Five Years From Now

With special guest:

• Paige Toon
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

In today’s episode we speak to author and citizen of the world Paige Toon who has written a novel exploring the relationship between two children from opposite ends of the world and their fathers.

We drop in on these lives every five years to see how things have changed and we find there are plenty of surprises as we trace the emotional development of the main characters.

The fathers in the story start from different points. One is close to his daughter and always has been. The other did not get to meet his son until he was seven. Yet both children see the importance of that father/child relationship as they make their way through life. The book is all about relationships and how timing can be all important.

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Guy Tai Shanghai

With special guest:

• Eric Johnson
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

The number of American men who have completely left the workforce to raise children has more than doubled over the past decade according to a New York Times report on census data. And many others serve as primary caretakers for their families while maintaining freelance or part-time jobs.

This situation is reflected in cosmopolitan cities around the world where expat wives are taking up new jobs and bringing with them their families. In previous times it was usually the men who arrived in foreign cities to start work and their wives were labelled Tai Tais or trailing wives. These Tai Tais were unlikely to find work because of visa restrictions and language barriers so they dedicated themselves to running the home, perhaps with some domestic help.

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From Fiji to The Voice

With special guest:

• Voli K
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

In the program today we speak to Voli K who distinguished himself by being a standout performer singing on the TV program The Voice.

iTaukei is what the Fijian people call themselves and we have a picture in our minds of what this means. We may think of the Fijian Rugby team or other representative sportsmen who are built like trees and run like gazelles. We also think of their big smiles in black faces saying Bula a thousand times a day.

What we do not think of is a white skinned Fijian. Voli K was born in Fiji and has the skin condition of albinism which affects a small proportion of Fijians, other Melanesians in the Pacific basin and people all around the world.

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Malcolm Young

With special guest:

• Jeff Apter
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Malcolm was a younger brother of George Young guitarist and songwriter with The Easybeats. Music was definitely in the family but in such a fickle industry could lightning strike twice after the enormous success of brother George?

The Young family story starts in an economically deprived part of Scotland. Then seven of the eight members of the family became Ten Pound Poms and settled in a migrant hostel in Australia. One of the elder children continued to work as a musician in Europe.

After years of playing guitar in his bedroom Malcolm joined a band and later agreed to let Angus in, recognising at that early stage the genius of his younger brother. It was his sister who came up with the name for the band and that was never changed. It is arguable that their choice of music style never changed either, always driving rock’n’roll.

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Christmas Tales

With special guest:

• William McInnes
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Christmas means……what? The answer is not so easy these days with there being so much commercialisation of the season. What we can say is that Christmas raises lots of emotions in all of us including nostalgia, loss, indulgence, funny presents but most of all family and love.

Our guest today is the very well-known actor and author William McInnes who takes us into his own Christmases over the years in his new book Christmas Tales. William is able to illustrate those Christmas emotions and reactions during this most significant season in the year with lots of stories mostly funny but with a few that tear at your heart.

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Better than Happiness

With special guest:

• Dr Gregory Smith OAM
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Now well and truly out of the forest he described in his first book, Gregory Smith has produced a new book called Better than Happiness in which he lets us know how he has progressed in the five years since we heard from him last time.

Gregory’s life story is extraordinary and uplifting. Gregory had a type of epiphany when sitting on a park bench in 1999 when a stranger showed him some kindness. From there it has been one step at a time.

After being told so many times while he was growing up that he was stupid, he slowly began to realise that this was wrong. He found that he could learn more things than just how to survive day to day. In fact he achieved recognition in an academic field. Senior people were coming to him for advice.

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A Better Death

With special guest:

• Dr Ranjana Srivastava
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Most people in our society try to avoid death and taxes. But at least in the case of our mortality it is a universal experience, a bookend of our life, part of being human.

Our guest today is Dr Ranjana Srivastava OAM who is an Oncologist working in the public hospital sector of Victoria. Ranjana packs into her daily life being a doctor, an award winning author, a journalist and also a family life with her husband and three children.

Yet her professional life as a cancer specialist revolves around dealing with a deadly disease, cancer. It often falls to her to pass on the unimaginable news that the person in front of her has limited time to live. Some doctors can’t imagine themselves doing this because they want to help heal a condition. Other doctors can’t imagine doing anything else and for this they have a special type of courage.

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An Unlikely Prisoner

With special guest:

• Sean Turnell
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

It is a special welcome to our guest today Sean Turnell. Sean survived for 650 days in Insein prison under the orders of the military Junta of Myanmar. In Sean’s new book An Unlikely Prisoner we hear how this unarmed University Professor who weighs 50kg wringing wet became a dangerous prisoner to a foreign government needing armed escorts wherever he went.

We hear from Sean that he was summarily arrested in his hotel before being confined to a small cell he shared with an enormous rat. Nothing could prepare a person for this ordeal and Sean did not see it coming. Yet as you will hear in this interview Sean maintained his faith in humanity, his sense of humour and mostly his health.

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The Boy Crisis

With special guest:

• Dr Warren Farrell
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

The big issues of today include Hamas on the international stage, gangs of youths in our cities and disengaged sons in our families. Our guest today has found a common link in each of these and that is the preponderance of dad deprivation for both the boys and girls involved.

Dr Farrell has been researching for 11 years in order to produce his latest book and some of his findings are eye opening. For example we discover that the downward spiral of boys in the developed world is leading to physical changes. Young men of today have a sperm count of only 50% what their grandfathers had at the same age and it is dropping by 1.5% every year.

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Top Blokes Foundation

With special guest:

• Melissa Abu-Gazaleh
  … in conversation with Bill Kable
  

We cannot avoid the bad news stories about young men. The figures show that 82.6% of articles in the press about young men are negative.

In today’s program we speak with Melissa Abu-Gazaleh, the founder and CEO of Top Blokes Foundation, who counters that negative stereotype by encouraging the young men to become “top blokes”. Melissa argues that young men can be a force for good; they are a resource that is largely untapped.

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Saving Lieutenant Kennedy

With special guest:

• Brett Mason
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Most Australians have some knowledge of the turning point in the Pacific war when the fear of invasion lessened. Most of us know something of the heroic story of Lieutenant John F Kennedy or JFK as he became known. Brett Mason in his book Saving Lieutenant Kennedy fills in the gaps in this amazing and hugely consequential story. These events literally changed the history of the world because if JFK had not survived it is conceivable that nuclear conflict could have erupted in the years that followed.

The story happens to involve an Australian who was also heroic, namely Lieutenant Reg Evans of the RAN. Reg Evans operated behind enemy lines knowing that if he were to be betrayed he would certainly be tortured and killed. Evans relied on his Solomons Islands friends who faced the same threats in what they were doing.

Evans and JFK were two very different personalities brought together in August 1943 in a way that echoes the discovery of Dr Livingstone in the African jungle. JFK’s words on being discovered on an uninhabited island of the south Pacific? “Man, am I glad to see you!”

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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.

Although Shaun said he preferred talking to writing he also managed to write a book before he made the video and gave it the title An Awesome Ride. Now seven years after Shaun’s death his father Cameron has taken that work and included his own thoughts and emotions in following Shaun’s all too short life. In the new book An Awesome Ride: Through a father’s eyes we get to follow that roller coaster of a life and put Shaun’s life in context. We get to see Shaun’s effect on others in the community.

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The Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory

With special guest:

• Corey White
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Luckily for our guest today he always believed he was special. That belief was severely tested before too long.

Corey White grew up knowing that his father was in jail and his mother was a heroin addict. Both parents disappeared from his early life and his life journey was about to become a roller-coaster with no guarantees.

Corey is never one to sugar coat his experiences. He had to sell himself to totally unsuitable foster parent candidates in the hope they would take him in. Once in a family he was subjected to cruelty, dysfunction and in once case sexual abuse. At school he was bullied, it was all grim and he wasn’t even 10 years old.

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Would that be funny?

With special guest:

• Lorin Clarke
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

The mere mention of John Clarke’s name brings a smile to the faces of Australians and New Zealanders in particular.

The much loved actor/writer/comedian died suddenly on 9 April 2017 but his memory lives on. Now with the new book Would that be funny? John Clarke’s daughter Lorin Clarke ensures that we learn some more about the man we all feel we grew up with. Lorin really did grow up with him and she has a unique insight into the man who appeared so often on our radios and televisions.

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Parents Acting Badly

With special guest:

• Dr Jennifer Harman
  … in conversation with Bill Kable
  

Why is it that we never see young animals rejecting a caring parent in the way we see some children acting? The behaviour of the other parent may be the cause and this strange behaviour may be due to Parental Alienation.

Our guest today is Associate Professor Jennifer Harman who tells us that the problem of Parental Alienation is all too common and getting worse around the world yet it is still decried by some as “junk science”.

Jennifer tells us that the scientific analysis of Parental Alienation is still at a beginning stage. The research is still focussing on the description of Parental Alienation because we have not yet reached the predictive stage. This is the normal scientific approach to research and can be compared with where we are up to with the topic du jour, domestic violence. However no-one denies the existence of domestic violence in the way they once did.

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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?

In his book Anxious Kids: How children can turn their anxiety into resilience, Michael Grose speaks from his own first-hand knowledge as well as his professional qualifications and wide experience. Michael tells us that parents can learn how to recognise anxiety in their children. Recognition is a first and necessary step and parents are best placed to do so although that closeness brings with it responsibility because anxiety runs in families.

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Too Soon, Too Late

With special guests:

• Ralph & Kathy Kelly
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

There is widespread knowledge of the July 2012 attack on 18 year old Thomas Kelly in 2017. The sorrow felt by the community was compounded by the loss through suicide of Thomas’s brother Stuart four years later.

Ralph and Kathy Kelly have experienced the unimaginable but as a measure of the innate qualities of them and their family they have, in the time since, made great strides in reducing the dangers on the streets of Sydney.

In their book Too Soon, Too Late Kathy and Ralph tell how they explored what happened on those July days in 2012 and 2016. They talk about the care and assistance they have received from people such as former NSW Premiers Barry O’Farrell and Mike Baird. They also reveal the human side of the people on the front line such as the NSW Police Force Homicide Squad. Within themselves Kathy and Ralph found the bravery missing from anonymous “trolls” who did not like some of the changes to our drinking laws even if they resulted in a dramatic reduction in hospital admissions on a Saturday night.

The forewords to this book are written by former Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and Professor Gordian Fulde Director of Emergency Department at St Vincent’s Hospital for thirty years up until 2018, the longest serving Director of Emergency in Australian history. These people know what a difference Kathy and Ralph have made.

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Tell No One

With special guest:

• Brendan Watkins
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

The title of this book Tell No One has an ominous ring to it. We can imagine sex offenders threatening their victims should the story ever get out. As Brendan discovered there may also be another reason for this instruction involving a power imbalance.

Brendan knew at a young age that he had been adopted but when he started looking for his biological parents he did not know if his conception may have resulted from a sexual offence or young love or something else. One thing that kept driving Brendan was his desire to know the truth wherever that may lead.

The first part of his story was surprising. His mother had been 27 when Brendan was born so she was not the teenager in trouble who adopts out her child under pressure from her family. Then the shock of finding out that his mother had been a nun, a bride of Christ. Having made this discovery Brendan was mightily disappointed when the Catholic agency acting as intermediary advised that his mother said they must never meet.

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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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Dear Dad

With special guest:

• Samuel Johnson OAM
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Samuel Johnson gave his contributors only one restriction when he contacted them about writing a letter to their Dad for a book he was editing. Their letters had to start with the words “Dear Dad …”. Faced with this task what would you say? Samuel himself is such a noteworthy character and he is candid about the relationship he had with his own father. Samuel wrote his own contribution as well as editing those from 85 other luminaries.

Samuel likes taking on a challenge in a good cause. When his sister Connie was diagnosed with breast cancer she suggested that he should unicycle around Australia. With that completed he said what next? The great thing for us is that it lead to this beautiful book called Dear Dad.

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