Dads on the Air

With special guests:

Brendan Morris & Stephan Wellink
… in conversation with Bill Kable

The Thornetts, a band of brothers as Shakespeare might have called them.

Today we explore what makes a champion when we hear about a sporting giant from 1960’s Australia, namely Richard, or as he was more commonly known, Dick Thornett.

Dick was the youngest in a family of champions. Dick’s oldest brother was John who became the Captain of the Australian Rugby team, the Wallabies. Under John, the Wallabies had a legendary tour of South Africa. The next brother Ken also played Rugby at a representative level but is best known for his Rugby League abilities. Starting his Rugby League career in England he became known as the Mayor of Leeds before he came back to Australia representing Parramatta and Australia in the Kangaroos.

Dick is called “the Natural” because he was so good at any sport he turned his hand to. After representing Australia in water polo at the 1960 Olympics in Rome he went on to represent Australia in two very different sports namely Rugby and Rugby League.

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With special guest:

Dr Will Davies
… in conversation with Bill Kable

Will Davies has been on the program before, bringing us inside stories from The Great War.

Today we get to discuss Will’s new book Secret and Special. We hear about a boys’ own adventure story that started at a beautiful part of Sydney and which took our adventurers on a dangerous trip to Singapore harbour. They were on a night mission to put limpet mines on some ships in port. The unsuspecting Japanese occupiers of Singapore never knew what hit them.

The difference from most adventure stories is that this is all true and draws on the meticulous research of Dr Davies that we have come to expect.

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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.

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With special guest:

Dr Sara Webb
… in conversation with Bill Kable

The title of this program may look as though it will make us doom struck or at least a little gloomy but strangely it does not. This might have something to do with our guest who is so bright and cheery talking about these biggest of the biggest of issues.

Dr Sara Webb has written The Little Book of Cosmic Catastrophes (That Could End the World) for a general audience who will be able to get a better understanding of where we have come from and where our Earth and humanity itself will go.

Today we talk about what has happened in the distant past, in fact when time began. An amazing number of things had to go just right for the universe as we know it to exist. This goes back to the laws of physics as explored in the recent past by Albert Einstein. Who knew that if the forces between the atomic particles were different, the matter of which we are made simply would not have formed?

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With special guest:

Paul Ham
… in conversation with Bill Kable

Our topics do not come much bigger or more interesting than The Soul: A History of the Human Mind written by our guest today Paul Ham. Certain ideas come to mind when we mention the word “Soul”. Are we talking about soul music or the definition in the catechism or maybe the soul of America which was said to be lost during the Vietnam war?

Paul tells us that the soul can mean all of these things and more. Paul has tackled a topic which is huge in breadth and also extended over the millennia to the beginnings of civilisation. His discovery is that what humans first called the soul was originally thought to be a part of all of us. The soul survived the death of the body and then ventured to an underworld which might be Heaven or Hell. Some Christians believed at one stage that there was also a halfway house called Purgatory but that has disappeared in more recent beliefs. In fact the soul itself disappeared mysteriously during the period called the enlightenment until we arrive where we are today and scientists tell us that the mind is a creation of the brain.

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With special guest:

Dr Edward Kruk
in conversation with Bill Kable and Ken Thompson

Our guest today has produced a book of 167 pages, The Equal Parent Presumption: Social Justice in the Legal Determination of Parenting after Divorce, that should be required reading for everyone who works in the space of parenting after divorce; and that includes judges who routinely make sole parenting orders, psychologists who offer family therapy, and all the other institutions that influence family relationships.

The trouble really arises because although there is a mantra of acting “in the best interest of the child” this becomes a discretionary assessment by a judge who has no training in the area of child development or family dynamics and furthermore the Judge takes no interest in reviewing the outcome of the decision. Dr Kruk invites us to take the child’s position.

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With special guest:

Dr Billy Garvey
… in conversation with Bill Kable

Our guest today is Dr Billy Garvey who is an expert in a field where you do not get provided with a guide book. All parents know the feeling when following the birth of your child you are set free expecting to know how to raise this very complex small version of ourselves.

One of the first things Dr Billy tells us that it is quite normal not to immediately develop the bonding and attachment that we sometimes hear about. Using his own example with his two children we hear that it took some time for this to develop.

Ten things I wish you knew about your child’s mental health is there to help all of us who encounter difficulties with children of any age. This extends from having a baby that cries at night too much, right through to sullen teenagers. That includes most of us. Whatever the problem is it is most likely that it has been seen before in Dr Billy’s 20 years of practice and the advantage here is that you do not have to go into a long waiting line, sometimes years long, to get advice from the doctor.

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With special guest:

Robin Bowles
… in conversation with Bill Kable

In the Northern Territory of Australia there have always been strange, spooky happenings. The disappearance of British backpacker Peter Falconio can be added to the list with so many fascinating elements and weird explanations offered.

This real life story has even resulted in a horror movie being produced with some clear references to what happened on that lonely road right in the centre of the Australian mainland in the middle of the night in July 2001.

What we do know is that after driving off at night with his girlfriend Joanne Lees in completely unknown and wild country Peter Falconio went missing and the only explanation we have is from that girlfriend whose behaviour was to say the least unusual.

After becoming interested in the case after a telephone call from a friend, Robin Bowles entered the scene and did her usual thorough research. This included more than 50 hours with the accused and interviewing many of the main players. We get a glimpse into a world of criminals, forensic experts, seedy drug underworlds, worldwide media networks and the realities of high profile, high stakes legal process.

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With special guest: 

Tim Baker
… in conversation with Bill Kable

Patting the shark? This does not seem to be a good life lesson but when we hear Tim Baker explain the title it all makes sense.

Surfers such as Mick Fanning have had to confront their mortality. Mick is an old friend of Tim’s and he faced a shark in front of the world’s cameras. Many of us saw him swimming next to a man eating shark in the shark’s own territory. Tim Baker has had to face a different type of mortal threat, namely a diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer. We do not know how we would react if confronted with this situation but Tim’s new book Patting the Shark takes us right into that world and he gives us a no holds barred account of what it is really like.

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With special guest: 

Prof Ian Hickie AO
… in conversation with Bill Kable

We often hear about the rise in the rate of depression and anxiety in our community. The stigma of poor mental health has been reduced significantly so that sports stars such as Greg Inglis can now go on television and discuss their personal battles with depression without fear of any repercussions.

But even when so many people are opening up about their mental health battles there are questions we are left with. These might include what can be done to improve mental health without lining up for perhaps a year to see a Psychiatrist? What are the signs to be wary about?

This is where Professor Ian Hickie enters the picture as we speak with him today. This new book A User’s Guide to the Mind is written along similar lines as a good health guide for our physical health. It is written with all ages in mind and can be dipped into for particular topics.

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