Unlikely Threads

1. ​ In January 1962 — one month after Tanzanian independence —three girls at a mission boarding school started laughing uncontrollably. Then screaming. Then crying. Then running. The epidemic spread to fourteen schools and a thousand people over eighteen months. The doctors found nothing. Thegovernment said it was children being dramatic. The Western scientists called it fascinating and went home. Nobody asked the girls what they thought. This is that story.

If you enjoy this episode please support us and encourage usto do more episodes! Like it, leave us a comment and follow us. Thanks Andrew and Clive

13. What do 800 million rabbits, 19 million feral cats, and 200million cane toads have in common? They were all solutions. This is the story of the Europeans who arrived in Australia, looked at an ancient and extraordinary continent, and decided — with the best intentions, and the full backing of science and government — that it needed to be fixed.

If you enjoy this episode please support us and encourage usto do more episodes! Like it, leave us a comment and follow us. Thanks Andrew and Clive

12. They came for a cause. They stayed for a war. In this secondpart of Unlikely Threads, the story moves from belief to battlefield as the International Brigades are thrown into the brutal reality of the Spanish Civil War. What began as a fight against fascism soon becomes something far more chaotic, dangerous—and complicated. From the Jarama valley to the streets of Barcelona, Clive and Andrew follow the volunteers into combat, where confusion, courage, and sheer chance shape the outcome. They uncover the stories of Australians who travelled halfway across the world to fight—including one who stood before a firing squad—and even the loneAustralian who chose to fight for the opposing side.

Along the way, the war is captured—and reshaped—through the eyes of photographers like Gerda Taro and Robert Capa, while writers such as George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway grapple with what the conflict really means. Orwell, in particular, leaves Spain with more than a bullet wound—he carries with him a deep distrust of propaganda and power that would shape some of the most important political writing of the 20th century.

This is the moment idealism meets reality. And not all ofthem would survive it.

If you enjoy this episode please support us and encourage usto do more episodes! Like it, leave us a comment and follow us. Thanks Andrewand Clive

11. What if the Second World War didn’t begin in 1939—but threeyears earlier, in Spain? In this episode of Unlikely Threads, we follow the extraordinary stories of the men and women who travelled from more than sixty countries to fight fascism in its infancy. Some came for politics, others for adventure, sport, or romance —but all found themselves in a brutal conflict that would foretell the horrors to come. From artists and poets to rebels and idealists, this is the story of how ordinary people stepped into history—and what it cost them. Join Clive Hartley and Andrew Wisdom as they unstitch the threads and look a how the war started and some of the people that volunteered.

If you enjoy this episode please support us and encourage usto do more episodes! Like it, leave us a comment and follow us. Thanks Andrew and Clive

10. In the second part of the story Andrew and Clive look at how six different sports were born from a single argument. We look at the origins of Australian football, and why a Harvard campus that was slightly too small changed the rules of American football forever. Join Andrew and Clive as they explore the origins of the World Game and of other Codes, that would find that title provocative!

If you enjoy this episode please support us and encourage usto do more episodes! Like it, leave us a comment and follow us. Thanks Andrew and Clive

9. One pub. One meeting. One vote about whether it should be legal to kick your opponent in the shins. The men who won that vote in 1863 invented soccer. The men who lost it and walked out invented rugby.  Join Andrew and Clive as they explore the origins of the World Game and of other Codes, that would find that remark as provocative!

If you enjoy this episode please support us and encourage us to do more episodes! Like it, leave us a comment and follow us. Thanks Andrew and Clive

8. In the second part of A Tale of Two Women we ask a different question: what happens when privilege, ambition, and curiosity carry you to the edge of the known world? Katherine Routledge’s journey begins in comfort and security, but it quickly transforms into something far more uncertain as she sets sail aboard her custom-built schooner—the Mana—towards the remote and mysterious Easter Island. What follows is a story of exploration and obsession, of difficult personalities, rebellion, and isolation, as she attempts to uncover the meaning behind the island’s enigmatic statues while navigating a volatile colonial landscape. Yet as her achievements mount, so too does the personal cost. Join Clive and Andrew as they try to unpick the threads of Katherine’s life and discover the true cost of sailing against the tide ofEdwardian misogyny.

7. This episode of Unlikely Threads – A Tale of Two Womenbegins with a question: how does a young woman from a modest background in Russian‑occupied Poland end up at Oxford in 1911—and then push beyond it, into one of the harshest environments on Earth? Maria Czaplicka’s story unfolds as a journey of determination, intellect, and extraordinary resilience, as she breaks through the rigid barriers of Edwardian society to become a pioneeringanthropologist. From underground classrooms to Arctic expeditions, her work opens a window onto worlds few in Britain had ever seen, yet her path is anything but secure. As her achievements grow, so too does the uncertaintysurrounding her place within an academic system that was never built to accommodate her. So here’s the thread we’ll follow: when opportunity appears, but the structures remain unchanged, how far can talent take you—and whathappens when those fragile gains begin to slip away?

Voice Cast: Maria Czaplicka – Jacqueline Hartley.

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6. What if the greatest composers in history weren’t refined geniuses in candlelit rooms—but obsessive, scandal‑ridden, unpredictable, tragic figures living on the edge of brilliance and collapse? This episode of Unlikely Threads Andrew and Clive pulls back the velvet curtain and plunges you into a world where genius and madness are never far apart. What begins as a harmless search for a single “interesting fact” for HepFM’s Classic Hour radio show quickly spirals into a labyrinth of wild ambition, personal tragedy, dark rumours and behaviour that borders on the absurd. Follow Clive and Andrew and step inside the lives they never put in the programme notes…

1. 5. Inspired by the story of David Stirling and the origins ofthe SAS (listen to episode 3), Andrew tumbles into the strange world of Second World War invention, a time where serious people proposed armed bats, pigeon-guided missiles, fakearmies, exploding dogs and aircraft carriers made of ice. Somehow, many of these ideas received funding, testing and official approval. As Clive Hartley and Andrew Wisdom discover, wartime pressure created a brief moment in historywhen the line between genius and madness became surprisingly difficult to see. Welcome to another episode of Unlikely Threads.