Surviving Adolescents

With special guest:

• Elly Robinson
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

All parents realise on leaving the maternity ward that there is no manual that comes from the hospital with instructions for a new baby. The parents just strap themselves in for the rapid growth and development of this new and totally dependent child.

Ten years later with the coming of adolescence there is another period of risky growth and development. The age group from 10 to 19 calls upon a whole new skill set to deal with challenges some of which are familiar and some that are new to this century.

Podcast (mp3)

Click to read more ...

Out of the Forest

With special guest:

• Dr Gregory Smith
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

When asked if he sometimes pinches himself and wonders if all that has gone before is true, Gregory Smith says not sometimes but all the time. Our guest today has a truly amazing story that should encourage all of us.

After a traumatic childhood Gregory was always trying to escape from his surroundings and became something of an escape artist. Except that he did not escape and his efforts just led to painful encounters with the country Police of NSW.

When his mother deceived him and left him at an orphanage in Armidale he spent 19 months experiencing institutional abuse. To make matters worse he was thinking all the time that his sisters were enduring something similar at the same institution after they were separated from him by the nuns on arrival.

Following these experiences Gregory understandably would not trust adults. Having left school at the age of 14 and not being trained in anything useful Gregory found himself homeless, friendless and frequently jobless. It was only when he followed a road that led off the highway near Mullumbimby in northern NSW that he finally found peace in the isolation and tranquillity of a rainforest.

Podcast (mp3)

Click to read more ...

National Suicide Prevention & Trauma Recovery Project

With special guest:

• Gerry Georgatos
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

We are honoured today to have as our special guest a social warrior, Gerry Georgatos. Gerry is the founder of the National Suicide Prevention & Trauma Recovery Project (the Project) set up in 2019. His colleague Megan Krakouer appeared on The Drum to talk about the work Gerry and she are doing with young Aboriginal offenders in Western Australian prisons. Footage has emerged of young children being hog-tied by prison guards and Megan spoke of the need for help.

Gerry Georgatos has remained constant as a social justice and human rights campaigner. His social justice and human rights campaigns began at an early age, from 11 years of age. From that young age he would represent workers of migrant Greek backgrounds, victims of asbestosis – mesothelioma – who struggled with the English language.

Podcast (mp3)

Click to read more ...

The Soul

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.

Podcast (mp3)

Click to read more ...