When Dr Catherine Crock saw her young leukemia patients suffering, she knew music would ease their pain, but she didn't know that years later she would be on the receiving end of the healing power of melody
Nov 12, 2021•56 min
Bronwyn Adcock with the story of one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia’s 2019 Black Summer: the Currowan fire
Nov 11, 2021•53 min
Meryl Broughton with stories from her work conducting autopsies at a country mortuary (CW: Graphic descriptions)
Nov 10, 2021•53 min
Robert Pekin lost his family’s 4th-generation farm, and in despair, walked away from everything and into the wilderness. After much soul-searching and trial and error, he developed a new way to link food producers more directly with those who eat the produce (R) CW: mentions suicide
Nov 09, 2021•51 min
Actor and writer Brendan Cowell with tender and funny tales from his boyhood as a child actor and a budding playwright
Nov 08, 2021•49 min
The critic on what he has learned from watching 25,000 films, and that time he peed on Federico Fellini
Nov 05, 2021•50 min
Andrew Wear on how Australia might change in the post-pandemic world
Nov 04, 2021•52 min
David Heilpern with stories of drama, crime and heartache from his 21 years as a country magistrate (CW: references to drug use and sexual assault) For 21 years David Heilpern was a country magistrate in towns including Dubbo, Brewarrina and Lismore. This meant he was the Coroner, the Children's Court Judge, and the person handling all the domestic violence, assault, robbery, drug and driving offences. The workload was intense, and life on the bench could be lonely. On Monday morning, he might h...
Nov 03, 2021•52 min
Hannah Kent with the true story of the Prussians who fled Europe for a new life in South Australia in 1838, then met a malevolent doctor on board their ship
Nov 02, 2021•53 min
Megan Phelps-Roper grew up inside the notorious Westboro Baptist Church family. In 2012 she left the church, and her family, to live in the world she once reviled (R)
Nov 01, 2021•53 min
Deirdre O'Connell with a tale of music, race and a secret militia set in Australia's Jazz Age (CW: discretion is advised when listening)
Oct 29, 2021•51 min
As a child, ordinary sensations of clothes on her skin made Allison Davies feel as though her life was under threat. She recognised the life-changing power of sound when she became a music therapist — both for herself and others
Oct 28, 2021•54 min
Kylie Stevenson delves into the story of Paddy Moriarty, who went missing from Larrimah, an outback Northern Territory town known for a weird pink panther in a gyrocopter.
Oct 27, 2021•48 min
In 1942 three midget submarines armed with torpedoes made their way into Sydney Harbour to launch an attack on Allied warships. They were sent by the Imperial Japanese Navy (R)
Oct 26, 2021•52 min
Palaeontologist John Long found his first fossil in a Melbourne quarry as a 7 year old. He grew up to unearth new clues as to how we became human, and to the origins of sex
Oct 25, 2021•52 min
Former narcotics agent, John Shobbrook battled corruption when investigating an audacious plan to air-drop heroin into Far North Queensland in the 1970s
Oct 22, 2021•52 min
Roland de Chazal is best known for being the 81-year-old motorbike postie on Magnetic Island, but his earlier life in Rhodesia had its moments too — it was there he met the Queen Mother and kept his pet cheetah, Jackals
Oct 21, 2021•43 min
Judy on life with her late husband, the politician Tim Fischer, and how her son Harrison helped inspire a new beginning on her farm (R)
Oct 20, 2021•53 min
Stories from Dave Grohl about his life in music, including how he went from being "that guy from Nirvana” to a superstar rock star fronting the Foo Fighters
Oct 19, 2021•52 min
John Baker on hunting down a cache of rare and impossibly valuable French wine hidden away by Josef Stalin, deep in the Republic of Georgia (R)
Oct 18, 2021•49 min
Music was always a friend to Ed, but while he struggled to come to terms with being trans, he couldn't face his beloved instruments. Once he accepted himself, his relationship with sound flourished
Oct 15, 2021•53 min
Monica McInerney with tales from her childhood in a railway family in the South Australian town of Clare (R)
Oct 14, 2021•53 min
Australia's most famous landscape architect on learning from the garden, Greek school and his Yiayia
Oct 13, 2021•52 min
Philippe Sands on how a cache of letters sent him on the trail of Nazi war criminal Otto Von Wachter, who escaped to Rome on the 'Ratline' (R)
Oct 12, 2021•51 min
Designer Jenny Kee with the story of her wild and creative life, including how she and Linda Jackson began a movement which changed Australian fashion (CW: discretion required. Drug references, suicide and content that might be upsetting)
Oct 11, 2021•45 min
The ABC Sports presenter describes his life at 17, a year dominated by football, girls, beer, and a serial killer stalking his neighbourhood
Oct 08, 2021•53 min
While they greet one another with soft "woohoos", carefully feed their fat, fluffy babies and bleat at sunset, field naturalist Tanya Loos keeps an eye on the beautiful and ferocious population in her backyard
Oct 07, 2021•50 min
When an eruption began in 1994 in Papua New Guinea, the last thing singer-songwriter Ngaiire expected was a second volcano to begin spewing ash. Tuning in to the mystery and majesty of PNG has become a lifelong project (CW: Some listeners may find parts of this conversation upsetting. Please use discretion when listening) Throughout her childhood, singing was something Ngaiire did at church, somewhat begrudgingly, because her dad told her to. The singer-songwriter grew up between Palmerston Nort...
Oct 06, 2021•48 min
Zen priest and writer Ruth Ozeki takes us into world brimming with the voices of people and household objects, and her own experience of hearing her father's voice in her ear after he'd died
Oct 05, 2021•49 min
David Hepworth charts our fascination with that most earth-bound of gods, the rock star; and discusses some of music history's striking examples (R)
Oct 04, 2021•44 min
