Start here: Silver Linings

My name is Ben. I'm a storyteller and Find and Tell. I grew up on Durall Country. I'd like to recognize the traditional Caustodians of this continent whose land was stolen nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, in particular the Camagle and one Andrei people whose land this podcast was recorded on. And we extend our respect to all Aboriginal tour Austraight Islander peoples, the rich storytelling history of the

Hello, I'm Jamila Risby and this is Find and Tell, the search for the next generation of Australian storytellers.

Over the series, you'll be introduced to and.

You'll hear from four diverse Australians as they compete to become the first ever Find and Tell Champion. You'll hear from Mark, a Filipino Australian from Blacktown in Western Sydney.

As someone who is probably queer, probably chunky and beautiful. I live and serve in so many different communities and I want to do my best to platform some stories that fit under these incredible groups.

Kate An Iranian Australian from Foots Gray and Melbourne.

A huge part of my life has been sitting around drinking many many cups of tea, listening to my mom and my auntie's gossip, and so the kinds of stories that excite me are based in the personal and based in family gossip.

Nayan a Korean Australian from Strathfield in Sydney.

My cultural background and upbringing has influenced my whole storytelling career and how I approach stories and people.

And Ben a durableman now living in Cesnok in the Hunter Valley.

I think I'm the least experienced person here when it comes to content creation. We are here for storytelling, so as long as you can spin a good yarn, you'll be okay.

Every episode, the storytellers will be given a new thing and they'll be set loose to find and tell unique, weird and interesting stories from around the country.

Whoever tells the best story.

We'll win the episode, inching one step closer to being crowned the winner and taking home the grand price. Up for grabs are best in class podcasting goodies and gear from the amazing team at Road, so our winner can continue finding and telling stories wherever they go. So if you love a yarn as much as I do, and if you're curious about stories beyond your own experience, then you're in the right place. Okay, let's get started. Today's

On Ben and from the Yellowora, Durawak Country, currently living in sisnok on Wan, a real country. I'm a jack of all trades. I've worked as a chippy on the tools, I've traveled the world as a travel agent, and I've worked in disability and support work. Storytelling has always been significant to me in one way or another, whether it be the indigenous dream time stories from my mum or

Hey, Ben, welcome to find.

And tell How Jimil, how are you?

This is exciting?

We haven't spoken since you went out into the big wide world to record some of these How did you find it?

If I'm being honest, it was a lot more difficult than I first anticipated.

That doesn't surprise me.

Yeah, I thought it was going to be a little bit more of a walk in the park than it was. A few kind of speed bumps along the way, but we got there in the end, so I'm pretty proud.

And you've never done any podcasting before, so you were coming in cold.

What was the hardest part?

Oh, has so many different moving parts in chying to make an episode. I think that the most difficult part for me would have been finally feeling like you had something in the bag and then it falling through last minute.

I guess, Yeah, what kind of stories do you love listening to or hearing?

When I was younger, I grew up listening to stories from my mum instead of listening to I guess like nursery rhymes to go on to bed. We listened to a lot of like dream time stories because my mom's are indigenous. Yeah, of course, so me and my siblings we were kind of introduced to like a unique type of storytelling from a young age. And yeah, I guess that's kind of like where I get it from. I got to give props to my mum about kind of being able to spin a good yarn.

I guess I remember when we first met before all of this kicked off, and you'd just been chosen to be part of Fine and Tell. You said, I can just tell a really good yarn. That's why I stuck my hand up.

Does that still hold?

Yeah?

I think so, I think. But at the same time I didn't realize just how much work actually went behind a good story. Trying to figure out like the inner workings of that was was challenging, but also yeah it was. It was awesome.

Well, I am very keen to hear how you did, so let's get to it. Let's hear your Find and Tell first story. Sorry, on the theme of silver linings.

Welcome to Neath, a small country village on the outskirts of Cesnock in the Hunter Valley region duckerd Young country. It's a real blink and you'd miss it type of town. One rode in and one rode out. It has a population of four hundred and ninety people, a bus stop, a servo and in true blue Australian country town fashion, one pub. You'd be forgiven if you've never heard about Neath, not many people have, but for a short period of time, Neath was the talk of the region. This small, unknown

Would someone tell me the significance of the teddy bears inneath.

They're all over the place and some are even sitting in chairs now, so the road to Neath has become a gallery of hanging teddy bears. I dig the kindergarten Vlad the Impaler aesthetic, but does anyone know the deal?

Yeah, it's disgusting. Hopefully they get pulled down soon. Makes the place look filthy.

It's a beautiful gesture to make kids and us big kids smile. People who get upset by them must have had very sad childhoods.

In the following weeks, the teddy bears began to multiply and What started as five or six soon turned into twenty, then thirty, then not before long, there's too many to count inhabiting the village. Beneath the trees, the parks, the benches, the telegraph poles, the signal boxes, the bus stops. The Teddy Bears had even infiltrated the pub. Then one day they all vanished. Where did the bears come from? Who

Does anyone know the reason behind Beneath the Teddy Bears?

A few minutes later, I had a response from a user by the name of Gary red high Marsh. Gary commented, Rue ted is the one you're looking for and tagged in another profile. I clicked on the profile to hopefully start piecing together the puzzle, but I ended up only getting more questions and answers.

This profile belongs to a Teddy Bear.

As I clicked through the photos of the profile, I realized this teddy Bear has lived quite a life. Photos of him are at the beach on the Gold Coast, riding on the back of a motorcycle. He was even photographed in a police station. My investigation has taken a rather interesting turn. It's about time I message that mysterious bear good a routed. I'm currently investigating the mystery of

I've been told you could hold some of the answers that I seek.

Did I just message your teddy Bear?

Yes?

Did I get a response back from that teddy bear?

Can Benjamin?

I certainly can help you with that info.

A bit of a long story.

I'm away at Port Macquarie at the moment, but we'll be home at the end of the month. I can introduce you to my care of Gary.

Then, could Gary be the one behind the titty Bears? I was determined to find out?

All right, Gary's just pulled up.

Showt on Gary. Get a Gary, early.

Mate, buddy heart already.

It is coming side. It's nice and cool, lovely mate, Gary, and I became acquainted.

All my life.

I grew up in packs, through in packs and swamp as.

I say, and we eventually made our way to the topic of the titty bears.

I can tell the story. It's a bit of a long story. Years ago I had a caravan on site, a Fingerbay caravan.

Part it was a long story. Gary had a mate who worked in the mines who one day had a bear sitting on his truck.

And he was his big Bear sitting in the back of his truck.

Now, one way or another, Gary got that.

Bear and I used to have it out in the front of my caravan.

And Gary loved that bear. He took it with him everywhere he went. It became part of his character. There's Gary and there's his teddy Bear.

We'd go to the club and come back and big tail and have women's pants on and lipstick on or whatever. I was dressed up and out in front of the little house there and people go past, and kids come and past.

Gary was happy being able to bring joy and laughter to so many different people, being that quirky bloke of his teddy bear going on adventures around Australia. But Big ted was only the start of what would soon become an impressive collection.

All of a sudden, I'll come home and there'd be a bear on me, another bear on the chair next to him, and then another one. People were putting bears on my bread. I go to the op chops and I'd buy a beer too, So I end up with seventy bears. Then when the COVID seventy zero seventy, they're the ones, big ones, a whole lot. People were putting bears in windows to make people happy in everything, So I was thought.

Well, I've undernoticed to me at the time, there was a trend going around during COVID lockdowns. Apparently people would put bears in their windows just to make everybody's five kilometer radius walk from their house a little bit more enjoyable. Gary had heard of the trend, but living in a remote area, Gary knew not many people were going to be able to enjoy his teddy beer collection. So Gary decided on a different approach.

Well, I've got all these bears, I'm going to put someone beside the road. It neath increase and it will make people happy. So that's how that said. I put a few in them, some more than accord on and other people were putting bears there, so I took a few more out at different times. There you have it.

It was just a bloke and his bear who wanted to put smiles and faces during a pretty grim time for us. All mystery solved right except for one loose end. Whatever happened to those bears? Where did they all go?

Well, as far as I know, there was a crackhead and there was I knew there was an accident down there, and he ran into a car or two cars and a truck and you can see a big on the side of the road at the time where he done it. He got out the car and running into the bush manks the bears.

Now, luckily no one was hurt, but according to Gary, the bear's coped the blame for the accident.

He said, I was too busy looking at the base and then I running into the cars. The folee said, well we better get rid of them, and that's what's going to happen or whatever. This is what I've heard. The next minute the cancel were down there taken the ba's away.

Now, if you haven't picked up yet, Gary is old school. He's a little rough around the edges, and he says it how it is, but much like he's Teddy Bears, Gary has a much softer side. How many beers did you first put it out there?

I put five?

Just five?

How many out there do you reckon? Did you end up counting?

No?

I did not would have been I recommend let twenty to thirty.

And then I had a mate who worked on the cancil.

I asked for his inside knowledge to say, do you know like we're around when you got rid of the Bears? He said, yeah, one hundred and eighty one.

I didn't know that.

Oh that's incredible. I'll have to remember that.

Yeah, and that to the story next time you're having a beer down at Vincent Street.

One undred eighty that's all put me notes. Yeah, because I want to tell missus that's incredible.

I've got to say something, and I just want to cry. That was so funny and so lovely.

I couldn't figure out for a while there whether or not we were going in a true crime direction, or whether or not I was going to meet like just these lovely local folks who were going to tell me about Teddy's.

And you did both, well done, thank you.

Yeah, it turned out to be a little bit more of a I always liked the idea of the mockumentary feel. Yeah, so they'd kind of start something that's kind of not so serious and kind of add a serious tone to it.

Did you know what the answer was before you started searching? Like, was this a genuine mystery for you? Were we finding it out at the same time?

Yeah, so it was.

It was still a mystery to me, and it was something that had kind of been a question that I'd had on my mind for a while and a lot of the other locals around the Hunter Valley had seen as well. And you know, it would come up in conversations. People would be like, does anyone know where they actually came from? And when I got the opportunity to do it, I thought, well, why don't I just go and find out.

I wanted to ask about the interview with Gary. I mean, Gary sounds like a great guy. He also sounds like a guy who's got a lot to say. And one of the things that you always have to think about when you're interviewing someone for whatever it is is you're looking for those pithy lines, right You're looking for them to tell the story in a small amount of time.

Doesn't sound like Gary did that for you.

So how did you feel when you were doing the interview and at the same time thinking how am I going to get this told in a few minutes?

Yeah, Gary, he's a bit of a waffler. Gary, we sat down and had a good hour and a half chat and we kind of had to trim a lot of that to kind of get this episode. I think a lot of people around Gary's age and from that kind of error as well was that if you have the time to sit down and listen to them, and if you listen to their story in a hole, you can actually find some really good gems throughout it. Yeah, and yeah, I did a little bit of coaxing obviously.

Well, I think you've got some absolute gold out of him, and the way it was edited together was just super clever.

Congratulations, great first day out.

Thank you so much.

In a moment we'll hear from our second storyteller, and later we'll find out who is one step closer to becoming Australia's first ever Find and Tell Champion. This is Find and Tell, the search for the next generation of diverse storytellers. Today's theme is silver Linings. We just heard from Ben and now it's time to meet our next storyteller.

Hi.

I'm Kate Robinson and I am an Iranian Australian visual artist based here in I'm also a podcaster, so it felt so so cool to get to take part in a program like Find and Tell. For me, telling authentic, deep stories is really important because I think that telling stories through kind of narrative long form podcast is something that I'm just obsessed with, and so it was really really fun for me to get the chance to create a podcast in this really different way.

Kate, Welcome to Find and Tell.

Oh, it's so nice to be here with you, Jamilla.

We are about to hear the story you've created, your very first story of the show, and up until this point it's just been you and your producer and a microphone. How does it feel knowing that the whole country is about to hear what you've made?

It's a bit nerve wracking, to be honest. Yeah, I think for me, like the kinds of stories that I love the most are really personal ones. And so when I started this project, like I instantly knew that that's what I was going to do. But then when it comes to this moment, Wye, other people are going to be listening to this very inkate's head story, it feels a bit scary.

Oh, I just got all like, oh, this sounds like a cliche, but I go chili. After that, I am psyched. The theme for this week is silver linings without giving away this very personal story. What did that mean to you when you first heard the theme was silver linings? What did you first think of?

I think for me, silver linings really are about when you go through something shit. Yeah yeah, but there's there's something good that kind of you know, surrounds it and comes out of it. And so for me, it was very clear what I was going to talk about from

All right, I cannot wait any longer, and I'm sure that is the case for you listening right now as well. I am in the same boat as you. I have not heard Kate's story. I've not heard any of the stories, and I am busting to.

Get to it.

So without further ado, this is Kate's first Find and Tell story for Silver Linings.

In the midst of the worst week of my life, I got this really unexpected voice message from a friend of a friend.

He love.

I've been thinking of you lot. I couldn't sleep last night and you were on my mind, and I just wanted to say that I know how ground shattering this breakup and situation is and how I found it hard to process things.

Jane and I had met at a festival a few weeks beforehand, and so we had the kind of closeness that comes from sweaty dance for moments and late night chats, and by that I mean we really didn't know each other. And yet that voice message on that day was exactly what I needed.

I actually found a lot of solace in speaking to a friend over voice message just as stuff was coming up, like journaling kind of verbally. It really really helps me. So yeah, I am sending some love from the coast.

So off the back of AJ's advice, and after very very little sleep, I took out my phone and I started voice messaging her.

Hi, my dear, it was so nice to get your voice message. Thanks for sending it. So I am in the apartment. I survived my first night sleeping here alone.

When I listen back to these voice messages now, to be honest, I don't think it even sounds like me, this girl who was so shocked about her life radically and unexpectedly changing, and just all.

Feels so crazy, to be honest, And it's just like it's just fucking bizarre. Basically that last week that I was just having a totally normal week and everything has changed so drastically, and I just had no idea.

All right, every single one of us has been through some kind of experience of heartbreak, but when you're going through it, it's so hard to have any kind of perspective.

There's basically like a roster of people that are just coming over, dropping off food, spending time with me. Like last night, I realized, like there's still a part of me that doesn't understand that this is real, and like there's still a part of me that's like waiting.

Tonight is the first night heart believe. I feel a bit of anger about all of that. You haven't like you decided I had someone over in the evening.

Driving alone seems insane that my life can feel like a trash my yet I still have to prepare for this thing.

Me feeling the way that I do is it's still definitely weird. That has been like an absolutely fascinating realization to come to me. I've spent a year voice messaging back and forth with AJ, and now that I'm out of the weeds of the breakup, I can see things a bit more clearly. Our friendship at this really pivotal, weird moment in my life has made me think a lot about how we survive heartbreak, but also why we

I consider my romantic breakups some of the most visceral periods of grief in my life, but the mere act of living through that and surviving it had made me understand I was so much stronger than I thought I was. It taught me a lot about my capacity for resilience.

That's author and podcaster Elizabeth Day and her book friend of Hollick. It's had such a big impact on me this year. My copy is underlined and tabbed like a textbook because I think that breakups, they really often, shine a light on all of our relationships a bit, in particular our friendships.

One of the most momentous breakups in my life was three weeks before my thirty ninth birthday. I remember so vividly that breakup happening and me opening the window of my rented flat and smoking a cigarette. I don't smoke, by the way, but it felt like the only appropriate, least a tragic thing to do.

When your life gets unexpectedly turned upside down. Like elizabeths did like minded, the balance in the scales of everything kind of skews, including in your friendships. All of a sudden you become the friend who is kind of a miss, But there's also something so beautiful about friendship that is born out of a time when there's no expectation of anything in return.

I do not know what I would have done without my friends after that breakup, literally to the extent that the first person I called was Emma, my ex was still in the flat, and I said, this has happened, and she was like, right, but he doesn't mean that I mean, because it seems so ludicrous to her. She's like, right, but he's joking, isn't he. I was like no, and she said, Okay, my darling, this is what we're going to do, and she basically gave me a plan of action.

Me into for Dinity clinic.

And I don't know, that mixture of sort of practicality and just the force of their love for me just got me through because I knew that I always had somewhere to turn.

There's something so important in these moments to know that you're not alone and to actually feel quite the opposite, that you have this incredible group of people who are rallying around.

You, and they have always been there when my heart has been broken to repair it, but also to remind me that the most consistent and meaningful love of my life is the love of my friends.

Oh that's so beautiful, Elizabeth. I had exactly this same experience where my ex partner was still in the flat as well, and I called my best friend Alice, and she did exactly as you said. She said, no, that's not possible.

Are you sure?

And I said I'm sure, And then she said, all right, this is what you're going to do. So I didn't have to do any of the labor. She was like, just stay on the phone to me and you will get someone to come and pick you up as soon as possible.

That's incredible. Here's to Alice and Emma. I am so glad we have those women in our lives.

We all have our Alice's and our Emma's who we know will forever show up for us. But when your life goes through a seismic shift, there's also, of course those people that just fade away. And then there are the friends that are directly born out of those circumstances, who you become close to really quickly in a way

I am so glad you asked that. It's like I've waited my whole life to be asked this question. It plays an enormous and profound role for me. I love nothing more than a voice note. I think it's partly because I am an introvert, which I know is ironic given that I'm sitting here chatting to you and I

I love that so much because that is exactly how I feel about voice messaging, especially when I was going through the breakup, and it's something where your energy is like simultaneously so drained and like so amplified, and so voice messaging was that perfect medium where I could just pick up the phone and speak to someone when I felt like on my terms and there was no pressure, and I just love that so much.

And it's something that you can do when you're walking somewhere, and there's something about that combination that feels you can be more open and more vulnerable than if you're curating a text or if you are on a phone call, I'm constantly trying to gauge how the other person might be feeling, and I can't see their face. There's something disjointed about it. Whereas the voice note, I am sending something from my world into theirs, and I know that they will listen to it when they have space to

I've listened back to so many voice messages between AJ and I, and the perspective that I've gained from it is that really has, like with the voice messaging, my breakup has made me be a more vulnerable version of myself in my friendships. It's something that I know that I've struggled with in the past, and it's been a huge positive in an otherwise really shitty year.

So I think heartbreak, whether it's a romantic one or a friendship one, it really reveals us as we truly are, rather than how we like to imagine we might be in the future.

When you go through a breakup, a little bit of your identity it just chips away. It doesn't matter how independent you were before. It's really your friends that tether you back to some kind of sense of yourself. They remind you that you're loved, that you're cared for, that you're not alone, which, to be honest, is some of the biggest reasons that people are afraid of not being

My friends, I would say, they're like family to me. They're better than family. They're my chosen family, and they understand me so deeply, and.

I feel exactly the same way through the ugliness of heartbreak. Friendship that is vulnerable friendship, that is deep friendship that happens via voice message. It was the only silver lining.

Oh my god, I loved it. I loved it.

Well done, Thank you so much.

And your voice.

You've got good voice, good cadence and rhythm and feelings.

Thank you.

I have a lot of questions. Are the voice notes to AJ the real voice notes or did you?

Oh wow?

Literally about twenty four hours of voice messages back and forth, and as part of this project, I went through a year's worth of voice notes and that's that's a lot, and I thought that I was really healed, and then I listened to the very first one that we're here at the start of the episode, and I just instantly started crying because it doesn't sound like me.

No, you do sound like a different person. I mean, as soon as I heard Elizabeth Day's voice, I was like, that's Elizabeth Day. And then I was like, my being one weird person that thinks all English people sound the same, maybe it's not.

No, how did she do that?

So tell me about Like, that's quite a practical thing to do, to go after someone who's a big name, who's a celebrity.

How'd you get her to do it?

To be honest, I just wanted to talk to Elizabeth Day this whole show.

Your involvement was about one thing.

When I think of friendships, it's just intrinsically linked in my head with Elizabeth Day because she's in so many ways the queen of friendship. So when we were pitching ideas for who we might talk to for this episode, I just like kind of sheepishly, was like, well, Elizabeth Day is going to be in Melbourne next week, so maybe we try for Elizabeth's Day and we kind of laughed it off because it seemed absurd that she would say yes, then she did.

I mean it shows ambition pays off, right, you can only ask, well, credit to you, because I think for someone who is high profile and does a lot of interviews, I think they can start to become For someone like Elizabeth Day like, oh, it's just another one because I'm doing seventeen today another four tomorrow, And to get something out of her that was unusual and different does take.

Knowledge and skill.

Well, you made me feel really comfortable and safe as the listener, and more than that, you really made me want to go call my best mate. So I think if that was what you were going for, you absolutely nailed it. Congratulations Kate, Thank you so much.

Schimmeller.

So, who told the best silver lining story? I'm going to make my decision and chat to them in just a moment. This is Fine and Tell, And the theme this week was silver linings. This was a really difficult contest to call. These were two outstanding stories. Ben was made for podcasting folks. His voice is so strong and assured, and he's got a little bit of cheekiness in there too.

Oh my god, thank you so much.

Wow.

I really wanted to go on a Tedb's picnic. By the end of it, I really.

Wanted to meet Gary and there was just so much heart in that story. You made me feel like I was right there in Gary's living room with you.

Well done.

Thank you so much. I've had a lot of fun working on this one, so I'm glad it turned out the way it did.

Thank you so much, Ben and Kate.

What an incredible way to kick off Finding But hey, there is so much more left to come, So press the follow button in whatever podcast app you're on so you don't miss a moment. In our next episode, we'll introduce you to our final two storytellers, or you can get a sneak peek right now at findin tel dot com dot au. Find in Tel is a co production between iHeart Australia and the.

Black Cast podcast network.

Black Cast empowers First Nations people and people of color to reclaim their narratives, strengthen cultural identity, and contribute to a more inclusive Australia by showcasing exciting emerging talent from Australian communities.