The Australian Flame was lit by Pearl Wymarra, an Aboriginal Elder who had just retired as Director of Indigenous Studies at the University of Western Sydney. Nationally acclaimed for her educational work, Pearl is steeped in the traditions of her ancestors. For more than five hundred years they have carried fire as their most treasured possession; now she was teaching her people how to use the campfire once again for healing and rebuilding their communities.

The story of the Flames struck a deep chord within Pearl. ’Just yesterday I was in despair at the constant obstacles stopping me from helping my people,’ she said. Last night I prayed so hard, and then accepted after all, it is God who is in control. And now, the very next day, you are calling to invite me to light a Flame for Peace for all of Australia.’ She couldn’t believe the speed of the response to her predicament. ‘It would be an honour to help you.’

Pearl felt it essential that the Flame lighting ceremony should bring people together. ‘The Flame is the spirit of peace’, she said passionately. ‘We are connected by this light, and it runs through us all. I would like all sectors of Australia’s community to be involved when we light this Flame of Peace’. She invited leaders of both Aboriginal and white communities and, amazingly, all these busy people were free on the morning of Saturday, 17 July 1999.

The ceremony had come together with ease. However the lamp in which the Flame could be carried in the aircraft did not arrive in time. By a miracle one of the two original Olympic Lanterns showed up and could be used: The Australian Flame would travel Olympic style!

The waiting crowd of media and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) representatives, politicians, and the public fell silent when the ceremony started. Representing young and old, indigenous and white, civic and professional, they all thought of the ancient fires that have brought people together across the continent for millennia. They imagined all the peoples of Australasia- indigenous, white and new settlers- living together with respect, dignity and mutual support. Then, in the traditional way, they ignited a piece of bark and transferred the flame into the lantern. The unbounded spirit of freedom represented by the Australian Flame was now alight.

By a strange quirk of fate the Australian Flame of Peace was carried to the UK in a plane heading for the Royal Fairford Military Air Tattoo, the largest display of air force power that had ever taken place in history. After a six days journey via the Pacific, the Flame arrived in the UK. ‘When we reached high altitude’, said the pilot, ‘the oxygen content of the air was so low that the Flame became a very faint blue. One night I woke up in a panic and rushed over to it, thinking it had gone out. But then I saw a minute cone of flame remaining. After that we set up a twenty-four hour watch to look after the Flame’.

At the very moment the Flame was carried off the plane and onto British ground, they were all deafened by a thunderous roar. While they had been talking with the crew, the new Stealth Bomber had been making its first ever public appearance in Europe, wheeling and thundering above us. The name of the aircraft was ‘The Spirit’. Yes, they thought, The Spirit has landed.

From: “The Flame that Transforms”