Remembrance Day 2020

With special guest:

• Dr Will Davies
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

In a very unusual year for commemorations of any sort we have the opportunity to speak with historian Dr Will Davies on the 102^nd anniversary of peace being declared at the end of the First World War.

Will is always great to speak to because he knows the human side of that conflict and tells the real stories behind the history to bring it alive.

We start by going back to March 1918 when the outcome of the war was far from certain. The Germans had launched a spring offensive which they hoped would lead to victory. However the Allied forces prevailed and a big part of that was the heroic action taken by the Australian diggers. Any Australian visitor to the battlefields of France even today will still feel the gratitude of the French people for having the Australians on their side.

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Purple House

With special guest:

• Sarah Brown
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Twenty years ago in Central Australia the Aboriginal people called kidney disease “never return home.” When kidney transplant is not available survival from end stage renal failure means dialysis where the patient is hooked up to a machine for five hours every second day for the rest of the patient’s life. And if Central Australians can only access the machines in Alice Springs and Darwin then that is where they will spend the rest of their lives.

Twenty years ago the Aboriginal people with this condition were forced into a place where no one spoke their language and they were lonely and homesick. Family, culture and community relationships were suffering.

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The Godmothers

With special guest:

• Monica McInerney
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

When we speak with Monica McInerney she still sounds like she has lived all her life in South Australia. In fact she has become a local in Ireland over the last twenty years and knows very well the country around Dublin which is a big part of her new book The Godmothers.

The book could be used to promote the Irish countryside with its beautiful scenery and warm welcoming pubs. We also visit England and Scotland which is a welcome adventure when travel has become so restricted for all of us. But the main appeal of this story is that we learn about families, relationships and the often unforeseen consequences of our actions. In particular we are let in on some family secrets and different ways they are treated. Some secrets are bound to go to the grave while others can hardly be called secret since everyone in the family knows them.

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Max

With special guest:

• Alex Miller
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Those who fought against the Nazis in World War II were necessarily shadowy figures. It was a matter of survival.

For Max Blatt who lived the latter half of his life in Australia those shadows stayed with him until the day he died. Even 20 years after his death those shadows and mysteries still shrouded his life story. But our guest today the award winning writer Alex Miller was not content to leave the story in the black hole of Nazi atrocities. For Alex and all of us these stories need to be explored and revealed if the community as a whole is to get over being so damaged by events in the not so distant past. Despite the sadness and tragedy in Max’s family this story becomes one of survival, friendship, mentoring and most of all love.

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Anxious Kids

With special guest:

• Michael Grose
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Michael Grose and his co-author Dr Jodi Richardson are often asked when making parenting presentations if there is an epidemic of anxiety among our young people. If you were asked the same question you might immediately say yes but before he answers that question for us in today’s program, we ask our guest what it is exactly that we are talking about. Is anxiety the same as depression? Is anxiety built into us? When does it become harmful? What can we do about it?

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Daddy Cool

With special guest:

• Darleen Bungey
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

A real feature of the show today is when we go back to 1957 to hear the golden voice of Lawrie Brooks.

Lawrie was born in the United States where he had been named Robert Cutter. But Robert became the most popular singer in Australia under another name, Lawrie Brooks. How he came to wear the new name is a story in itself and just part of the fascinating history told in Darleen Bungey’s book about her father called Daddy Cool: Finding my father, the singer who swapped Hollywood fame for home in Australia.

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The Healthy Baby Gut Guide

With special guest:

• Dr Vincent Ho
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

This has been going on for a long time and until now people have been unsure as to what should be done. We are talking about allergic reactions which range from coughing and sneezing through to anaphylactic shock and even death.

In his new book The Healthy Baby Gut Guide, Dr Vincent Ho shows us a way to turn back the booming allergy outbreak. At the moment almost one in five Australian children have allergies which take the form of eczema, asthma, hay fever and severe responses to certain types of foods, think peanuts.

Dr Ho tells us his passion for doing something about allergies arose when his own daughter became a patient. A parent feels scared and powerless when a child has an allergic reaction. And there is no shortage of advice, sometimes dubious about what should be done. At last there is some clear and authoritative guidance allowing a confident decision to be made about the good health of our children.

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Friday on My Mind

With special guest:

• Jeff Apter
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

George Young made his name internationally by writing with his best mate Harry Vanda a song we can all sing along to more than 50 years after its release. So it was a natural choice as the title of Jeff Apter’s new book Friday on My Mind: the life of George Young.

George managed to get a ticket to The Beatles Sydney performance in 1964. He decided right then that he was going to be in music as a career but it was not going to be a straightforward ride as we learn in Jeff’s book.

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The Gap

With special guest:

• Benjamin Gilmour
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Paramedics. These are the people who answer the call when someone, anyone, is in a very serious situation. Paramedics have to be extra resilient, resourceful, caring and if they are going to be able to stay in the job they need to get on with their work partner in regularly stressful situations. And if that means sharing a joke that could be black humour it is all part of the job.

Our guest today is Benjamin Gilmour who was attracted to the life of a paramedic as a child. After obtaining his formal qualifications with a Bachelor of Paramedicine and a Master’s Degree in Public Health he has now clocked up over twenty years serving the community in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs and several country locations.

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An Awesome Ride: Through a father’s eyes

With special guest:

• Cameron Miller
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

In 2012 Shaun Miller made a YouTube video in his bedroom called MY FINAL GOODBYE. In this video Shaun managed in only 2 minutes and 54 seconds to get out some important messages before it was too late.

Shaun was only 17 years of age but he knew that he had at most a few weeks to live because of his heart condition. He said that he had no regrets and that we should live life to the fullest. We should express our love to the people around us. Importantly he said to make sure that his dad Cameron was OK.

Overnight there were 30,000 hits and a week later that number had gone to over 1 million. Now it is over 7 million. Clearly this is an extraordinary person.

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The Commando Way

With special guest:

• Bram Connolly
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

When Bram Connolly started writing his book The Commando Way: a Special Forces commander’s lessons for life, leadership and success he was thinking that he was an average type of man. The working title of the book was The Risk of Being Average.

However Bram soon realised that he is not your average man in the street in 21^st Century Australia, just as anyone who hears his story will also very quickly realise. Bram is talking about jumping out of planes into enemy territory, being surrounded by people with weapons who wanted to kill him and at the same time inspiring a group of soldiers to put their life on the line to do their job. Clearly we are talking about a leader of men.

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Paul Kelly

With special guest:

• Stuart Coupe
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Paul Kelly is woven into the fabric of Australia. But it was not always so, as our guest today Stuart Coupe tells us. After first picking up a guitar at the age of 18 and writing his first song at 20, it did take a while and a number of rejections before Paul Kelly was accepted as a performer.

In his new book called Paul Kelly: the man, the music and the life in between, Stuart shows that he knows his subject well; so well that he can add this book to the canon on Paul Kelly’s life which already includes Paul Kelly’s lengthy autobiography.

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Mackenzie’s Mission

With special guest:

• Jonny Casella
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Before we hear from Jonny about the ground breaking medical mission inspired by little Mackenzie Casella we need to find out about Jonny and Rachael’s journey.

Fortunately not many of us face the tragedy and trauma that Jonny did after deciding to become a father. And having been through this valley of having a beautiful baby then losing her not many parents are prepared to speak candidly about what it all means.

In this program Jonny opens his heart to take us through the seven short months that he spent with his daughter Mackenzie while she battled with a genetic disease known as SMA (spinal muscular atrophy).

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Transgender

With special guest:

• “Sarah”
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Sometimes through no fault of our own the people closest to us will turn against us. People who do not even know us will take a position about who we are. Sarah, not her real name, was assigned male at birth but always knew something was not quite right. Finally after the trauma of a marriage breakdown Sarah decided to express her true self by confirming her gender.

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Diving Into Glass

With special guest:

• Caro Llewellyn
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

When Caro Llewellyn started writing her new book she had intended it to be mainly about her extraordinary father, Richard. However her life then took a sudden and unexpected turn, one which turned her world upside down. That change meant adding to the story with her own experience and her feelings became the title of her new book Diving Into Glass.

Caro was on top of the world with a son she adored, a glittering career organising book festivals around the world where she got to meet and become friendly with leading writers and an active lifestyle that often included daily runs of 10km or more. What is more Caro felt confident in agreeing with her father that fate would favour her because surely her dad had taken on himself all the bad luck that a family should expect.

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How Fear Works

With special guest:

• Prof Frank Furedi
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Frank Furedi says that fear is the principal motivating force in the 21^st Century.

We see fear being used by all sides in politics; we see it in the family dynamic; we see it in the young with their fear of missing out (or FOMO). And yet at the same time we do not call it out because to some degree we have been sensitised to its operation.

Once an expert like our guest today points out the use of fear we can see it everywhere and if it is not going to take over our lives completely we need to take some time-honoured steps to counter its influence.

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Woodstock 50 Years On

With special guest:

• Glenn A Baker…
  in conversation with Bill Kable

Glenn A Baker is a father of six children and a grandfather of 12. For those of us whose memories extend a little he is the music guru so he is a very special Dad to be on our program.

Glenn is here to tell us about an adventure he had lined up for those with a special interest in a particular seminal event and rock music generally. Yes to our surprise it is 50 years since that massive and unplanned gathering of over 500,000 people in upstate New York listened to the cream of the world’s musicians playing in a concert, some concert.

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Raising Boys in the Twenty-first Century

With special guest:

• Steve Biddulph AM
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

It was hard enough to raise boys in the 20^th Century. What are the new challenges facing parents who want to raise their sons to be the open-hearted, kind and strong men they can be?

Our guest today has revised and updated his classic parenting book released in 1997, a book that is found in over three million homes around the world. There is a lot of new information and surprising research for Steve to draw on in his new book Raising Boys in the Twenty-first Century. There is a new understanding of hormonal changes as boys turn into men, changes that mean the age from 6 to 14 is when fathers count the most.

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Life and Death Planning for Country Properties

With special guest:

• Owen Catto
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Our guest today is Owen Catto from The Regional Men’s Health Initiative of Western Australia.

Owen’s life as a farmer began when he worked on the family farm for 18 years with a small interest in that farming business given to him by his father. To back up this direct experience of conditions on the farm Owen also has a Bachelor of Business in Agriculture and has operated a farm consultancy business. When talking about life on the land we might say that Owen knows his onions.

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A Paradigm Shift in Suicide Prevention

With special guest:

• Anthony Smith
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

We ask Anthony Smith what is the situational approach he has written about. The surprising response from Anthony is that only 10% of suicides are due to depression or what are loosely called mental illnesses. This is the first of several surprises in today’s program.

We discover that suicide is the biggest cause of death for Australians between the ages of 15 and 44. We discover that three out of four deaths are males. We find out that the cost to the economy amounts to 4% of GDP. And we are told that the current response by the Health authorities is on the wrong track.

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