Dead Serious #013 A Career Among the Fringe Dwellers
Dead Serious #013 (MP3 – 11MB – 40min)
This episode of Dead Serious is part of International Hospice and Palliative Care Awareness Day, which was celebrated world wide on October 8th…………….well the show is produced in Australia, and there is a time delay!!!!!!!
It is also in memory of the wonderful Ronnie Barker who died on October 4th. The ‘larger’ member of the ‘Two Ronnies’…………”and it’s goodnight from him”, who among others, played the ’stuttering’ Arkwright in ‘Open all Hours’, but mostly I remember him as “Fletcher” in ‘Porridge‘……..the guy who always had a ’scam’ happening right under the eyes of the ’screws’, but never quite got caught……………………
Kevin Larkins, my guest this week has little in common with Ronnie Barker. He doesn’t wear big black glasses. he doesn’t stutter and he certainly isn’t ‘rotund’, but Kevin has an inspiring story to tell. He may not make you laugh, but he will make you think.
Starting his career in the Catholic priesthood and then leaving to become a husband and father of seven children, Kevin has spent the bulk of his career working with people who ‘live on the edge’ of contemporary society in one way or another. Kevin has worked in Drug and Alcohol services, providing support to people who are battling with substance addiction. He has worked in Mental Health services, Aboriginal health in the far north of Western Australia and in hospital administration and now he is the Executive Director of Palliative Care Victoria.
Kevin shares with us his personal insights into faith, doubt, self care, music, spirituality and the power of personal and professional reflection. He ‘pulls no punches’ in his passionate musings over the challenges facing contemporary palliative care services and our communities as a whole.
This interview is a ‘must hear’ for anyome who will die at some time in the future, who is struggling with a life-limiting illness, who is a carer or a worker in palliative care…………….this rare insight into the spirit of a man who has spent his life working with people who often find life unfair and sometimes ‘too hard to bare’, will both comfort and inspire all who listen………..and while you’re listening make sure you remind yourself of this.
You dont have to be rich and famous to leave your mark on the world. Ronnie Barker was ‘chubby’, not particularly handsome, wore terrible daggy glasses and badly co-ordinated clothes……………….but he made us laugh, and that was his gift. We’re not all comedians or philosophers, or artists or musicians, or authors……………but we’re Mum’s and Dad’s, brothers, sisters, friends and neighbours and we all have just the same capacity to leave our footprints on the earth showing where we’ve been, and we should rejoice in that!!!!
Music “September Morning” kindly provided by my friend and colleague Ian Dixon (of Media Centre and Grand Prix Showfame). Interview recorded as always on Skylook
Thankyou linesmen, thankyou ballboys