The Greatness of Dads

With special guest:

• Kirsten Matthew
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Kirsten Matthew was inspired by her father to take on the Big Apple where she worked as a journalist for ten years. This is a huge achievement considering that she arrived in New York without even a green card, no job offers, not even any friends. At a low point Kirsten rang her father who gave some simple advice to get on with it and that was enough to get her established.

After that experience and lots of other insights, wisdoms and truths from her father Kirsten realised that the universal threads of fatherhood can be found the world over. So she set about the task of recording some quotes, song lyrics, artwork and images of dads throughout history and around the world. The result of these efforts is a beautifully presented book The Greatness of Dads.

There is an eclectic list of contributing dads ranging from President Obama to fathers in ancient Greece, sportsmen, actors and a lot of dads we don’t know about who nevertheless have lessons for all of us. One of the favourites is Spike Milligan who has a pithy contribution. And there are surprises when famous dads think about their greatest achievements.

This stylish presentation of dads’ thoughts has been missing from the literature. But not only does this book fill the gap, it is great fun. Any dad who reads this book will find some part of himself in there. Every son and daughter will be reminded of the influence of their fathers. And strangely enough Kirsten believes fathers have an effect even if they are not around as their child grows up.

Kirsten is now back in New Zealand where she is taking up a new challenge of building a garden that will allow her to live a simple life. In the meantime all of us, dads, expectant dads, grandads, foster dads, godfathers, or anyone who is, has or is about to be a dad and all their children can enjoy the stories and tales in this beautiful book.

Kirsten Matthew

After working as an investigative journalist in New Zealand and winning a number of national journalism awards Kirsten Matthew moved to New York City where she worked for the New York Post, Time Out New York Eating and Drinking Guide and many other publications over a ten year period. Kirsten wrote about restaurants and food before deciding to return to her native New Zealand for a completely different food adventure, building a garden to survive on. While chatting with her long-time friend, All Black Marc Ellis, the idea came to write a book about dads that was not syrupy or embarrassing. Thus was born The Greatness of Dads.

Song selection by our guest: King of the Road by Roger Miller

Note: This program is an encore presentation of the one aired on 29 September 2016.

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