Tall And True Short Reads

Some Things Change – London, England, 1992

Episode 80 (4 October 2023)

It’s a chilly winter morning, and the central heating has barely warmed my flat. I’m rugged up in a jumper and Ugg boots, and the kettle’s boiling. There’s a knock at the door, and I know who’s there without checking the peephole because I’ve learned to mark events on a calendar to help remember things.
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Some Things Change – London, England, 1992

Show Notes

Season Four: Episode 80 (4 October 2023)

Some Things Change is a short story from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.

Read the story on Tall And True: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/fiction/short-stories/some-things-change

Podcast website: https://www.tallandtrueshortreads.com

Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads

Buy Robert’s short story collections online:

Story Insight

I wrote Some Things Change for The Big Issue Fiction Edition 2023. Although it wasn’t included in the edition, I enjoyed writing a longer short story than my usual 500-word Furious Fictions, consisting of three vignettes set in different locations and times, with a common thread and protagonists: two cousins exploring Australia’s history and relationship with Indigenous peoples.

Episode 79, Perth, Western Australia, 1979, was the first vignette, and London, England, 1992 is the second.

As I explained in Episode 79, Some Things Change has elements of autofiction. I grew up in Perth in the 1960s and ’70s, have a cousin called Jenny, and I moved to England for a 2-year working holiday in 1987 and stayed there for eight years.

While in England, I watched documentaries about the effects of colonisation on Australia’s Indigenous peoples, and it spurred me to read and learn more about the true history of Australia. Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines was a seminal book in my long and ongoing journey of understanding.

However, I lived in Brighton and Windsor in England and only spent weekends in London as a tourist. And my cousin, Jenny, never visited me in England. So, while this story draws on my life, it’s mostly imagination, except for the parts about the dispossession and discrimination inflicted on Indigenous Australians.

I hope you enjoyed listening to the second instalment of Some Things Change. You can read this and all my short stories, blog posts and other writing at TallAndTrue.com. You can also buy my short story collections from the Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Kobo online bookstores — links are available in the show notes.

The third and final vignette of Some Things Change, Perth, Western Australia, 2023, will be released shortly. In the meantime, check your feed or the podcast website for earlier episodes from Seasons One to Three. And follow or subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it via your favourite podcasting app — doing so helps me share my storytelling.

You can support this podcast financially by making a small one-off or regular donation via the Acast Supporter Page.

Finally, please tell your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website.

Podcast Theme and Sound Effects

Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non-Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.

Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:

Production Notes

Tall And True Short Reads is produced using Audacity.

Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the traditional lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation.

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Support this show: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads.

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