Lost Newcastle - Carol Duncan

Glamour on Glass is a stunning exhibition curated by University of Newcastle history student and Vera Deacon Scholar, Isabel Whittle, focusing on the portrayal of women and fashion in the Newcastle Sun. Featuring photographic prints of fashion models in structured daywear and glamorous evening wear, the exhibition explores the impact of the Great Depression on fashion trends and garment production during the 1930s. Also on display are items on loan from The Australian Museum of Clothing and Textiles, including accessories chosen by women of the 1930s to complement the fashions of the day.

In June 2018, Ross Balderson shared a photo in the Lost Newcastle Facebook Group of a scale model scene of Newcastle 1899 that he was building. Not only did people not mind Ross sharing a photo of his incredible model work, the photos and conversations have continued ever since. Ross says he was inspired to build the scale model after seeing a Ralph Snowball photograph of the city - a labor of love that took ten years to complete! Ross has finally been able to bring his diorama of Newcastle in 1899 to Newcastle Museum, complete with operating scale model trains that work their way around the harbour and models of ships that are historically accurate and visitors to the port of Newcastle. Lost Newcastle founder, Carol Duncan, caught up with Ross Balderson at Newcastle Museum.

Ruth Cotton is well known to many in Newcastle for her huge body of local history work on the multicultural hub of Hamilton. Her Hidden Hamilton blog began as a way for her to find out more about the suburb she was moving to from northern NSW! Hundreds of stories and two books later, Ruth is still just as passionate about her adoptive home. But Ruth has released a new book, a memoir called A Fragile Hold which details her 1997 diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and the changes to her life from that point. In 2020, just as the pandemic locked us in our homes with huge uncertainty, Ruth’s husband became unwell.

Dr Roland Bannister lived his early life in Waratah. After training as a carpenter, Roland because a music teacher and studied at the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music. Moving further inland in NSW for many years, Roland taught at Glen Innes High School and for 32 years as a music academic at Charles Sturt University’s Wagga Wagga Campus.    Roland's book, 'Hunter Valley Ancestors - An Incomplete Chronicle of the families Burns, Puxty, Hewitt, Longworth, Poile, Pascoe, Kenny, and Hancock' is out now and available by emailing rsbannister@gmail.com

It’s often rumoured that Little Richard - considered the founding father of rock music - suddenly found God while on tour in Australia in 1957 and threw his jewellery into Newcastle’s Hunter River. But is it true? It is known that Little Richard, born Richard Wayne Penniman, came from a deeply evangelical background in Macon, Georgia and that after his Australian tour he returned to the US and began studying theology. In this episode, Carol Duncan speaks with Dr Roland Bannister about his research in finding out the truth behind this amazing story.

Lost Newcastle founder, Carol Duncan, spoke to ABC Newcastle’s Kia Handley on the 10th anniversary of the group. Now with nearly 70,000 members, they explore why we’re fans our history!

Carol Duncan music feature interview with Joe Camilleri (Jo Jo Zep, Black Sorrows) - July 2014

The Victoria Theatre is the oldest theatre still standing in NSW. Opened in 1876, it was rebuilt in 1890/91 and added to the NSW State Heritage Register in 1999.  Nancy Tapp performed at the Victoria Theatre in the 1950s and in this podcast, reminisces about the theatre and the shows she danced in.

After 194 years, a previously unknown album of drawings from 1818, including landscapes and portraits of Aboriginal people from the Newcastle region, returned to Newcastle for a brief exhibition by the State Library of NSW. In this episode, Carol Duncan speaks with Aunty Nola Hawken, descendant of 'Queen' Margaret and Ned of Swansea; and the Director of the Newcastle Art Gallery, Ron Ramsey. Recorded 2012.

How often have you stopped for a rest on one of the low stone retaining walls at Blackbutt Reserve? Chances are, you’re sitting on the remains of the early headstones from Newcastle’s first European burial ground at Christ Church Cathedral. Find out more at lostnewcastle.com.au

It was my birthday. What would you do? Mark Tinson, Pete de Jong, Mac, John Paul Young, Russell Morris, Ty Penshorn,

Friday Music Show with Bella, and Grant Walmsley on Malcolm Young AC/DC.

In which Mark Tinson joins me to discuss terror alerts & Jimi Hendrix, Pat calls in to brag about having burgers with Led Zeppelin during their Australian tour, local artists Adam Miller and Jason Lowe.

Don Walker - 2014

Alex is a Newcastle kid! In this 2013 interview, he talks about the effect of their record company collapsing at the height of their career.

In 2009, I had the chance to interview the legendary Stevie Wright - lead singer of The Easybeats in the 1960s and trouble rockstar ever after. I was warned in advance that I should pre-record the interview as Stevie was 'a bit slow' after years of serious drug and alcohol abuse. Happily, I didn't find him at all difficult to chat with. Indeed, Stevie's openness about his heroin addiction and his desperation to shake it are incredibly moving.

Tony Robinson talks about how to encourage a community to care about its history.Tony Robinson is perhaps best known to an older generation of television viewer as Baldrick from Blackadder, but to younger generations he's known as the guy leading archaeological digs on Time Team or the poor unfortunate host up to his knees in a tank of urine in Worst Jobs In History (that story was about tanning hides for leather).In December, 2011, Tony was filming in Australia for his series Tony Robinson's Time Walks in which he visits cities to reveal their history.Carol Duncan caught up with him in Cathedral Park, what was Newcastle's first burial ground at Christ Church Cathedral, to find out how we can continue to encourage people to care about their local history.'I think the most important thing we can do is to talk to your kids about it. I know I have such a vivid passion for history is because my dad used to talk to me about his adventures in World War II,' said Tony.'Not that he had a glorious war or anything, he was just a fitter working on the Spitfires and Hurricanes, but he was a working class boy and it was probably his first time away from home for any extended time and he had so many adventures, his eyes used to shine when he told me about them.''I got this vivid picture of what it must have been like to be an ordinary aircraftsman in World War II, a time far beyond my ken as a little boy, so I've always - as far back as I can remember - had an understanding of things before I was born.'How does Tony Robinson perceive Australians and our feelings about our own history?'There's always a feeling that Australians, white Australians particularly, feel a bit embarrassed about the brevity of their history. I think the history of the last 200 years here has been quite extraordinary', he said.'This notion that a combination of a handful of free settlers and lots and lots of pretty hard-nosed convicts - a lot of them political dissidents remember, so these would have been people who dreamers, utopians, political activists in Britain who wouldn't have been able to get a look in, but here suddenly they had a whole continent they could take command of and the psyche of people here seems to be so different from what's happened virtually everywhere else in the world and I think it's remarkable and to be celebrated.''But the story of human life here prior to Captain Cook is absolutely fascinating and it's always tantalising to me with indigenous people that so much of their history and archaeology is so fragile.'

Silverchair have been one of Australia's most successful bands for the last 20 years. Drummer Ben Gillies joined Carol Duncan in the studio for a chat about his solo project - Bento, and why he continues to call Newcastle home. Daniel Johns, Chris Joannou and Ben Gillies were just kids doing work experience at a Newcastle radio station when I first met them nearly 20 years ago. Those three boys have gone on to become strong and confident men and wonderful musicians - collectively and individually. I suspect the whole town is pretty proud of them.In 2012, the band have celebrated 20 years of Australian and international success, 21 ARIA awards from 49 nominations, 6 APRA awards, and all five of their studio albums have reached number one of the Australian album charts.Over the last few years the three members of the band have also gone out to do their own musical projects and drummer, Ben Gillies, came into the studios to talk about life, music, growing up in public, and taking the leap into solo performance.What was it like, being a kid, being thrust into that level of media interest and intrusion? "We were pretty unaware. Blissfully unaware. We were too worried about playing our music and running around and going to diners and just being teenage boys. We had good people around us, so we were fairly sheltered."The members of Silverchair studied at Newcastle High School when Peter McNair was principal. "He was a really good school principal. I remember a few times, the three of us would rock up to his office - in a good way, we weren't in trouble - but we had these grand ideas of putting concerts on at the school and we'd sell him on why we had to do it and how we could make it happen. He was really accommodating. I'm pretty sure he wasn't supposed to do some things he let us get away with. He let us put on concerts, we'd rehearse in the music room and do all kinds of stuff."It's often suggested that parents are the biggest obstacle to their children pursuing their dreams. Parents want their children to be secure, to 'have a good job', so convincing your parents you want to be a rock star, and then actually pulling it off, must be quite a coup! "We were young enough to just go with it. We were still just teenages running around so we were living in the moment. But we were setting ourselves up for a long-term career, we weren't thinking 'let's just go out and milk this for all its worth and then it's all over'. We were conscious of making long term things. And our parents were as well, all the people around us. We were very lucky."Ben Gillies late 2012 released his first Bento album, launched with the single Diamond Days and a fabulous video featuring a very interesting young actor. "He's a family friend of the producer. We did a bit of casting to have an l a few different possibilities but, the producer just said I know the young boy to do it. He gets right into character. His whole family really helped out, they were really accommodating. He's just seven.""It was a two day shoot, we did his stuff first then we did the performance stuff with me. He rocked out, there were a few moments he was on the performance stage and Holly, the producer, came up and said he'd been asking, "Why is it all about Ben today, it feel like this music video is all about Ben today. Why isn't it about me as much today!"Bento isn't Ben's first solo effort outside Silverchair, he's previously released music with Tambalane, "Tambalane was a stepping stone really. Kind of like a summer fling. I think I really wanted to write with another person, because I hadn't had that responsibility of writing on my own."" Outside Silverchair there isn't the infrastructure and the big budgets and all that. Doing stuff independently, it's almost a lot more pressure on the songwriter. Everything is you, there's no one else to take the load a bit. For me to do something outside of that with Tambalane was that step to get to Bento, to give me the confidence to

Jeff Martin and band – The ArmadaSocial media makes the world smaller.  And it makes my life richer.  Because I have conversations (sometimes only in 140 characters!) with people from around the world who are generous, warm people who share the stories of their lives – the happy, the sad, the fabulous, the rare, the raunchy – you name it.  Ordinary people with ordinary stories, just like you and me.  Somehow the twitterverse led me to @abhijitmajumder who is the editor of an Indian tabloid newspaper.  Let me say right here that I’m not at all sure Abhijit’s newspaper and I have very much in common at all, and while I don’t actually know him, I suspect he’s quite different to his newspaper’s target audience.  In the best possible ways.Within minutes of Julia Gillard becoming Australia’s 27th Prime Minister, Abhijit sent me a note on Twitter asking what I thought a change of PM might mean for Indian/Australian relationships, particularly in light of the highly-publicised ‘race attacks’ on Indian students in Victoria.  To be honest, I have no idea, I suspect essentially the relationship is a very good one and I don’t see much changing at all.  International student education has been one of the biggest contributors to the Australian economy over the last few years.  Third largest, actually.  Behind coal, then iron ore.  Education of students from overseas.  Huge, huh?!  My considered opinion, and that of Indian friends in  Australia, is that it is not what it seems and has been heavily misrepresented by Indian media.  My note of caution, though, is that perception is often reality.  If I was a parent in India, how would I feel about sending my child to Australia?  Food for thought.I assured Abhijit that the vast majority of Australians aren’t racist and are appalled by the perception that we are and disgusted by the tiny minority who somehow manage to have all of us tarred with the ‘racist’ brush.  I mentioned Vindaloo Against Violence in February this year, the idea of a young woman in Melbourne.  It was a day of ‘solidarity’ where Australians were encouraged simply to spend the evening in their local Indian restaurant.  Naïve, yes, but simple, elegant, meaningful for those who took part, even if it does seem a bit naff.  Abhijit suggested I write about it for his paper.  I’m still thinking about the pros and cons of that, we’ll see, but to be honest I’m still struggling with it.  It seems such a simply thing to do.  I write.  But.My problem with writing about it is that it would go to an Indian readership that is still hearing about ‘honour killings’ on a daily basis or the Bharat Bandh (a day of general strike action by the community to complain about sharply rising prices, etc) which involved a level of violence and disruption that we don’t see here, and wouldn’t tolerate.  So at the moment I’m battling with telling the VaV story in the light of activities in India that disturb me greatly.  They’re nothing new, but I need to find a way to hose down my gut reaction of ‘Hang on!  You’re still killing women who marry outside their caste?’  I don’t know.  Maybe this will be the story I can’t actually find the words for?  I’m wondering if the angle needs to be … if I was an Indian woman I’d have ‘given cause’ numerous times by now.  I dragged a friend into the conversation on Twitter and Abhijit responded, “Feel ashamed to describe it. Honour killings are murders of young lovers who have married across caste. Barbaric.”” … murders of young lovers …”Oh my heart.I sent Abhijit a song written by Jeff Martin, formerly of The Tea Party.  The song is called ‘Morocco’ and it is about the honour killings of women in the Middle East.  Different location, same tragedy.  Jeff and I talked about it during one of his visits to my studio and I asked him how he came to write about something as dark and horrific as an honour killing.  “It’s a song inspired by an article I saw in the Sunday Times in England about young women from the M

Malcolm Turnbull has been in Newcastle to deliver the annual Barton Lecture at the University of Newcastle. 1233's Carol Duncan spoke with him at length about the National Broadband Network, Tony Abbott, same-sex marriage and leadership.​Malcolm Turnbull and Carol Duncan in the 1233 studios. If you want to know why Malcolm is holding a pomegranate, you will have to listen to the interview. (ABC Local:)On the eve of Malcolm Turnbull's visit to Newcastle, the New Zealand parliament voted to redefine marriage as a union between two people, becoming the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to do so.CAROL DUNCAN: Why do we still not have this right for Australians?MALCOLM TURNBULL: We can (do this here) but as you know the parliament considered the matter last year and voted against it. But it's open to coming back again.There is certainly much more rapid change in this area than many of us, including myself, had anticipated. In addition to New Zealand legislating, the UK is in the process of doing so, France has done so, there are now I believe 10 US states where gay marriage is legal so the trend is only going one way. I think the changes in New Zealand and the UK are going to have a very big impact (on same sex marriage legislation in Australia).If you go back to the 1850s when there was a case in England called Hyde v Hyde in which a judge gave what became the classic definition of marriage for a long time which is a permanent union between a man and a woman. He did so on the basis that this was what was accepted in what he described as 'all of Christendom'. We wouldn't use that term any more but if you were sitting in a court in London or anywhere else today and you had to ask yourself 'what is the accepted definition of a marriage in the western world, or in countries of a dominant Christian tradition, however you wanted to define it, you certainly couldn't say it is a permanent union betwewen a man and a woman because there are so many of those countries, very substantial and important countries, which recognise gay marriage, so there has been a big change.I would have said this was going to take a long time but I think it will happen sooner rather than later. It will become increasingly difficult for Australia to maintain opposition to arrangements which are accepted in countries with which we are so close, which we have so many people going to and from, so many people coming here from New Zealand. I think there has been a big seachange in this and it's happened incredibly rapidly, within the space of a couple of years."CAROL DUNCAN: It is often suggested that you don't actually believe in the policy on broadband that you are having to present for the coalition, or that you don't really believe it is the best option for Australians.MALCOLM TURNBULL: It is, I have absolutely no doubt about it. If I wasn't a politician, if I was back in my old job in the business world and the government, any government, asked me to advise on what the best course of action would be, I would describe exactly what our policy is because you get the right balance between the level of investment, affordability - being able to price the internet access at a price that people can afford, and speed, giving people the services that they need. So I think we've got the balance right."The problem with Labor's scheme, let's be quite frank about this, Labor has said they're going to run fibre optic cable into 93% of Australian households. We criticised it as being too expensive. We actually think this project will cost $94bn, taking a very long time, it's running way behind schedule. After four years they've got less than 20,000 people connected to the fibre and they'll be lucky by June 30 to meet 15% of their targets.CAROL DUNCAN: In 2003, Telstra executives told a Senate inquiry that the copper network had to be replaced, that it was 'five minutes to midnight' for the copper network. Should we be relying on the copper network at all for s

In this conversation with Carol Duncan, Catherine Britt talks about the pressures of growing up under the spotlight, life in the country music capital of the world, and 'growing up on 1233 ABC Newcastle'.After being plucked from obscurity as a 17-year-old by Sir Elton John, which led to a duet and a record deal in the United States, Catherine Britt spent six years growing up in Nashville.But after a difficult time personally the Newcastle-born country music entertainer has spent the last year at home, re-evaluating her life and her career.In this conversation with Carol Duncan, Catherine Britt talks about the pressures of growing up under the spotlight, life in the country music capital of the world, and 'growing up on 1233 ABC Newcastle'.

In 2008, Australian composer Nigel Westlake's son, Eli, was killed in a tragic road rage incident. With the support of his family, and his son's friends, Nigel used his love for his son to establish a music and film program to support young indigenous Australians. In an interview in 2011, Nigel reflected that after the death of his son, "I really thought I was finished musically. There was nothing more to be said. The muse had disappeared."As children, our greatest fear is the death of our parents. As parents, that fear is the death of our children. An unimaginable loss. But so often, great loss is inspiration for great work, and for Nigel Westlake and his family, Eli's death led to the creation of the Smugglers Of Light Foundation - an organisation using music to help indigenous youth reclaim their heritage through music and film.So how did Nigel gradually deal with the loss of Eli and find the momentum to continue and find purpose."At that particular time (of Eli's death), that's how it felt. I didn't mean that I'd said it all musically, by any means. I meant that there was no incentive to write.""Looking back on it now, it's five years ago this week that we lost our son, Eli, I think for the first 12 - 18 months the thing that was most present in my mind was to keep memories of him alive.""It was like keeping him in a vault. I didn't want anything to come in or go out and I was so protective of those memories I couldn't give way to anything. I couldn't give way to the creative process and sit down and absorb my mind in a piece of music. My thoughts had to be with Eli.""That's what drove me to form the Smugglers of Light Foundation in his memory, to take those memories and the thoughts about his future, the life that he might have had, his qualities of empathy, compassion and so forth, and bundle them all up in to a package called the Smugglers of Light Foundation.""That gave me a good focus to get that on the road but starting something like that is a very big undertaking and I knew absolutely nothing about what I was doing, so it was a very steep learning curve. Musically, it didn't seem important at that time."The moment of decision, the catalyst for the foundation started at the family home when the house overflowed with Eli's friends and family, gathering together to share their grief."It was the week after Eli had been killed. Being a young man with so many young friends they all descended on our house and they actually lived with us for a week or so.""All these young people - some we knew quite well, others we didn't know so well. At night they'd stoke up the fire and find a place on the floor or couch and sleep the night. There were never less than 40 or 50 people in the house at any one time, a constant flow of young people and also close friends and family.""It was during that time that we got talking to these young people and they were saying, 'How can we remember him? How can we never forget him?' One of them said, 'Yeah, we should form some sort of foundation or charity or something' and I raised my glass and said, 'Yes! Well here's to Eli's foundation!'. I didn't have a clue what I'd let myself in for.""It was about three weeks later when the house was totally quiet and the chill of winter had set in and it was like a mausoleum, my wife and I were looking at each other thinking, 'What the hell have we done? How do you start a foundation?' But there had been about 40 people there who were witness to me raising my glass so I had to keep that promise.""I was actually sad to see them go because what had brought us together was our love for Eli and from that time we've maintained very close relationships with many of them.""Every year on the anniversary of his death a lot of them come up to the country where we laid him to rest and just be with us for a short time. So it's created a wonderful connection for us with a different generation.""There are so many things that I look to as positive outcomes from

2013 has given Australian music icon, Russell Morris, an unexpected hit record some 44 years after his first national number one smash with pop-psychedelic smash, The Real Thing. I produced this music feature with Russell in 2014, although I first met him in about 1992 when I interviewed him in Hobart. He's smart, funny, brilliant and has always been just bloody fabulous and generous to me. Except for that time he rang my show to wish me a happy birthday and I thought he was JPY! Sorry, Russell! xxAustralian music industry icon Russell Morris joined Carol Duncan's program while doing a series of performances in Newcastle and surrounds. (Carol Duncan:Carol Duncan)"This album (Sharkmouth) was done out of a labour of love because I like roots and blues music and I'd always wanted to do a roots and blues album.""I chose Australian history because I've always loved any type of history. You'd think the two kisses of death for a gold album would be blues and Australian history, so it wasn't done with the intention, it was just done as a labour of love which has proved to be really enlightening.""Producer Mitch Cairns' foresight was out of desperation of staying alive. At that stage, Brian Cadd who I was working with, had decided that he was going overseas and he dropped the bomb on us that he might not be coming back.""At that stage Jim Keays was very sick and Mitch said, "You've gotta do something or we won't have any work!" And I said, "Well, I've got the blues album," and he said, "Well, FINISH IT!""It is a great thing (the success of Sharkmouth) and I have to thank particularly the ABC because they ABC embraced it from day one and just went 'bang', but the commercial stations just didn't want to know. The ABC just broke it right across the country.""If anyone was going to have a gold record this year you'd have put me at the bottom of the list.""I think what happens with a lot of my peers, a lot of people will see a new record and whether it's from Joe Camilleri, Daryl Braithwaite - they pre-judge it and don't listen to it.""I remember when we first started in Melbourne, Ian Meldrum said to me, "We'll go and see Stan Rofe at 3AW." Stan Rofe was a big star to me, he was on air and I'd heard him on the radio station and I said, "Well how are we going to do that?" and he said, "We'll just go up to the radio station!""So we went up to the radio station and walked in and Stan came down and had a cup of tea with us. Ian said, "We've got this, what do you think?" and Stan said, 'Love it, I'll play it.'And that's what it was like.""Well, Mitch and I spoke about it (initial expectations of Sharkmouth) and I said if we're lucky we might sell 5,000 copies, if we can get an independent release.""We'd have sold them at gigs to try and get our money back and if we had a small deal with a company and sold 5,000 or 8,000 we'd have made the money back." Gold status is in 2013 is 35,000 and Sharkmouth is now creeping up towards platinum - it's around 60,000 now and platinum is 70,000.""When I did the unplugged album with Liberation it sold around 8,000 so it's been a great experience for both of us.""We signed to an independent record company and they took it and then rang me up, the first time it went in to the charts at about number 89, then it jumped to 49 and I was over the moon. I rang Mitch and we celebrated, and then the next week it jumped 20 places again and it just kept going right up into the top 10."Russell has continued a great tradition started by The Beatles of being turned down by every record company in the country and then having a success."I tell you what is ironic, The Real Thing was turned down as well. EMI hated it, they thought it was the biggest load of rubbish they'd ever heard.""EMI didn't want to release it, they were only going to release it in Melbourne to try and make their money back because I had a following in Melbourne, so Ian Meldrum and I got in a car and drove to Sydney to go and see all the (radio)

Despite his incredible success as an actor and comedian, Hugh Laurie now calls himself 'musician'. His leap of faith to pursue his life-long love of blues music is proving to be a great decision - both for Hugh, and for music lovers.I was thrilled to be able to chat with Hugh in 2014.Hugh Laurie has loved the blues since he was seven years old. (:supplied )"I'm following a well-trodden path of English musicians, which is how I describe myself now, who have been entranced, hypnotised almost, by this extraordinary music of the American south," Hugh says.Since hearing his first blues song at around age seven, Hugh has been smitten."It was like an electric shock that went through me," he recalls."I'm still shivering, still juddering even now, all these years later."It's never let me go."Many people were suprised that after his great success in America with the hit TV show, House, Hugh's next move was to form a blues band and go on tour.But he has no regrets."This is the greatest adventure of my life, and it's the greatest thrill," Hugh enthuses."This is a whole new level of visceral pleasure that I get from music."He describes himself as "quite a self-conscious" actor who approached every scene as a technical problem to be solved.And despite the huge popularity of House, many awards and critical acclaim for his performance as the brilliant but cantankerous doctor, Hugh was constantly doubting himself."I would always spend my evenings sort of beating myself up for the day before, which is a complete waste of time," he admits.However despite being aware that launching a career as a blues muso could make him the target of ridicule, after 120 shows Hugh has a new sense of confidence."I know we put on a good show," he says.Hugh is in awe of the blues musicians he's performing with, and sometimes during shows he loses himself in the pure enjoyment of their playing.It's a sweet pay-off for a man who's taken such a big risk with his career."I'm almost ashamed of how lucky I am," he says.

Rob Hirst - The Sun Becomes The Sea album release feature 2014First published ABC Radio Australia18 November, 2014 12:07PM AEDTRob Hirst - a new solo album and the Midnight Oil 'anti-plan'By Carol DuncanRob Hirst has a new solo album out - released under his own name instead of one of the innumerable musical units that he's part of. The Midnight Oil drummer and songwriter celebrates his new songs with an unexpected collaboration with his artist daughter, Gabriella Hirst.10Rob Hirst oozes 'proud dad' as he talks about the achievements of the offspring of some of his bandmates."We've all got very talented sons and daughters now, all very grown up, and my daughter Gabriella is now in Berlin after finishing her courses at COFA in Sydney and the National Art School. She did very well, got a travelling scholarship and went to Berlin."Gabriella Hirst's art is, indeed, striking and beautiful. And perhaps unsurprisingly, her work seems to share her father's social and environmental concerns."She was looking out over a wasteland where she was in north-west Berlin, went for a walk in the afternoon and asked one of the locals why it was so deserted. He told her that until recently there had been a poplar forest full of birds but that despite the protests of locals the little forest that had acted as a buffer between quite an industrial area and the local residences had been levelled to put in a department store or factory.""But he also told Ella that he'd gone for a walk on the day they cut the trees down and found 24 birds' nests. He sent them to Ella and she painted them as part of her Berlin projects in watercolours on silk flags, which the man then attached to bamboo poles and put back where the forest once was as a symbolic gesture to remind people of what was lost. Being ephemeral artworks, she expected them to be souvenired, which they quickly were, but they fly now from the balconies of neighbouring apartments overlooking this area."Rob's album, 'The Sun Becomes The Sea', features 24 of his daughter's bird artworks in the hardcover booklet version of the album, which he had made to protect Gabriella's artwork but there are a few of them online."I was just finishing a bunch of songs that I'd been doing over a couple of years down at Jim's (Moginie) studio and I thought for the first time that I'd put it out under my own name rather than under the Ghostwriters or whatever. It's just one of those lovely synchronicities where she was finishing her artwork at the same time and agreed that I could use these beautiful watercolour birds for the sleeve of the book and for the new website which finally links the Oils, the Backsliders, The Break, Angry Tradesmen, Hirst and Greene, Willies Bar and Grill, etc."Unusually, Rob made the decision to make all of the songs on the album available online for free."I just thought it would be a nice gesture and I had such fun making these songs."I point out that a similar 'nice gesture' recently backfired somewhat for U2."I would never be so presumptuous as to upload these 11 songs on people's iTunes!" Rob laughs, "It's available for those that seek it out and like it and there's the option for people to go to a few of those old-fashioned record stores that still exist, and which we really want to support, and get the hardcover booklet with all of Gabriella's birds and other information on it."The exhibition of Midnight Oil's incredible place in the Australian music industry was a huge success at the Sydney exhibition hosted by the Manly Art Gallery and Museum and will be hosted by Newcastle Museum early 2015. How does Rob Hirst feel about his life's work being treated as a museum piece?"We had so many people come through and they were pleasantly surprised. I think they thought, 'Oh Rob's dug out a few old posters and stuck them on the wall with blu-tack' or something. In fact, we spent about two years working on it; this is me, curator Ross Heathcote, Virginia Buckingham, Wendy Osmond who d

James Reyne - Friday Music Show feature interview 2014James Reyne has an enviable career in the Australian music industry - first appearing on ABC TV's Countdown in 1979 with both of his arms in plaster after being hit by a car in Melbourne.Australian Crawl held court around Australia's pub rock scene for just seven years, but the sound of the band and the themes of their songs are the story of numerous Australian summers.As a solo artist, James Reyne has released over a dozen albums, continued to tour Australia and internationally with audiences of up to 200,000 people.ABC Newcastle's Carol Duncan caught up with James Reyne ahead of his Anthology tour."I'm enjoying it more now than I ever have. I've developed an attitude over the many years that I've been doing this that it's amusing. You can't let most of it worry you. Certainly most of the people of my generation who were in it for the wrong reasons or the shifty ones have been weeded out. There are still a couple floating around and you run into them occasionally and think, 'How is this person still here?'Knowing my attempt to get James to name names will be rebuffed, I ask anyway.He laughs, "No, I'm not going to name any names because they're usually quite litigious people anyway.""I just think it's quite amusing. It's like a crash-course in human nature. You see a lot of extremes of human personality in quite a short time, and up close!""I've made some fantastic friends and there are some wonderful, wonderful people who work in this industry and most people are genuine with depth and credibility."James Reyne, particularly given the success and image of Australian Crawl, is perhaps seen by many as the quintessential sun-kissed Australian, yet like so many of his generation of peers he wasn't actually born here."The ten-pound Pom thing, and Adelaide - the ten-pound Pom into Adelaide. It astounds me. A little city like that, the amount of music that came out of there either British or Scottish-based. We owe Adelaide. But yes, I was born in Nigeria,""My father was an Englishman in the Royal Marines, he was ADC to the Queen, but he left. He didn't want to be a career soldier. He got a job with BP and he was posted to Nigeria. My (Australian) mother and he were not long married and they went to Nigeria when he was posted there. He'd be out in the field and she'd be sitting in a house in Lagos and my brother and I were both born there.""I was tiny, three or four, when we came to Australia. I have a really vague memory of one little thing in Nigeria, but I don't really have any other memories of it."James Reyne is heading toward 40 years in the Australian music industry with a career that has taken him to stages around the world with massive audiences, but names Creedence Clearwater Revival as one of the first bands he remembers hearing on the radio."There were probably things I heard before that but I remember hearing Creedence and thinking, 'Wow! What is that? I want to do that!' I'd have been 10 or 11 and it was probably Proud Mary or Born on the Bayou or something like that. I've been a total fan of John Fogerty ever since. I love all the Creedence stuff and some of his solo stuff. Like everybody, it was my formative years, I just love all that and that led me into other things and I was just hooked,""There was a great show on the ABC called 'Room to Move' and it was hosted by a guy called Chris Winter. I think it was a Sunday or Monday night, quite late; we used to listen to it on the radio under the bedclothes. A few years ago I did a show with Tracee Hutchison on ABC 2 and Chris was our producer, I remember going, 'Chris Winter WOW!'""He was brilliant, and I was hooked. His whole approach, his on-air style, his whisper - it was brilliant. So I fell in love with that, it was the first sort of album show. Then I started to get into albums with my friends at school. We'd collect albums and we had a little folk club - we got quite serious about"I remember really l

Kate Miller-Heidke is one of Australia's most outstanding musical talents with a career exploding in all directions from pop to theatre and international opera. I spoke with Kate about her incredibly successful decision to crowdfund her latest album, O Vertigo, and the increasing demand for her to work in different genres.As a classically-trained singer, Kate Miller-Heidke is happy to accept the challenges for her voice of pop, opera, and everything in between.In this interview, Kate reveals her dream of composing her own hit musical.Kate posted on Facebook, "I did a big interview with Carol Duncan of ABC Newcastle which she extended into an hour-long piece. Lots of music in this one, including some rare stuff (and even an iphone live bootleg recording). My mum reckons this is the best one ever so give it a listen if you're into this sort of thing. Maybe while you're on the train, or taking a bath."I don't mind if you listen in the bath.

Iva Davies is one of Australia's most accomplished musicians and composers with a career spanning over 30 years with his band Icehouse, and as a composer for film and theatre. I produced this feature music show with him in 2014.The number one song on the Australian pop music charts in 1980 was The Buggles 'Video Killed The Radio Star', accompanied through the year by such gems as Michael Jackson 'Don't Stop Til You Get Enough', The Village People 'You Can't Stop The Music', Split Enz 'I Got You', The Vapours 'Turning Japanese' and Queen 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love'.In May 1980, Australian radio stations started playing a song by Sydney band, Flowers. 'Can't Help Myself' made it into the Australian Top 10 and was the first song from their debut album, 'Icehouse'. I think I was first in line at my local record store to by the single and was enormously envious of my older brothers who would regularly see Flowers playing at the local pub. IVA DAVIES: We came from quite a distinct stream of music which generated by the punk movement out of Britain, but then it morphed into a strange hybrid because of technology. There was an explosion of technology, especially synthesiser technology, at that period, so we were a kind of punk band with synthesisers which was a bit odd. But clearly, these other people were not, including Michael Jackson! There were all sorts of strange things going on, strange fashions; it was a very interesting time."The first song we put out was called 'Can't Help Myself' and we'd been playing all these classic punk venues for about three years before we put out that first record. I remember being told it had become a disco hit in Melbourne and I was semi-horrified. I was very pleased it was a hit, of course, but a disco hit - we weren't a disco band!By the time we got to 1980 we'd been playing quite a few of our own songs but still had lacings of the odd cover version of things not even particularly fashionable at the time, things like T-Rex songs, but by then we'd really turned into an original band and signed with a small independent label in Sydney called Regular Records and we'd recorded our first album, and although they constitute really the first 10 songs I ever wrote, they did have a certain flavour about them that I guess was, again, a hybrid of punk with synthesizers.CAROL DUNCAN: Iva, you mustn't have been very long out of the Conservatorium by this stage?IVA DAVIES: I dropped out of the (Sydney) Conservatorium when I was about 21, so I was about 23 or 24 by this point.CAROL DUNCAN: So how did you decide to steer your songwriting and music releases in that environment at that time?IVA DAVIES: It's a terrible admission to make considering that 'Can't Help Myself' made it into the Top 10, that I was probably fairly unaware of radio except for 2JJ. That's a terrible admission for somebody who's trying to break into getting airplay on radio!CAROL DUNCAN: Something like The Vapors 'Turning Japanese' would have been all over 2SM (in Sydney) at the time. 2SM would have been the number one commercial pop music station in the late 1970s.IVA DAVIES: Indeed, and I missed a great deal of that. I think we were pretty well buried in our own world and our own world had been dominated by what I'd listened to as I grew up, quite a lot of classics, psychedelic and heavy rock bands including Pink Floyd and so on. And then when Johnny Rotten (the Sex Pistols) arrived, the world was turned upside-down quite literally.He put all of those big bands out of business overnight and London was the place to be. I remember very clearly when Keith (Welsh) and I, our bass player and co-founder of Flowers, we'd been playing almost every night of the week, sometimes nine shows a week. There were clubs all over Sydney, there were clubs all over Melbourne, there were really great bands everywhere and on any given night down the road there'd be Midnight Oil and INXS and any number of bands.When we arrived in London for our

Commissioned by Greenpeace Canada in 2015 for their podcast. Link to original post https://soundcloud.com/greenpeace-canada/ep-29-what-to-say-climate-change-vs-global-warming-whats-at-stake-for-the-great-barrier-reef

The Wallis Album   After 194 years, a previously unknown album of drawings from 1818, including landscapes and portraits of Aboriginal people from the Newcastle region, returned to Newcastle for a brief exhibition by the State Library of NSW.   In this episode, Carol Duncan speaks with Dr Alex Byrne, the NSW State Librarian and Chief Executive, about the significance of the album.   [Recorded 2012]

Unlike the huge and elaborate mosques seen in the Middle East, Newcastle Mosque is a small and humble building in Wallsend, but just as Christ Church and Sacred Heart Cathedrals are central to their respective Christian faiths in Newcastle, so is the mosque to Muslims. This interview from Carol Duncan's Local Treasures program in 2014.

One of Newcastle's living Local Treasures would have to be lifeguard Warren Smith who is retiring after nearly 40 years of keeping a safe eye on the waves. ABC Newcastle's Carol Duncan dropped in to Nobbys Beach to chat with Warren before he hangs up his wetsuit.

The French barque Adolphe is just one of many shipwrecks that litter the entrance to Newcastle Harbour, yet 110 years after the disaster, this vessel is still one of the most visible. Carol Duncan spoke with Deb Mastello of the Newcastle Maritime Centre.

The Birdwood Flag is considered to be one of the most significant Australian artifacts from WWI. Now in thousands of pieces, it's hoped that the flag will be restored. (The Birdwood Flag has now been restored.)

The Chapel of St Michael, or 'The Warrior's Chapel', at Newcastle's Christ Church Cathedral was created as a local sacred place where people could go to mourn loved ones lost to World War One - The Great War.

Newcastle has a long maritime history, but sadly part of that history includes a coastline that is now littered with numerous shipwrecks that cost many lives. But sometimes, the hardworking lifeboat crews and rocket brigades were able to save the lives of passengers and crew of ships wrecked on our coast.

Artist Julie Squires was commissioned to build the Muster Point sculpture for the closure of Newcastle's BHP Steelworks in 1999. The sculpture reflects on the experiences of the tens of thousands of people who worked at the plant over the 84 years of operation. Interview with Aubrey Brooks - former BHP employee and member of the Newcastle Industrial Heritage Association.

One of Newcastle's many hidden places, not open to the public, is a remnant of the Shepherds Hill defence group. A tunnel underneath Memorial Drive enabled power to be supplied to the WWII No 1 Searchlight which was situated on the face of the cliff below Strzelecki Lookout. [2013 - Carol Duncan speaks with Newcastle City Council Heritage Strategist, Sarah Cameron, about the hidden WWII tunnel underneath Memorial Drive which provided power to the No 1 Searchlight.]

Newcastle's City Hall is a sister building to the Civic Theatre. Built in 1928-1929, the building marks the civic centre of Newcastle and remains a building that bustles with events and activities.

Built in 1877, Carrington Pump House once provided the hydraulic pressure required to drive loading cranes in the port of Newcastle.

Newcastle offers surfers plenty of world-class surf breaks, as recognised by the city's annual Surfest competition and the declaration of Merewether Beach as a National Surfing Reserve in 2009. But a lot of these breaks are known only by way of 'surf vernacular'. So what, and where, are these secret locations? Here's a guide.

Newcastle's original flagstaff represented both the existence of the early colony and communications between the colony and vessels off the coast.

Newcastle East Public School is the oldest continuously operating school in Australia having started in 1816.

The Obelisk in Newcastle stands on the site of the first windmill in the town which was built in 1820 to grind flour. The windmill itself became an important early navigational aid.

Newcastle's former Central Methodist Mission in King Street has been home to one of Newcastle's fine dining establishments - Bacchus Restaurant - and now to a new generation of bar and restaurant. It is beautifully ironic that the building that was once gave comfort to the Primitive Methodists of Newcastle has been renamed after the Greek god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology.

How often have you stopped for a rest on one of the low stone retaining walls at Blackbutt Reserve? Chances are, you're sitting on the remains of the early headstones from Newcastle's first European burial ground at Christ Church Cathedral.

The heritage-listed Regent Theatre, formerly Herbert's Theatre, was built in 1928 and is considered one of the few remaining 1920's 'picture palaces' remaining in Australia. Considered rare as there has been little adaption of the building's interior or exterior and it remains recognisable as a theatre.

Newcastle has its very own castle turret on top of The Hill in the form of the Leading Light Tower, or Beacon Tower. It was one of two built to assist captains in bringing their ships safely into the port. The coast around Newcastle is littered with hundreds of shipwrecks and the pair of towers built in 1865/1866 helped to increase the safety of vessels entering the Hunter River.

Carol Duncan visits Newcastle's historic Victoria Theatre. Built in the 1870s, the Victoria Theatre on Perkins Street in Newcastle is the oldest theatre still standing in NSW. It's also home to the largest and earliest surviving fly tower in Australia. Now closed to the public, what remains is an extraordinarily intact theatre - just waiting for its next life.

28 February, 2012 3:02PM AEDT Learning history with Tony Robinson By Carol Duncan (Presenter - 1233 ABC Newcastle)   Tony Robinson talks about how to encourage a community to care about its history.   Tony Robinson is perhaps best known to an older generation of television viewer as Baldrick from Blackadder, but to younger generations he's known as the guy leading archaeological digs on Time Team or the poor unfortunate host up to his knees in a tank of urine in Worst Jobs In History (that story was about tanning hides for leather).   In December, 2011, Tony was filming in Australia for his series Tony Robinson's Time Walks in which he visits cities to reveal their history.   Carol Duncan caught up with him in Cathedral Park, what was Newcastle's first burial ground at Christ Church Cathedral  to find out how we can continue to encourage people to care about their local history.

When Dr Peter Hendry began his medical career, penicillin was still yet to be made available. As a member of the AIF he spent three years as a Japanese prisoner-of-war and spent about a year on the Burma-Thailand railway. Without penicillin. Dr Hendry died in 2017.