Days Like These

Days Like These is back — with spies, comedians, lost parents and a lightning strike — oh, and then there’s a pilgrimage of the agnostic  and the atheist, travelling from Sydney to Ireland with a wooden statue of Mary. And that’s just for starters. So join us, for more stories of the day when everything changed.

Days Like These is taking a break for the summer, but while we’re away we wanted to share with you some of our favourite true story podcasts.

One Sunday evening, widower Warren Kirk was home alone and decided to do something he'd never done before in his life.

He rang an escort service. Hear other great stories like this on Earshot, on Radio National and on podcast.

Days Like These is taking a break for the summer, but while we’re away we wanted to share with you some of our favourite true story podcasts.

History, tragedy, and triumph. Marrickville’s Henson Park is an icon of Sydney's inner west.

But before the unshakable Newtown Jets footy fans called it home, the community oval was a giant hole in the ground supplying Sydney's building boom.

This is one of many great stories on the History Listen podcast.

Days Like These is taking a break for the summer, but while we’re away we wanted to share with you some of our favourite true story podcasts. Holidays can stir up memories of loved ones no longer with us. They can be a time to remember things that were once a bone of contention but now speak to a beautiful understanding between husband and wife. As told by our Executive Producer, Sophie Townsend for the Tall Tales and True podcast.  

When horse lover Nicole began to learn about brumbies, there was one who took her breath away on Facebook page: Paleface. He was the most famous stallion of all the wild horses on the Snowy Mountains. A rock star horse with a breathless online following. But after the bushfires of 2019, he disappeared. Fast forward to 2021 when Nicole helps rescue a herd of brumbies from the Mountains: could an angry, malnourished stallion in the back of the horse truck be him? It's up to Nicole to find out, armed with only with an obsession to find out the truth and a d*ck pic.

Growing up in pre-revolution Iran, Jaleh Misaghi dreams of becoming a race car driver. So strong is the pull of rubber on the road, she glues herself to the TV, watching Formula 1, practicing her moves and yearning for the speed of the track.  But after the Iranian revolution, Jaheh’s driving quest is shattered – she can’t even get her licence. With the regime cracking down and a young daughter to care for, she must decide on a new road, one that ultimately brings her to Australia and, finally, behind the wheel.

Jacek Koman grew up in theatres, the son of two actors performing their way around Communist Poland in the 1950s and 1960s.

At school he’s more interested in learning Russian than stagecraft, by the time Jacek reaches university he decides to follow in their footsteps and go to drama school.  

But, after a night out ends in a brush with the Polish secret police, Jacek and his brother make a run for the West.   

Over the years, he rebuilds his career from scratch to become one of the Australia’s most cherished actors on stage and screen, with roles in Belvoir Street plays, The Secret Life of Us and Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge. 

But Jacek’s rusty Russian also plays a reprising role when he’s called to become the front man of a band performing the songs of the Russian criminal underground. 

It’s mid-winter in the Snowy Mountains and in the Thredbo river, where the water is 3.3 degrees, a woman swims laps. She’s wearing just a regular swimsuit, cap and goggles.  

The swimmer is 40-year-old Joy Symons, attempting an ‘ice mile’, a feat considered by some the most dangerous swim in the world. To achieve this official ice mile, she must give proof that she is alive 45 minutes after the event. 

A former Australian representative swimmer, she and her family live at the public pool they manage in sunny Rockhampton, Queensland. 

So what’s brought her to swim in this murky pond with snow falling around her? And how will the grit that made Joy competitive as a young swimmer help her today? 

Sonya grew up in Brisbane. But at 26 she decides to move her life to London. Within days of arriving, she meets a beautiful woman at a bar in Soho. They click instantly.

They fall in love, get married and build a life together in their adopted city. The only thing missing is… a baby. But after 5 years of trying, it doesn’t happen for them and they decide to call it a day.   

Not long after Tess and Sonya find themselves on holidays on the Greek island of Crete. And that’s when their life changes forever. Because that’s when they meet HER. She has black hair and her socks are white despite playing in the dust. Apparently she’s been living in the ruins of an old palace by herself. They can’t just leave her there… can they?