Dads on the Air

With special guest: Marco Renai … in conversation with Bill Kable What comes across very clearly when we speak with Marco Renai is that he is a ball of energy. After Marco left school he had a path available to him in his family’s catering business. His first solo business venture was to set up a gym where members could improve their physical condition and wellness under Marco’s guidance. This was Marco’s first attempt at interacting with the community but alas Covid 19 struck. When the members stopped coming, the business folded. This is where Marco’s strong family background and personal experience in the field of education shaped what happened next. While Marco had struggled with the discipline and uncompromising system of education he always had his loving and supportive family to fall back on. But when he was asked to volunteer some mentoring to local youth in the Gold Coast region of Queensland he realised that for many young men this safety net was not available. Sure enough, for many of the young men dropping out of the education system led on to big trouble with society and the law. Having recognised the problem Marco set about doing something about it. Marco rounded up some 100 local businessmen for an Italian lunch and over a pasta or two came up with a plan to raise $1million to help these young men. Being a force of nature this daunting sum did not pose a problem. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: David W Cameron … in conversation with Bill Kable Port Arthur is a beautiful setting for what our guest today describes as “misery of the deepest dye”. In his book Convict-Era Port Arthur David Cameron takes us back to the days before it became a convict settlement, before its charms were viewed in a completely different light by the British newcomers. Its advantages as a proposed convict settlement included that it was surrounded by wild impenetrable bush except for one narrow access route that was easily secured. The security at what became known as The Dog Line involved half-starved dogs that were waiting for any convicts trying to escape. You could not swim away from confinement but just in case food scraps were often scattered to keep the sharks interested. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Chrissie Foster … in conversation with Bill Kable This is the story of how Chrissie Foster responded and refused to back down when confronted by an all-powerful secretive protected institution. Chrissie Foster’s family tragedies and the tepid response by the Catholic Church changed her from living a life of domestic harmony and peace in a totally unexpected way. No doubt when the choice of schools had to be made for their daughters there were discussions between Chrissie and her husband Anthony. Because of Chrissie’s background being raised and educated in the Church they chose a Catholic primary school. Years later they discovered what their daughters had endured. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Hugh Mackay AO … in conversation with Bill Kable When we looked forward to 2021 we also looked back on the disaster of the national bushfires season of 2019/20. That changed us but we did not expect the floods and then the ongoing impact of Covid 19. Our guest today is Hugh Mackay who has been listening to what the community thinks and says for over 60 years as the country’s pre-eminent social researcher. Hugh draws on this immense experience to see where the community is now and what comes next. It may turn out that The Kindness Revolution is Hugh’s last non-fiction book to grace our book shelves so we should all listen up. In his usual articulate way Hugh sees that the horrors of 2020 and 2021 have in fact set the scene for a kindness revolution. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Sam Mac … in conversation with Bill Kable This show is not for anyone expecting to hear a TV weatherman in the mould of Alan Wilkie. Sam Mac has forged a new role for himself in the Sunrise program where he goes around Australia looking for interesting people, interesting towns in fact anything that will give his morning viewers a lift. Naturally Sam will pass on the essential weather information such as do you need to get your umbrella but he will not go into the detailed meteorological analysis behind that decision mainly because he is not a meteorologist. When you read Accidental Weatherman you get to find out what Sam has discovered in the course of visiting over 800 towns for his weather reports over the last five years, namely the real characters of Australia. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Rosie Ayliffe … in conversation with Bill Kable All Hell broke loose on that night in 2016. When we speak with Rosie Ayliffe about her book Far from Home we hear firsthand how her loving 20 year old daughter Mia was put in harm’s way in a backpacker hostel. We hear how Mia and another backpacker who tried to protect her were both killed by another resident in the middle of a psychotic episode. What made it even worse is that Rosie was far away on the other side of the world in England when this nightmare unfolded. Rosie’s dreams of a future life involving her daughter Mia were gone. Rosie thought that her daughter was working in a healthy environment on a farm in outback Queensland in order to comply with the Australian government’s visa requirements for an extended stay in Australia. After being told by the local Police in England about her daughter’s tragic death Rosie decided immediately to come to Australia and get to the bottom of what had happened. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Jeff Apter … in conversation with Bill Kable Everyone remembers Jon English with those raccoon eyes and tall thin frame contributing to a very distinctive appearance. Jon English had regular appearances in so many different forms of entertainment. He was a rock singer, a star of live musicals, a romantic star of acclaimed television series, and at all times a rascal. In between those activities he wrote sensitive music and became an entrepreneur. But there was a lot more to his fascinating story as revealed by our guest today. Jeff Apter wrote Behind Dark Eyes: The True Story of Jon English. It is the subtitle of the book which gives a clue that all was not sunshine and roses for Jon English. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Mike Allsop … in conversation with Bill Kable Mike Allsop was worried that marriage would spell the end of the adventurous life he had been living. He also had experienced a difficult family upbringing himself. So when he met the love of his life he certainly did not rush into that long walk down the aisle. But these days he has the “full disaster” with his wife Wendy and three beautiful children. And there are lessons to be learned from Mike’s progress that we can all appreciate. Talking to Mike makes you feel like you were there with him when he reached the summit of Mt Everest with nobody in front of him. We learn about the setbacks when he was getting ready to run 7 marathons in 7 days on 7 continents starting with his belief that he wasn’t really a marathon runner. This love of setting and reaching goals started when he was a child and he saw an Air New Zealand jet passing overhead. He had the goal of becoming a pilot and finished up getting his pilot’s licence before he had his motor vehicle licence. By gaining the confidence of some airline pilots he went on to achieve his dream. Podcast (mp3)

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. Podcast (mp3)

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. Podcast (mp3)

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. Podcast (mp3)

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. Podcast (mp3)

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. Podcast (mp3)

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. Podcast (mp3)

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. Podcast (mp3)