Past Programs
History - 2010
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The Making of Modern Australia
22/07/2010
It was a landmark moment when Julia Gillard became the first woman to be prime minister. It took a long time, but then again a lot has changed in the last 60 years.
A new series The Making of Modern Australia charts some of the most significant changes since World War 2.
Using personal stories this four part series looks at changing attitudes, parenting styles and gender roles. Themes include childhood, the home, love and relationships and faith.
Meet the Listener: the search for Lost Tom
20/07/2010
When Judy's grandfather spotted his son Tom smoking in the street he told him to never come home. Still now, more than 80 years on, no-one has heard from Tom.
Meet the Listener guest Judy Ingle describes her eight-year search for her Uncle, known to the family as 'Lost Tom'.
His whereabouts have been the topic of many family discussions, in particular with her rather famous cousin, Gough Whitlam.
Judy has exhausted all avenues searching for her uncle Tom Maddocks, but would be pleased to receive any leads.
Anzac centenary commission
19/07/2010
In 2014, it will be a hundred years since the outbreak of the first world war and in 2015, the centenary of the Gallipoli landing.
To mark these events, the federal government has set up a special national commission and they want public input on how best to commemorate the ANZAC centenary.
Retired army major Martina Jewell is one of six commissioners.
It took over my life: Aly's dolls hospital
21/06/2010
Aly Keats is obsessed with old dolls.
It's not about collecting them, it's the process of finding out how to fix them that captures her interest.
Aly is a ceramic artist whose workshop and gallery in Southern Tasmania has become a dolls hospital.
The dolls and their body parts have taken over.
As she puts it 'it's like a scene from Silent Witness.'
Elly Varrenti: who was Hitler, Dad?
10/06/2010
Dealing with difficult questions can be one of the trickiest things about being a parent.
You know the drill -- why is the sky blue? Why is that lady fat? How come we don't see your sister anymore?
But some questions need a very well thought out response, as was the case at Elly Varrenti's place recently.
Luckily she wasn't the one in the firing line.
Craig Jurisevic: a surgeon at war
20/05/2010
Do no harm. It's the fundamental rule by which doctors conduct themselves.
But what happens when your moral and ethical beliefs are so compromised by the situation you find yourself in?
Adelaide surgeon Craig Jurisevic decided he could no longer stand by and watch what was going on in Kosovo in the late 1990s.
He decided to go to Albania to do his bit as a doctor. But not long afterwards he was drawn into the conflict himself, with devastating results.
Now many years later he's published the story of what happened. It's called Blood on my hands: a surgeon at war.
Calling England home project
13/05/2010
It is probably a long time since you've heard the phrase 'the mother country', or England referred to as 'home'.
But if you can remember this, the historian Babette Smith wants to hear from you. Her new project follows on from her earlier work on convicts. She needs to know the birthplace, as well as the approximate date of birth of the 'home' adherents.
Babette would also like to know whether their ancestry was free settler or convict.
Morris Gleitzman: Now
06/05/2010
Once upon a time there was a boy in a story called Felix. The book was called Once. Then there was another book about him called Then.
Now, the children's author Morris Gleitzman brings his holocaust trilogy series to an end in an uplifting story called Now.
History of friendship
12/04/2010
The notion of friendship has changed and evolved through the centuries, to the point where friends are now arguably more revered than family members. To be friendless is seen to be at the lowest ebb, say Barbara Caine and Mark Peel, editor and contributor respectively of the book 'Friendship: a history'.
Forum: why feminism matters
09/04/2010
Edited highlights from a forum, recorded at the University of Sydney, that explores 'why feminism matters'.
There's a special focus on just how far women have come in politics over the last three decades.
The host is former Olympic swimmer and broadcaster Lisa Forrest.
Beneath Hill 60
08/04/2010
A lot of World War One was fought in dirt and mud, so much so that those with digging or tunnelling skills were highly prized.
The little known story of how Australian miners helped to create what was, at that time, the largest man-made explosion in history, beneath the battlefields of the western front is about to hit the big movie screen.
It's called Beneath Hill 60 and the book of the same name is by the historian Will Davies.
Keeping family treasures
22/02/2010
All families have treasured mementoes but those memories could fade away if you don't look after them.
A new book from the National Archives gives you expert advice on how to look after all kinds of objects including photos, fabric, paper, videos and DVDs.
It features the treasured possessions of eleven Australians including Alice Garner's great great grandfather's sketchbooks from the 1850's which also contain locks of his children's hair, diary entries and pressed flowers.
Meet the listener: Gail Mulhern, my convict heritage
09/02/2010
Meet the listener guest Gail Mulhern's convict heritage reveals an interesting past.
Her great-great-Grandmother Eliza Davis was transported to Van Diemen's Land for life, after being convicted of infanticide. Initially sentenced to hang, she was saved by a petition.
The lives of convict women like Eliza Davis have been commemorated through the Roses from the Heart project.
Talkback: a convict in the family
29/01/2010
Do you have a convict in your family? If you do, you probably come from good resilient stock. No longer something shameful, it's a matter of pride to discover your convict ancestry.
As family historians know, researching the convict in your family can lead to some fascinating and surprising discoveries.
But as we hear today it goes far beyond exploring colourful family history, tracing convicts and their descendants tells us much about modern Australia - about resilience, families, who makes it in society and who doesn't. It can even tell us about our population health today.
This morning we hear about an ambitious project called Founders and Survivors - one of the world's great studies into immigration following convicts and their descendants over five generations.
We're joined by two of the project leaders, convict historian Associate Professor Hamish Maxwell-Stewart from the University of Tasmania and Professor Janet McCalman from the University of Melbourne. Janet is especially interested in social and medical history.
Author and historian Babette Smith tells us about her convict ancestor, Susannah Watson, and we hear how to verify your convict ancestry from Laurice Cross, herself a descendant of five convicts.
Born in the colony
25/01/2010
The first generation of Europeans born in the colony of NSW were described at the time as 'the cornstalks', tall, healthy and fair haired.
They were a fecund generation with around a third of women having 10 or more children. Perhaps not surprising when the most common age of marriage for women was 16.
Canberra GP Dr Craig Smee knows and admires this generation of around two thousand people, he's been researching them for 40 years. He's published his own book Born in the English Colony of NSW 1788-1800.
