Too Soon, Too Late

With special guests:

• Ralph & Kathy Kelly
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

There is widespread knowledge of the July 2012 attack on 18 year old Thomas Kelly in 2017. The sorrow felt by the community was compounded by the loss through suicide of Thomas’s brother Stuart four years later.

Ralph and Kathy Kelly have experienced the unimaginable but as a measure of the innate qualities of them and their family they have, in the time since, made great strides in reducing the dangers on the streets of Sydney.

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The Yield

With special guest:

• Tara June Winch
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

The Yield is a big book that in Paul Kelly’s words “sings up language, history, home, blood – all the important stuff” with its focus being on an area of some 500 acres in western New South Wales.

This is a new novel by Indigenous author Tara June Winch that she has been working on for the last fourteen years. It tells of the experiences of the fictional Goondiwindi family based on the real history of Aboriginal people in Australia. The novel is set in Massacre Plains and one of the places is called Poisoned Waterhole Creek. These are real place names. The town in the story is somewhat ironically called Prosperous.

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Christmas Tales

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.

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You Shouldn’t Have Joined ...

With special guest:

• General Sir Peter Cosgrove
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

It is a real privilege when we get to speak with Australia’s 26^th Governor General.

Sir Peter Cosgrove has had several lifetimes it appears as we look at his extensive action packed biography. And it is a measure of the man that not only does he retain an intimate knowledge of all his achievements but that he is so open and candid in looking back on them.

Sir Peter’s career included fighting roles in Vietnam. It also included being the primary assistant to some of the most senior positions in the land. He was Aide de Camp for the Chief of Army and also to the Governor General Sir Paul Hasluck. He rose to attain those same positions himself as Chief of Army and later Governor General.

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Trust

With special guest:

• Chris Hammer
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Sometimes the world of fiction overlaps our day to day life. In speaking with our guest today Chris Hammer we find out that Chris is interested himself in how the characters in his new book Trust will deal with the real life problem of the Covid 19 crisis. As well as Covid there is reference in the book to the 2019/2020 bushfires that swept the nation in unprecedented fury.

One of the greatest charms in reading Chris Hammer’s best-selling books is that there is authenticity. For Australians that means familiarity with the settings on the coast and in rural areas for previous books. In Trust the setting is Sydney but not the postcard Sydney in the shadow of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This is the real Sydney populated by real people. Overseas readers are also drawn to this picture of the real Australia and Chris is delighted that his work has been translated into other languages so people in other countries can learn about us.

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