission flights a year.

"My ambition was to be coordinating about 800 mission flights a year within three to five years of starting the charity. That goal should be easily achieved. The winning of the Australian of the Year Award would certainly give a dramatic and instant lift to community awareness, and from past experience when we've had significant media stories we have seen a rise in people looking for help as well as pilots wanting to be involved."

Whilst all Angel Flight pilots willingly donate their time, their skills and the bulk of aircraft costs for each flight, Bill also looks forward to the day when pilots will receive some government support.

"The biggest threat to Angel Flight is the inability of pilots to have their mission operating costs tax deductible," Bill said.

"As a registered charity anyone donating money or property to Angel Flight can receive a tax deduction. Our challenge now is to persuade Government that the expenditure necessary for running an aircraft to help people, is in fact a donation of money or property or a mixture of both."

Bill said that he is hopeful that even as an entrant for the Australian of the Year Award that the Federal Government will be more aware of what Angel Flight is doing and the flow on will be a change in the tax law to help double the capacity for flying missions throughout Australia.

"I have been absolutely thrilled with the number of pilots who have registered with Angel Flight," Bill said

"They are really quite amazing and once they've flown one mission they respond to the "gotta-go flying " syndrome common to most pilots, and put up their hand for the next and then the next mission because they find it such a rewarding thing to do. However, these pilots all have different levels of resources but each of them also has a budget to operate within and none of them have unlimited means. So if we could reduce the relative cost of flights through tax deductions then I believe they would fly many more missions because as demand for the service grows the demand on pilots will also increase."

If Bill's history of perseverance and dedication to helping relieve the suffering of others is anything to go by, then his vision for the future is most certainly going to become a reality.