A Gangulu elder, Mick was Co-Commissioner of the high profile Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory. Mick's fierce advocacy for young people is due in part to a sliding doors moment in his teens (CW: Discussion of suicide. And for ATSI listeners please be advised this conversation contains the names of people who have died. Take care when listening.)
Jul 08, 2021•50 min
Aunty Kath, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, was Valerie's godmother, and just one of many staunch political figures on both sides of her family. Val worked her way to becoming a powerful advocate for Aboriginal people and her family CW: ATSI listeners please use discretion when listening as the program references people who have died.
Jul 07, 2021•56 min
Vic grew up on an Aboriginal mission in Sydney's La Perouse in the 1950s, becoming a singing star in his teens. He went on to write and record Australia's first Aboriginal protest album, while in prison. Luke Peacock 'unearthed' Vic's album decades later, and worked alongside him, to bring it to a new public (R)
Jul 06, 2021•43 min
Gurindji man and ABC presenter Charlie knew a little about his mum's life as he grew up. But after her death, he began to reckon with what she'd lived through as a child (CW: contains mention of ATSI people who have died; mentions of sexual violence)
Jul 05, 2021•52 min
Tarang Chawla with his family's story of migration from India to Melbourne to make a new life, and how the murder of his sister Niki changed his own path (CW: graphic discussion of family violence. Discretion advised)
Jul 02, 2021•53 min
How does Ben Crowe get elite athletes to the top of their game? What he asks footballers, surfers and tennis players to do seems counter intuitive, and a lot of the work happens off the field. (R) Ben Crowe is a mindset coach who has worked with elite athletes like surfer Steph Gilmore, tennis superstar Ash Barty, and the Richmond Football Club. But Ben's method of coaching seems counter-intuitive. Rather than telling these athletes they're the best, he encourages them to own their flaws, make s...
Jul 01, 2021•53 min
Vic Simms, Jen Cloher, Vika and Linda Bull, Rob Hirst, Elena Kats-Chernin, William Barton with stories from their formative years
Jun 30, 2021•52 min
Even the cheapest guitars are made in part from trees which are becoming increasingly rare. Chris Gibson's curiosity about these timbers led him on a worldwide journey to understand the guitar's past and future
Jun 29, 2021•53 min
Betty Klimenko grew up as an heiress to the Westfield fortune. Then she turned her back on it all to marry the man of her dreams (R)
Jun 28, 2021•50 min
Ianto Ware with the story of growing up in the suburbs of Adelaide with his radical feminist lesbian mother Dimity
Jun 25, 2021•53 min
Ben grew up in a Glasgow housing estate, then married, went to University and made a life for himself as a musician. But some years later, he was homeless (R)
Jun 24, 2021•52 min
Kyle was a 55-year old children's author and husband when she began living her truth as a trans woman
Jun 23, 2021•52 min
Lynne Kelly became a senior memory champion after she began researching ancient ways of transforming landscapes, objects and the human body into 'memory palaces.'
Jun 22, 2021•52 min
After years teaching in the remote Northern Territory, Julie began to trace her ancestry among the Darug people around the Hawkesbury River. Her most recent novel was written in response to Kate Grenville's The Secret River
Jun 21, 2021•51 min
'Love on the Spectrum' star Jodi Rodgers on her life as a sexologist and relationship counsellor for people with Autism, and her unexpected chapter in reality TV
Jun 18, 2021•52 min
Alexandra Seddon with the story of her aristocratic Russian family and their legacy, which helped her found a wildlife refuge for potoroos, koalas, snakes and kangaroos (CW: childhood abuse, historic suicide)
Jun 17, 2021•49 min
Parenting educator and retired psychologist Steve Biddulph was in his 50s when a chance conversation over lunch shifted almost everything about how he saw himself
Jun 16, 2021•49 min
Physiotherapist Sky Fosbrooke’s stint as a volunteer health worker led to a deep attachment to the people of a small South Santo village (R)
Jun 15, 2021•52 min
The screenwriter and showrunner on writing television drama, her struggles with mental health, and how her time in psychiatric hospitals inspired the acclaimed ABC TV drama series Wakefield (CW: drug references and suicidal ideation. Please use discretion when listening)
Jun 14, 2021•47 min
By uncovering the complicated history of her grandfather, Carolinda Witt also gained a sizeable extended family (R)
Jun 11, 2021•51 min
From working in a bank and behind a bar, to rowing solo across an ocean, the story of Michelle Lee’s remarkable transformation and the voyage which made her an Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year
Jun 10, 2021•55 min
Two separate stories today: bakery tales from Judith Anderson whose family history is intertwined with Warwick's bread trade. Then, Bruce Munday who fell in love with building dry stone walls, then began to delve into their history
Jun 09, 2021•1 hr
Kristin Weidenbach on her father's early life in Moonta, a Methodist-run mining town in South Australia (R)
Jun 08, 2021•50 min
A broadcasting veteran, Bob spent 70 years on air, hosting TV shows as well as topping the radio ratings in Sydney. In 1964 he was sent to London to join The Beatles on their only Australian tour
Jun 07, 2021•41 min
Hugh Mackay believes humans are ‘hardwired’ to behave kindly. He returns to the program to talk about how his early-pandemic prophecies on community, loneliness, and resilience have played out
Jun 04, 2021•50 min
Writer Susan Orlean on the enduring mystery of who set fire to the Los Angeles Central Library (R)
Jun 03, 2021•50 min
Anthony Venn-Brown was a gay teenager when he gave his life to God. He tried to destroy his sexuality by exorcism and 'gay conversion' therapy before he became a rock star Pentecostal preacher. Then everything came crashing down
Jun 02, 2021•53 min
Anne Poelina, the daughter of a Timorese pearl diver and an Indigenous mother, has always been drawn back to her home town of Broome (R)
Jun 01, 2021•48 min
Jason Yat-sen Li on how his family story, marked by war, migration and knighthoods, and his own working life helped him embrace the complexities and contradictions of modern China
May 31, 2021•54 min
High school English teacher, Brendan James Murray with funny, heartbreaking, inspirational and strange tales from his working life
May 28, 2021•52 min
