Encore: My beloved husband's path to Voluntary Assisted Dying

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1. 

   3 Sep 2026 · 51 min

   Encore: The family secret which inspired 'The Teacher's Pet'

   Journalist Hedley Thomas grew up knowing that his grandmother Gladys had vanished in the sea off Sydney in the 1950s. The mystery of what happened to Gladys helped to inspire his hit podcast 'The Teacher's Pet'. Hedley has had a storied career in journalism which has seen him win many Walkley Awards and expose a lot of corruption and dodgy dealings. But it has also placed Hedley and his family in harm's way. In 2002 Hedley and his wife Ruth were at their home when bullets were fired into their bedroom. The shooter was never found, and Hedley grappled with PTSD after the event. A couple of…

2. 

   2 Sep 2026 · 46 min

   Loving my dad, who has younger-onset Alzheimer's

   Millie Robinson’s family had been through enough as it was before her devoted dad Jim Rogers received his diagnosis in 2021. Today they navigate the unknown together and stay in the moment to enjoy their tight-knit community. Millie is a celebrant, mum and author living in Brisbane. She also supports her dad, Jim, who has younger-onset Alzheimer’s. Millie started life in the UK, in a very tight-knit network of family and friends who wrapped their arms around Jim, Millie and her siblings when Millie’s mum died of cancer. Jim became the dad and the mum of the house, and for years put himself…

3. 

   1 Sep 2026 · 51 min

   Encore: An infamous WWII prison and the soldiers who tried to escape

   British writer Ben Macintyre on the eerie history of Colditz Castle which the Germans used as a prisoner of war camp during World War II. Since the Middle Ages, Colditz Castle has existed in some form, perched on the edge of a cliff in eastern Germany. Colditz has served as a royal hunting lodge, a madhouse, and most famously as a prisoner of war camp during World War II. It was said to be inescapable, but that didn't stop the English officers from trying to escape the nightmare of this gloomy fortress, and the clutches of the Germans. Ben Macintyre tells the full story of Colditz and the…

4. 

   31 Aug 2026 · 52 min

   The day my big, fat Egyptian wedding went pear-shaped

   Author Tess Woods had always dreamed of her big day, growing up watching her beloved Nana create in-demand bridal gowns. The stories of these dresses became a way for Tess to understand her family’s origins in North Africa, which she left in the late 1970s. (Warning: This episode references the loss of a child.) Tess moved to Melbourne from Egypt when she was five years old. At large family gatherings, Tess dreamed of a big, fat, Egyptian wedding with 250 guests, food for days, belly dancing — the works. But after she became engaged to her sweet, mild-mannered Australian boyfriend Paul,…

5. 

   28 Aug 2026 · 53 min

   The Kennedys—inside the infamous political dynasty and their summertime secrets

   Who are the Kennedys, really? And what has made the legacy of America's political dynasty so famous, divisive and enduring? The Kennedys are often described as the closest thing the United States has to a royal family, with fiercely competitive and divisive figures taking up space in American political and public life for generations. Even now, the influence of the Kennedy family continues to persist with RFK Junior, who is serving as the U.S. secretary of health and human services. There have been Kennedys who thrived with fame and power, and those who struggled greatly with that burden,…

6. 

   26 Aug 2026 · 53 min

   Top-secret cake recipes and a 'Garden of Eden'—nourishing the soul with homestyle Jewish cooking

   Monday Morning Cooking Club's Merelyn Chalmers her family's story of survival, and piecing together hundreds of treasured family recipes from Jewish communities around the world, including her mother's top-secret yellow cake recipe. Merelyn grew up tied to the apron strings of her mother, an Hungarian Jew who had survived Auschwitz and eventually ended up in Western Australia. In Perth, she met a man who had his own remarkable World War Two survival story, after fleeing Poland and being conscripted into the Polish regiment of the Red Army. For the couple, Perth became their Garden of Eden,…

7. 

   25 Aug 2026 · 47 min

   Encore: A father and a son and The Odyssey

   Author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn was teaching a university class on Homer's The Odyssey, when his elderly father decided to enrol in it. Daniel became fascinated by the stories of the ancient world as a child and grew up to study the classics and then write books and essays to share his knowledge with the wider world. Eventually he began teaching the Ancient Greek epic, The Odyssey, to first year university students at Bard College in New York State. But when his elderly father Jay asked to sit in on the course, it led to a big change in their relationship. This episode was first…

8. 

   24 Aug 2026 · 52 min

   Richard Flanagan on belonging in books and in Australia

   For writer Richard Flanagan, the political belief that white Australians do not belong in this land is wrong and it's damaging any progress we might hope to make as a collective people. Richard has spent the last 30 years writing award-winning pieces of fiction and non-fiction, tackling the climate crisis, the meaning of art, free speech and the stubborn necessity of hope. Threaded through all of Richard's writing is a contempt for power and its acolytes, and a great tenderness for human struggle and goodness. Richard says that while writing novels is an introspective process, and…

9. 

   21 Aug 2026 · 50 min

   A Palestinian family story

   Micaela Sahhar grew up hearing stories of her Palestinian family's life in Jerusalem before 1948, and what happened when they had to leave. There was her grandfather’s tourism business, her grandmother’s wedding necklace, and the dramatic circumstances of her father’s birth. Most of all there was the house, built by her grandfather for his extended family, at 8 Asa Street Jerusalem. This was the house her family had fled in 1948. And one midnight, many decades later, Micaela found herself standing outside its front gate. Further Information Find Me at the Jaffa Gate, an encyclopedia of a…

10. 

    20 Aug 2026 · 52 min

    Encore: Maggie Dent on guiding young girls to become confident young women

    Raising girls in an age of smartphones and early sexualisation is tough and in this complex arena, parenting educator Maggie Dent says we can't leave these lessons to chance. Growing up Maggie was a tomboy and noticed when she was treated differently from little boys, who were allowed to be their exuberant selves when she was not. She can clearly recall her indignation at being made to wear a dress as a little girl. The process of raising girls has changed since Maggie was a child, but there are new challenges today like smartphone usage and unwanted sexualisation of young girls, among…