Radio Stories
Stories, drama, and comedy from U3A Melbourne City Scriptwriters
Episodes
Nov 29, 2024
Oct 5, 2024
Jul 15, 2024
May 31, 2024
May 8, 2024
May 8, 2024
May 8, 2024
37 min
Racism in outback Victoria, a Viking festival, and a misadventure in Coronation Week 1953
Episodes every two months!
Each episode has 3-4 pieces - mini-dramas, monologues, reminiscences, comic pieces - professionally narrated and complete with music and sound effects. It's like a movie but without the picture! But you can't watch a movie while driving or doing the housework, but you can certainly listen to our podcasts! Each episode has a theme, and you can expect ghost stories, children's stories, war stories, exciting dramas, a bit of everything.
To recommend our Podcasts to your friends, just tell them to search for:
"Radio Stories"
on any Podcast website such as Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Podbean, Podcast Republic etc etc
Meet the team:
Carole Miles
Our Team Leader. Carole's parents met in Australia during the Second World War (her father was American). She was born in the USA but eventually returned to her mother's country - Australia. She has worked as a Primary teacher, an instructor in the disability sector, and she also drove a small bus as a volunteer for Aged Care. Apart from writing, she enjoys working in her vegetable garden, at the back of the renovated miner’s cottage in Wonthaggi, which she shares with her husband Patrick, also a leading member of the Scriptwriting Group.
Joan Hammond
Joan was brought up in outback Victoria, where she had to walk five miles to school each day. She can trace her ancestry in Australia way back into the nineteenth century, and has many fascinating stories about her family history which feature strongly in her writing.
She has been involved in setting up Safety Houses for Children, Bicycle Education for schools, and SIDS research. She has worked in travel, real estate, and cancer research, and now much enjoys writing short stories for the script writing group.
Jonathan Price
Jonathan was born and educated in England. For many years he worked in British Television, both for the BBC and ITV, writing and producing Current Affairs, Documentaries, and Children's Programmes. He became an Australian citizen in 1985, but continued working all over the world as a freelance writer. He has led an incredibly exciting life, and many of his vivid experiences feature in his podcasts. These include a narrow escape from death as a baby during a V1 missile attack, confronting a machine-gun wielding mass killer when he was 11, and, as an adult film-maker, almost having napalm dropped on his head. he is also serializing one of his children's stories as a 20-episode podcast - "The Wreck of the Elenore - a magical Adventure".
Maureen Inkster
Maureen spent her early years in the Shetland Islands, the most northerly part of the British Isles, land of the midnight sun, and the famous Viking Festival "Up Helly Aa". Like many Shetlanders, she can trace her ancestry back to Viking settlers over a thousand years ago, and her memories of her childhood and teenage years on the islands feature heavily in her writing. She came to Melbourne in 1981, with her husband and children, intending originally to stay only a couple of years, but they all stayed on. She worked in the healthcare industry in Melbourne for many years, and now really enjoys writing in her retirement. Her plays and monologues have been performed on local community radio and also at the Seniors Festival in Melbourne.
Patrick Miles
Patrick ("Pat") was born in the rural coal mining town of Wonthaggi in the south of Victoria. His early years were hard - his alcoholic father, who was sometimes violent, kept uprooting his family from town to town in search of a better life which never came. Despite the upheavals, Pat completed his education, and spent most of his life in the transport industry in Melbourne. Now retired, he enjoys writing, and his great hobby - classic cars. He often takes his lovingly restored Austin mini-Cooper to classic car meets all over Australia. Together with his wife Carole, he divides his time between their apartment in the south of Melbourne, and their newly restored miner's cottage in Wonthaggi where he lived as a boy.
Coni Hicks
Coni's early years were spent in Dublin, Ireland, where she was educated in a Convent School by nuns - the Mercy Sisters. She and her friends used to call them the 'Sisters of NO Mercy ' as the use of the ruler and the strap was common in those days. She eventually "escaped" to the UK at 18 to take up nursing, and after getting married, she subsequently lived and worked all over the world. In places as diverse as Rome, Bangkok, and Western Samoa, she was involved in teaching at a graduate and post-graduate level. Finally ending up in Australia, she taught Academic English to overseas students at Deakin University. She now much enjoys writing, and as might be expected, many of her vivid and lively stories are based on her early years in Ireland!
Bill Fleming
Bill was born in 1934, and spent his earliest years in Brisbane. Then, with the threat of imminent Japanese bombing or invasion, he was evacuated with two older brothers to an uncle’s sheep and cattle property in SW Queensland. After completing his education in Brisbane, he entered the Royal Military College in Canberra, where he learnt to fly. As a lieutenant in the Australian Army, he served in Malaya, PNG, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the USA. Experiences from those times featured in later short stories and plays. Now retired, he finds interest and stimulation from his membership of U3A.
We are always looking for new members!!
To join the group you have to be a member of U3A Melbourne, and enrol via their website - "Join us" section.
We meet on Zoom every Thursday during U3A term-times 1.30 pm - 3.30 pm, and also we meet up regularly for lunch in the city.
Check us out - we have a lot of fun!