A story about so many brothers they fall from trees with Nathan Luff

Nathan Luff joins us on the show this week. To find out more about Nathan you can visit... https://nathanluff.com.au

Please review, rate, subscribe, follow and like the show. Your support will help us keep this podcast going.

To find out more about R.A. Spratt visit raspratt.com
To find out more about Jacqueline Harvey visit jacquelineharvey.com.au
To find out more about Tim Harris visit timharrisbooks.com

Transcript

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Rachel Spratt: Hello, and welcome to real stories with random writers. I'm RA. Spratt, and I'm here with Jacqueline Harvey and Tim Harris, and today's special guest is Nathan Lough. Nathan is a playwright and children's author. He has written chicken stew, bad Grammar, the Nerd herd series, Family Disasters, which is actually Family holidays, crossout holidays, Disasters crash landing family Disasters storm warning, and a 3rd book in the series, Family Disasters

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Rachel Spratt: Road Rage. Sorry it came out in June. Welcome to the show, Nathan. Is that okay?

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nathanluff: That sounds good.

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Rachel Spratt: Try not to stumble so much. I I did this late last night and I I made typos

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Rachel Spratt: 3rd book in series, and the 3rd book in in the Family disaster series.

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Rachel Spratt: does the family disaster? Okay, yeah, actually makes more sense. Alright. So.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I'll go last, Rachel, because I may think of a different story before between now and then.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, okay, cool. Okay. Well, we'll just launch. Is there anything you want to say, you nervous? Do you wanna get anything off your chest? Nathan?

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nathanluff: No! But thanks for having me.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, no, it's lovely to have you. We love doing this because one you get to meet new people and 2. It's like our weekly therapy session. Because, you know, it's such an isolated job, particularly for me, like I, all I do is this and podcasting. And it's such a pleasure to talk to other writers and get to know other people. So thank you so much for coming in. We really do appreciate you giving us your time. Alright, let's get.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I went to Picklewell this morning. I'm just so just saying that I do get out.

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Rachel Spratt: The house. My kids think it's so funny that you're into pickleball, Jack.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I love it so.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So I'm gonna.

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Rachel Spratt: And you see.

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nathanluff: Sorry.

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Rachel Spratt: Teach me to play.

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nathanluff: What is pickable.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Like modified.

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Rachel Spratt: Gosh! Why not look at the Internet?

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Jacqueline Harvey: Okay, Steffi, Graf and Andre Agassi are like they've got like professional leagues now in the States. And it's it's.

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Rachel Spratt: Huge. It's a huge.

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Rachel Spratt: It in Covid it took off, or was it.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So I don't know cause he wouldn't have been up playing Covid. But anyway, it's huge, and it's and lo and behold! At Queenstown Event Center. It's huge. So it's it's cool. It's really fun. I had to do something. My F 45 closed down 3 weeks ago, so I had to find alternative, and I was just lucky that I found something I really love so.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, it sounds really fun. I'm looking for. It's basically like handball with table tennis bats, isn't it?

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yes, and weird, scoring like ping Pong, scoring.

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nathanluff: Oh!

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Jacqueline Harvey: Way. Yeah. Yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: It's good because it doesn't take up too much space like in New York. They got heaps of pickleball courts in Central Park. Now, okay, let's.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Let's go to it. Let's go ahead.

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Rachel Spratt: Hello, and welcome to real stories with random writers. I'm Ra. Spratt, and I'm here with Jacqueline Harvey and Tim Harris, and today's special guest is Nathan.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Welcome, to.

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Rachel Spratt: Show. Nathan is a playwright and children's author. He's written

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Rachel Spratt: he sorry it's bad, grandma. He's written so

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Rachel Spratt: he's written chicken stew, bad grammar. The Nerd Hertz series and family disasters. But that's family holiday holiday slashed out disasters, crash, landing, and family disasters, storm warning, and the 3rd book in the series, family disasters, road rage came out in June. Welcome to the show, Nathan.

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Rachel Spratt: Now we're all book creators, which means we're storytellers. Normally we write our stories down. But for this podcast we're going to tell them out loud instead. And today we're going to be telling tales about getting into trouble. All right. I finally got through that introduction. Tim Harris, please you go first.st

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Tim Harris: Nobody likes getting into trouble, do they? I remember in year 10, sitting next to the class clown who got in trouble from the English teacher, and his name is Adam, and she's she said, right, Adam.

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Tim Harris: you and me lunch. And he said, I sure only if you pay Miss.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Fair.

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Tim Harris: Fantastic, but but my memory of getting into troubles a little bit later than high school.

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Tim Harris: It was when I was teaching, and in my 3rd year of teaching, and my 1st 2 years was teaching a year 2 class to 2 year, 2 classes, and then the 3rd year was teaching year 3. So I got to catch the year twos that I had the previous year. So I knew the students quite well, and and off we went to camp.

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Tim Harris: I think it was ghost and gorge chris had a camp which is really cool, so there's like rock climbing and all sorts.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, and.

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Tim Harris: And on, the.

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Rachel Spratt: Lake and stuff is that.

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Tim Harris: That's Lake Macquarie. That is also a good one for for memories. And

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Tim Harris: on the way, on the bus we were just telling, like a whole bunch of ridiculously long jokes and stories to each other. And you know you might you might know some of these bar title. So, Max, the ugliest boy in the world. That really long joke that goes for about 15 min. Also King Puck Puck. That was one of the ones we talked about. And I would just loving these long stories. And it was sort of that, you know, as a young teacher.

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Tim Harris: So I had the students eating out of the palm of my hand with all these stories. And so when we get to camp you know that the female teachers is sort of helping organize all the girls in their cabins, and I was helping organize all the boys in their cabins, and we had this thing where you have to have, you know, really neat cabins, and the neatest cabin might get supper first, st or hot chocolate first, st or whatever it's going to be.

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Tim Harris: And the girls were just smashing it, and and the female teachers wanted over to see what was going on with the boys. Cabins, and I said to me, looked him.

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Tim Harris: This is pretty messy you need to. You need to crack down on these boys. And and so alright, okay, I've got to find a way to get these boys to make their caverns as names possible, so I gathered them all in I think on this on the second morning, and I said to them, all right, boys, we're gonna do this. We're gonna have the latest cabins at camp.

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Tim Harris: I'm going to give a special bedtime story to the natives cabin, and because of the bus, what happened on the bus with all those stories like, oh, another one of those stories? Yes, and so their cabins became spectacular.

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Rachel Spratt: I love.

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Tim Harris: They're actually so good. I'm very much a softy I I hate choosing. And so in the end I said to them.

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Tim Harris: guys, you you all get one. Everyone's gonna get a special story tonight. Yeah. So excited. And so I was thinking, What am I gonna say, what am I gonna say, and I'm thinking back to when I was a kid going on camps. And I was like, I reckon they're they're prime for a ghost story. And I had this really cool ghost story. This is also quite a well known ghost story. It's the one about

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Tim Harris: the old lady who lives alone in her mansion, and every night she she puts her head so her hand down next to her bed, and her dog, who sort of most spends most of its time on her bed, leaks her fingers just as a bit of a reassurance.

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Rachel Spratt: Hope, so.

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Jacqueline Harvey: No, haven't heard that one.

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Tim Harris: Nathan, agree with that one? No.

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Tim Harris: it it's a it's a really cool one, anyway. Oh, actually, I might give you a quick summary of it. Just so you can start to picture this story. So the key with these stories, of course you, you draw out the tension and you talk about the creeks and groans in the house, and and how every night she's doing this thing. But but one night she hears this dripping sound, this this slow, constant drip.

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Tim Harris: and so she gets out of bed, and she's wandering around with it with a candle light, and she's trying to find what's making this trip, and she just can't like had it. She goes everywhere through the mansion, and you talk about how it happens the next night. But all the while. She's putting her hands down next to the bed, and the dogs coming out licking. It's, you know, licking her hand. What ends up making the noise is, she finds this is pretty full on. She finds her dog

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Tim Harris: without its head

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Tim Harris: in in the cupboard at the end of her like bedroom, and it's the blood that's making.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So.

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Tim Harris: And so then you end the ghost story with the rhetorical. You know what was making the dripping sense. So I told this story to these you through.

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Rachel Spratt: Surely it's.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Flickinot.

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Rachel Spratt: Under the bed.

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Tim Harris: Yeah, that's right. And so, of course, I wanna know what you know. What was it? And I said, Well, you have to have you, Le, leave it to your imagination. So I dragged it out, probably a 10 min version to each of these cabins, and they were just so beautifully quiet during the telling of it, and I thought, Well, that was good. And then I went over to have hot chocolate with the other stages, and I said, Wow, Tim, the boys are also quiet. The cabins are beautifully spick and span. Well done, you and I, and it was good, and but then at midnight the screaming started.

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nathanluff: And then.

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Tim Harris: Good, and the sobbing, and and we went over, said, What's you know what's going on? That knocks on the cabin door? And I said, we are so terrified. And then in the end, I think I had to sort of tell them a joke. But that's not where the trouble started. The trouble started when we got back to school the following week. An email came through that dear Tim the principal would like to see you.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, my goodness!

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Tim Harris: And so I went in with my tile between my legs to the principal, and had to apologize and actually retell the story.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh no!

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Tim Harris: A prince.

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Rachel Spratt: Blood, nightmare.

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Tim Harris: Yeah. They said that.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Haven't come to school for a month.

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Tim Harris: And I had to go to the Principals Association. No, no, that's

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Tim Harris: yeah. So I got I got in really big trouble. But what was quite ironic about it. Was it really was a a taste of storytelling and.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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Tim Harris: Back in hindsight. It wasn't until about a decade later that I realized, well, I really do like telling these stories, and that was such an early sort of stage of it.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Just a rookie era. The fact that they were eight-year-olds like he would have got away with it if they're 14. It's probably a little younger.

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Tim Harris: Yeah. And I was 12 when I heard it. So that was.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, I remember when I was in primary school, we had this like librarian, and she was the fill-in for the regular librarian when she was sick, and she would always come in, and she was such a great storyteller, and she would always tell us ghost stories, but she'd always start off with this like.

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Rachel Spratt: well, I've been asked by the teachers and the principal and your parents not to tell you ghost stories anymore. But I know this class is the one class I can tell.

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Jacqueline Harvey: And let you know.

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Rachel Spratt: Why did she just scare the parts office with these stories? It was fantastic. But yeah, like, I remember it vividly, and I would have been like 9 years old, this woman just sitting there, and everyone just hanging on her every word. Best library lessons ever.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, sometimes, being a teacher, you know, it's awful when you get in trouble. When you are the teacher. I I've been.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh!

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Jacqueline Harvey: Situation, Tim, so I'll I'll tell you that later.

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nathanluff: I think.

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Rachel Spratt: In trouble as a teacher. Nathan.

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nathanluff: I have. I have I? My 1st week of teaching, you know you sort of you go in

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nathanluff: these big ideas that you're gonna impress everyone. You're gonna be this amazing creative cause. I was drama and music. It's gonna be this great creative teacher. And so but you know, you don't have the experience. So I thought that I was gonna make masks with like use one. And you 2 like paper mache masks. So it's in the hall, and I didn't have any budget. So I just brought in a bunch of flower and water. We're gonna make the glue. It's gonna be amazing.

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nathanluff: And so, of course, it ended up with glue. This is in the.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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nathanluff: All over the floor, and that evening they were having all of the parents, like the whole community, were coming in for for

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nathanluff: and so, and I didn't know what to do. And luckily this beautiful teacher came in the state of it, and and they got all of the the kids to come over the poor. You 5 and 6 kids came over and helped scrape glue off this floor, ready for this event.

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nathanluff: But, luckily for me.

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nathanluff: the principal was my mother-in-law. So while I would have gotten into a lot more trouble

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nathanluff: dodge that bullet. But it was, yeah, felt really weird, being an adult getting into trouble. The teachers as well.

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Tim Harris: Probably didn't help that. The fact that the event that night was the Fi, the Flower Allergy Association.

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nathanluff: Right? That's right.

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Rachel Spratt: And as you said, Flower, that's what my mind went to. Oh, some kid in that class

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Rachel Spratt: goes bright red, says

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Rachel Spratt: Power.

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Rachel Spratt: All right. So is that your story, Nathan, or.

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Jacqueline Harvey: He's got another one.

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nathanluff: No, but my my story is that it's similar to teams in in the sense that it what it's I got in trouble for telling a story in the way that that Tim did and I. But it happened when I was a kid and I I was. I've got 4 brothers. We grew up on a farm, and I'm quite different than my brothers and.

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Rachel Spratt: Just stop and unpack that.

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nathanluff: It's bad. It's quite.

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Rachel Spratt: Something to have. Boys. Where are you in the birth order.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Where? Where are you?

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nathanluff: I'm second oldest, but my.

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Rachel Spratt: Most people.

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nathanluff: Most people think I'm the youngest, because my other brothers, like my oldest brother, was like this weightlifting champion he was, this huge, you know hulking mess of a person, and then the one next down below me was taller than me from I don't know. Year 5 onwards, so they always thought we were twins, and then they thought I was younger than him, so I was kind of the runt, in a way, of the family.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Where? Where was your farm? Where are we talking like? Far, far from anywhere? Or are we talking like fringes.

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nathanluff: We're near. Yes.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Right.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, I

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Rachel Spratt: so much of my childhood. And yes, oh, really, yeah, cause we're Belle Ring is no no where bell ring is in St. Clements. Yes, has bells.

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nathanluff: Have a go.

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Rachel Spratt: There every year.

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nathanluff: I, I worked after uni, I worked in tourist tourist center of yes, 90% of my job was to tell people who got lost, who got stuck in? Yes, and come in and say, how do I get out.

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Rachel Spratt: That amazed.

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nathanluff: Like I've been trying for 20 years. I don't know.

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Rachel Spratt: Amazing milk bar in. Yas, that like nothing has changed since the 9.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: With d.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, I went there about 2 years ago. It's awesome.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, yeah.

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nathanluff: i i i have appreciation of yes, now I should point out at the time, though.

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Rachel Spratt: Yas literary festival was amazed. They had one.

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nathanluff: I didn't know they haven't invited me.

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Rachel Spratt: With you. Start knife.

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nathanluff: Right. So so this this particular day one of my brothers came in because my brothers would, you know, just throw rocks and stones at each other. That was their games, and then they come to me when you know that all went pear shaped, and so I'd be there reading my book. My brother Scott came in, and he had received a butterfly net for Christmas.

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nathanluff: and so I would turn everything into a story or a game, anyway. So I told him that evil butterflies have taken over the world, and it was our job to save the world from these evil monarchs. So we went out on the farm I took my book. He took his butterfly net. We were walking for a long, long time. We saw a big, tall pine tree, and at the top

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nathanluff: were able butterflies.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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nathanluff: So I quickly devised a plan which was he was going to climb up, capture them, and I was going to keep guard on the ground with my book.

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nathanluff: and then I started reading, and then the net fell down next to me.

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nathanluff: which I thought was, you know, a problem. And you know. I thought, Scott, you idiot, how you're gonna catch the butterflies for that nip kept reading, and then, if something else came down, it was the branch that he should have been standing on.

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nathanluff: Oh, Scott is silly sausage! How you can stay in a tree without a branch! And then, of course, he came down.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, my God!

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nathanluff: Been really high up.

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nathanluff: and he wasn't responding. He wasn't leaving.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Course, yours.

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nathanluff: Yeah. So I'm the older, responsible brother. So I did what any older, responsible brother would do. I finished my chapter. Then I ran out of the house fast as I could. Actually, I didn't go as fast as I got a stitch part way through.

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Jacqueline Harvey: That's right.

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nathanluff: I eventually got to the house and he's where the the real story kicks in, because I I should have, you know, got inside the house. I should have said, Mom

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nathanluff: Scott's fallen. He's hurt himself bad. Come quick.

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nathanluff: I did not say that. I said, Mom, my mom, sit yourself down. Make yourself a cup of tea. I have got the best story for you.

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Rachel Spratt: And so.

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nathanluff: She sat down. You know, when you're telling a story to someone, and and you don't have that full attention. It's really, really annoying. You know they're busy doing something else. I didn't want that. So I really waited to. She was settled and ready to receive this amazing story, and then, with absolutely no exaggeration. The story went for about half an hour, and you know, cause you know, you learn narrative writing at school. So I was using my best descriptive language.

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Rachel Spratt: The.

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nathanluff: This story had everything. It had backstory because I had to talk about the evil butterflies and where they came from. And then I was describing. I remember I vividly remember describing the pattern of clouds in the sky, just thinking, oh, this is a good story, and so you finally get to the main part of the story, and I was using all the senses as well. So the sound of the net coming down with a plot.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Smell of the eucalyptus.

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nathanluff: Oh, I shy, probably did. The branch came down with a 3, rd and then Scott came down with a clip.

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nathanluff: and so and then mom got really nervous, and, you know, started.

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nathanluff: you know, saying, What are you? What are you talking about? He came down and I said, Mom.

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nathanluff: please don't interrupt my story.

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nathanluff: kept going, kept going. Get to the end of the story, and the last line was. And now Scott is lying unconscious, possibly dead, in a paddock. The answer by Nathan, love

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nathanluff: did not get the response, and I felt sorry, deserved. Instead, I got she was shaking me, saying, Where is he? Where is he? We? When got the truck, picked up, Scott

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nathanluff: took him into the hospital.

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nathanluff: and in the end he had only broken his arm.

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Rachel Spratt: Bye.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Was he still unconscious when you picked him up? I have so many questions about this.

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nathanluff: Yeah, no, I think by that stage he cause Mom had mom, I remember Mom being very clear about. Don't don't touch him in case, he he broke in his neck or something, and then my brother Christopher, he's fine. He's fine, and like, you know, maneuvering like he's a puppet or something and Mom shrieking. Anyway, I think he he had regained enough consciousness that he was kind of very groggy, didn't know what was happening at that point.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yes, so.

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Rachel Spratt: Fantastic. I admire your craft as a story. Thank you.

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nathanluff: Thank you.

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Jacqueline Harvey: He's maybe not his, you know, skilled as a brother, though.

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nathanluff: Yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, no, please, that's how all siblings treat each other.

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nathanluff: Well, the thing is cause. Most people think that with that story the lesson you learn is, you know, there's a good time for for the extended version of your story. But really the lesson is, the storytelling is fun, and.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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nathanluff: And I knew at that moment that's what I wanted to do with my life. That was the the takeaway. I think.

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Rachel Spratt: You should write it up as a picture book, cause it's a lot. It's a bit like that story, Ricky Tiki Tembo. No sales.

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nathanluff: Yeah, absolutely.

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Rachel Spratt: Which I'm sure is wildly racist now, and we should not mention it. But.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Probably not.

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nathanluff: Hmm.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Oh, there's some yeah. How? How is your brother? How's your relationship with you and your brother?

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nathanluff: It's it's with that one fine.

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Rachel Spratt: And he doesn't have like ongoing problems with arthritis or anything.

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nathanluff: No, and the good thing is growing up as a boy in the country is. No one ever talks about anything so any sort of trauma that he experienced from that moment is probably buried. Really, that's fine.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Have your brothers gone on to be farmers as opposed to writers and dramatists.

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nathanluff: They a couple of them started. But farming is hard, and I remember Dad not even wanting to push in that way because he knew. You know how hot it was. I mean I I was. I was. I don't know 4 or something 1st time they ever rained, and I remember crying like that she can lick into. I thought the scuff.

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nathanluff: I mean, it's hard. So a couple of tried. And now they're all either laborers or electricians. They've all got proper jobs.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Someone's.

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nathanluff: They have, you know, houses, and you know, security, and then

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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nathanluff: Adding my books with, with nothing to my name, and.

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Rachel Spratt: We feel your pain. Yeah, what sort of farm was it.

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nathanluff: Shaping cattle.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah. My family in England are all into dairy farming, and it's just so hard work to dairy farming, because, you know, milking twice a day.

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Rachel Spratt: Don't get time off.

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nathanluff: I am. I didn't cause I had 4 brothers. I didn't do anything on the farm. My brothers were into all that, and I just read. But then, when I wrote my 1st book, Chicken Stew, I lived in Italy for about 9 months, and I was wolfing so working on organic farms.

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nathanluff: One of the farms was a dairy farm, so I would get up and I would milk the cows, you know. We'll attach them to the machinery, and then we'd make cheese all day, and then I'd write back to my dad, saying, Look at me! I'm such farmer now.

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nathanluff: Anything. When you were growing up, I said. It's different in Italy.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: It's more fun initially, might have had something to do with the food and the wine, but.

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nathanluff: Yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Well fun in Italy.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, everything's more funny. Alright, I better tell my story all right. I also do not like getting in trouble, neither do my children. It's just to this day I get in trouble still, like, especially when I'm visiting school. And I just don't like it. My mother, she would say.

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Rachel Spratt: I've got a bone to pick with you, and you'd be somewhere in the house, and you'd hear those words, and still, like I'm 48 if I hear my mother say those words. I've got a bone to pick with you. It just sends chills like, what have I done? What am I being caught out for now, but the most trouble I ever got into as a teenager, and in hindsight you look back, and you think it really wasn't that bad? It's not like I was taking heroin or smashing cars, or anything.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Stealing from the supermarket.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, well, I may have done that, but I didn't get caught, but I went to James Ruse, which is like the nerd school, the nerdiest nerd school in all of nerddom. And so we had sort of different things that you'd get in trouble for. So what happened to me was like I was more of an art student, and, like James Ruse, is more of a math science school. So I was sort of like a like you're seen as the dark sheep, if you like, enjoy studying art to start with. But then, because my family's from England and

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Rachel Spratt: it we didn't. We went back when I was 8. But then that was the only time my mom had been back, and she missed her family. So when I was in year 10, and they thought we were old enough. My mom went back for 3 months and left. Just left me and my brother with my dad and my dad. He had like a he would. He was an executive in the insurance company, and so he had a 9 to 5, 9 to 6 kind of job, and he was commuting. So he was basically gone from 7 in the morning to 7 at night, maybe 8 at night, every single day.

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Rachel Spratt: And my brother had a girlfriend, and he was just at her place the whole time. So I was basically at home taking care of myself like. And it was before there was like

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Rachel Spratt: The shops were open late, so there'd just be no food by like this, the 5, th 6, th and 7th day of the week, and so I was like baking bread when I came home from school, so I'd have something to eat, and things like that which I really didn't mind. I quite like the. I like my own company, and I like the Independence, but I don't know what. Something happened where I just

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Rachel Spratt: stopped doing homework, and it's not like, I thought, oh, I'm going to be bad, and I'm not going to do my homework. This is like something turned off in my brain.

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Rachel Spratt: and I just didn't do homework anymore. And it didn't really occur to me that I was doing the wrong thing. I just had stopped doing it when my mum went away, and I've always loved stories, and I've always loved romance stories. So what I was doing was every day when I was at school I was set in the VCR. Remember how complicated it was to set the VCR. No one over the age of 18 could do it.

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Rachel Spratt: I was set in the VCR. While I was at school to record the young and the restless and days of our lives every single day. And then I was coming home from school like making an omelet or baking bread, and then sitting down and spending 2 h watching daytime soap operas, and then my dad would come home at like 7, 38 o'clock. I'd be like, Hi, Dad! I'm just, you know, and have some dinner. I'd go to my bed and read a book, and that was my day. Every day I was enjoying myself. No one was interfering, no one was raising any questions.

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Rachel Spratt: So anyway, my mom comes back. She's been back a few weeks, and it's parent teacher interviews. And you know I'm already, you know I'm an art student. So the school's just rolling their eyes at me.

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Rachel Spratt: So my parents go in, and I think I'm doing fine. You know. I'm a good kid. I never cause any trouble. I'm not doing the heroin. I'm not stealing the cars. I'm not being rude to the teachers, and they come back, and I have never seen my father angrier. He was just like steam coming off him, and he's a pretty calm little guy, and he was just

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Rachel Spratt: so angry like, you know, and I'd been busted. My ag teacher, my agriculture teacher had doped me in and said, because I think I'd been doing like minimum amount of maths, because I knew that was the subject people paid attention to. But my agriculture teacher had said I had not done any homework for 6 months, and I'm like, Did we have homework

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Rachel Spratt: culture? But if you did a practical lesson. You were supposed to write up what you'd done in the practical lesson. In a note.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Book.

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Rachel Spratt: And I just thought, Well, this is stupid. I'm not doing it. Which in hindsight perfectly valid choice. And my dad was just steaming with rage, and it wasn't so much that I wasn't doing it. He'd obviously got in trouble with my mum in the car on the way home, and she'd be like. Have you not been paying any attention? And really he hadn't been paying any attention, and he came home, and he's like I trusted you. You betrayed my trust.

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Rachel Spratt: and I'm like, Oh, my gosh! And he's like that's it! And he's trying to think of the worst thing he could do. He's like, what have you been doing? And then they worked out that I'd been watching the daytime soap operas.

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Rachel Spratt: and they're like, Oh, that's it! And they knew how much I loved television. I just loved television so much.

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Rachel Spratt: and they said, That's it. You're banned from television for 6 months.

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Jacqueline Harvey: But us.

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Rachel Spratt: And I was like, Oh, my gosh! And I just like I knew I was in so much trouble. I'm like, Okay, fine. Okay? Oh, no, I mean, like it's my life. My heart was being ripped out of my body. But it's like, Okay, you're clearly, really angry. I'll do that.

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Rachel Spratt: And so that was it. I was banned from TV for 6 months. But what none of us realized was this was gonna be like a pivotal life experience for me, because I thought, Okay, Fair Cop, I'll do it. And they basically thought I'd do it for a week, and then I'd apologize and they let it slide. But I was like, Okay, fair cop, no TV for 6 months, mark the date 6 months later. No tick. I won't watch any TV. And what I did instead was, I read a lot more books. But I also got into listening to the radio.

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Rachel Spratt: This is before the Internet and everything. So I started listening to radio national all the time. So I was listening to all these documentaries. And I was listening to all these like political and international relations, things. And I started listening to the late night live where the interview and academics about what? And I just learned so much. In that time I was exposed to all these ideas I hadn't thought anything about like postmodernism communism.

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Rachel Spratt: you know, at the Roman Empire all these amazing things that were going on in the world. You know what was going on in East Timor, Pre, the Liberation and all these things. And I was just absorbing all this information.

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Rachel Spratt: and it developed into a lifelong interest like, ever since then I have followed all the news and the politics, and it meant that when I went to Charleston University, which is the university Nathan went to as well.

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Rachel Spratt: I started doing a radio show myself when I was there on the local radio station called news schmooze, where I would talk about the news and funny things that had happened in the news, which meant, by the time I finished I got a job at good Newsweek, because I had an unusually extensive knowledge of news and current affairs for a 21 year old. So it was weird, this one thing of me getting in trouble

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Rachel Spratt: totally changed the trajectory of my life. It led to me getting my 1st job as a writer when I just turned 22, and I've been a writer ever since so weirdly getting in that much trouble for not doing my homework has led to my entire career as a creative writer.

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Jacqueline Harvey: There you go!

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nathanluff: I was. Gonna say, the good news is that 6 months away from those slopes as well.

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nathanluff: nothing would have moved on.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I was. Gonna say, imagine, like, you know, you, you might have ended up, you know, a passing ridge on the Golden the Beautiful. If you'd, you know, you might have ended up becoming an actress if you you know.

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Rachel Spratt: Okay.

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Jacqueline Harvey: With it. Rach so.

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Rachel Spratt: I know. No, I never. I wanted to be an assistant to.

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Jacqueline Harvey: When I was like.

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Rachel Spratt: University at Charleston University. They had this guy come and he'd won the short film prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

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Rachel Spratt: And so he came to talk to us all, and they said, Oh, it was like it wasn't part of the course, but they would put it on this talk, and you could come if you wanted to, and I have never seen so many people packed into a lecture theatre because everyone was fascinated, but when he turned up. He brought his wife and his wife was an assistant director, and she'd worked on all these feature films, and she started on a country practice. But then she'd worked on all of the

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Rachel Spratt: like heavenly creatures. The the I blanked on his name, the guy who did

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Rachel Spratt: Peter Jackson all his early films, and she done everything you'd ever heard of in the New Zealand film, and then she'd gone on to do all these Hollywood films. And so he said, oh, before I talk we've got an hour. How about my wife talks? She ended up talking for like 55 min, because we had so many questions. Her job was so fascinating when she was explaining what an assistant director does on set so. And then he talked. And we're like, oh, so you make made one really arty short film. It's we're not particularly.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Boring.

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Rachel Spratt: Fascinating career. So that electrified me. And I decided, that's what I want to do. I wanted to be an assistant director, but you've probably heard me tell the story before I turned up a good Newsweek, saying, I want to be the assistant director and the assistant director wasn't there that day, and they put me with the writers, and you know, 26 years later, I'm still a writer. So

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Rachel Spratt: it is.

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Jacqueline Harvey: All meant to be, that we.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Meant to be.

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Rachel Spratt: The the the twists and turns of fate.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yes, absolutely. Well, I've been thinking for a while. I've I've I've written down quite the list of getting into troubles.

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nathanluff: Oh, yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: I'm a.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah. But I'm not gonna just go.

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Rachel Spratt: Just showed us, till a page full of handwritten scrolls.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Oh, yeah. Well, you know.

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Rachel Spratt: Diagrams of the people. She's hung and stabbed.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I know I haven't done anything like that. But I was thinking, what's the story about getting into trouble? But I was a pretty good kid I was, and I like you, Rach. I didn't like getting into trouble. I tried my hardest not to get in trouble. I was a bit of a goodie, 2 shoes at school. This trouble happened, though, when I

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Jacqueline Harvey: you know, when you really want something so bad and your parents tell you no, you're not getting it, you know, and it's something really silly and dinky, anyway. So I was very young. I was. Probably, I reckon I was probably maybe 6 when I did this, so I remember going with my mum to Liverpool. We lived at Ingleburn at the time, and you know we trekked off down the old roads to Liverpool to go to

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Jacqueline Harvey: the Woolworth used to be a massive Woolworths in the main street of Liverpool that actually had a big cafe in the back of it, and it was a bit of a treat to go to like the Woolworth.

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Tim Harris: Yeah, I remember.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Area.

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Tim Harris: Remember that, Jackie? Because.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Oh!

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Tim Harris: And Hammondville. Yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: There you go. Thank you.

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Tim Harris: Go to that cafe. Yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah. So mom took me there and then we were roaming the all the wood. So if I was 6 I would have had a 3 year old sister, and a probably a baby sister at the time, too, who was very small. Anyway, there were these ridiculous toys that were like they would like phone like like bits of phone. And you used to pop like, jam them together in your fingertips. And they would pop. And that would just make a silly noise, a pop noise. And I really really wanted one. I was like, Mom, can I have one of these? I know

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Jacqueline Harvey: I was like I really really want it. She's like, no.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So I put it in my pocket.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh!

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Jacqueline Harvey: And.

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Rachel Spratt: Da.

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Jacqueline Harvey: And it's the only time I've ever shoplifted anything in my life. But my mother never found out about it. This was the thing I didn't get in trouble for that.

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Rachel Spratt: Will, if she listens to this podcast.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah.

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Tim Harris: I think I did confess. 2 years later.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, yeah, sure.

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Tim Harris: Can I get all the listeners to spam the comments in the review sections with Jackie is a shoplifter.

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Rachel Spratt: Just so. No, you're getting.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Trouble with.

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Rachel Spratt: I and Tim, Dr.

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Tim Harris: Yeah, yeah, I don't know about that. Now.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So, anyway. So I mean it's bad enough. The guilt like I can't tell you how guilty I felt that I had done this, that I had taken it, and by the time I got halfway down the street I felt so guilty I put it in the rubbish bin.

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nathanluff: It came with it.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, you! Hear!

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nathanluff: At the end of the.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I I stole through the evidence away, but then we went to the pet shop, which I remember was sort of down the road around the corner, and.

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Rachel Spratt: A dog.

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Jacqueline Harvey: No, no, no! We we went to the pet shop.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and I think it was like the 1st time, Karma. I really understood the notion of Karma, because, you know, I'm I'm feeling really guilty. I've just stolen this ridiculous toy that you know it makes no sense to anybody at me but me at the time.

462
00:47:20.320 --> 00:47:34.360
Jacqueline Harvey: I've now offloaded the toy. I didn't want to get caught. I was so nervous about getting caught. We go to the pet shop, and we're, you know, we're just looking at the kittens and the puppies, and it was in the day when, you know, they used to have pretty much every species of animal in the world in the pet shop.

463
00:47:34.450 --> 00:47:45.871
Jacqueline Harvey: and there was this cage with a rat in it, and it was quite a pretty little rat it was, you know, like a brown and white rat. It wasn't like you, you know your gray variety gonna give you you know. The play.

464
00:47:46.120 --> 00:47:47.189
Rachel Spratt: Like, yeah.

465
00:47:47.190 --> 00:48:10.659
Jacqueline Harvey: Anyway, my mother said to me, she kept saying, stop putting your finger near the rat's cage, and I was like, Oh, it's so cute, and Mom kept saying, stop touching the rat's cage. Anyway, I put my finger into the rat's cage, and the Rat bit my finger really really hard like took a massive slice out of the pad of my finger. And then I'm like.

466
00:48:10.950 --> 00:48:12.390
Jacqueline Harvey: and of course

467
00:48:12.540 --> 00:48:18.269
Jacqueline Harvey: the 1st thing Mom does is take me to Liverpool Hospital to get a tetanus shot. So my whole shoplifting experience.

468
00:48:18.968 --> 00:48:28.351
Jacqueline Harvey: then, you know, then it was you get written by a rep, and you have to get a tense injection. So I I think that put paid to any desire to become a professional criminal.

469
00:48:28.620 --> 00:48:30.210
nathanluff: Yeah, well, I.

470
00:48:30.210 --> 00:48:32.550
Rachel Spratt: And that did the shoplifting that got bitten.

471
00:48:32.550 --> 00:48:43.080
Jacqueline Harvey: Probably, you know, it's my right hand I do recall. So I had like a big I had to have like a big plaster on it, and you know they it was awful horrible!

472
00:48:43.340 --> 00:48:59.610
nathanluff: I I didn't technically shoplift cause the idea of it terrified me. But I had this friend whose father worked for the Council. The ask council, and he he told me that his dad's job was to make sure that shops weren't over charging people.

473
00:48:59.620 --> 00:49:03.420
nathanluff: It's just not a job. It's not a real job it is. No, it is.

474
00:49:03.420 --> 00:49:10.999
Rachel Spratt: My daughter worked in a sweet shop, where they have, like pre measured like sweets, that they baggage, bag up baggage, that they bag.

475
00:49:11.383 --> 00:49:12.149
Jacqueline Harvey: Shop? Yeah.

476
00:49:12.150 --> 00:49:16.199
Rachel Spratt: And someone from whatever consumer came around and measured.

477
00:49:16.650 --> 00:49:19.250
Jacqueline Harvey: They check the scales and stuff, don't they? Because they.

478
00:49:19.250 --> 00:49:23.580
Rachel Spratt: Well, no, they weighed some of the bags of lollies, and one of them was under by like 3 or 4 grams.

479
00:49:23.580 --> 00:49:24.360
nathanluff: And they got.

480
00:49:24.360 --> 00:49:25.569
Rachel Spratt: Huge, fine, so.

481
00:49:25.570 --> 00:49:31.630
nathanluff: Yeah, exactly what his job was, but I'm sure his son had, you know, confused it a lot.

482
00:49:31.630 --> 00:49:32.570
Rachel Spratt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

483
00:49:32.570 --> 00:49:42.390
nathanluff: And so he said that it was okay to go in. And if we thought, because because relationship with his with his father, if we thought they were overcharging. We just switch the labels, the price.

484
00:49:43.560 --> 00:49:48.209
nathanluff: And so we we got all this stuff, cause it was before, you know, electronics. It was when they saw that sort of stuff.

485
00:49:48.210 --> 00:49:49.109
Rachel Spratt: Ky yellow.

486
00:49:49.110 --> 00:49:50.020
nathanluff: Yeah, yeah.

487
00:49:50.020 --> 00:49:50.890
Rachel Spratt: The gun. Yeah.

488
00:49:50.890 --> 00:49:57.019
nathanluff: Exactly. So we got all these pen. It was all stationary. Got all this really cheap station. We did pay for it just not very much.

489
00:49:57.020 --> 00:49:59.079
Jacqueline Harvey: Just not the full price.

490
00:49:59.080 --> 00:50:12.390
Rachel Spratt: Brother used to do that in Hobby Co. Because he used to love making dioramas. He's such a nerd of like World war. 2 battle scenes with tanks and stuff. So he'd get like the $45 kit and swap the label with a $3 kit. Yeah.

491
00:50:12.870 --> 00:50:15.409
Jacqueline Harvey: He never listens to this podcast. Thankfully, either so.

492
00:50:15.410 --> 00:50:24.159
Rachel Spratt: Well, no, it's fine. He went into like merchant banking. So these, like devious skills, have served him well. Basically fraud. He's learned at an early age.

493
00:50:24.160 --> 00:50:32.389
Jacqueline Harvey: Well, well, my, my absolute, you know enathma of shoplifting. So when I was 13 I didn't shoplift, I went I went

494
00:50:32.540 --> 00:50:45.340
Jacqueline Harvey: to Macarthur Square with my best friend from high school, and one of her friends from primary school, who had gone to a Posh girls school in the city as a boarder, and so the Posh Girls school

495
00:50:45.440 --> 00:50:46.760
Jacqueline Harvey: student.

496
00:50:46.870 --> 00:51:06.440
Jacqueline Harvey: who will remain nameless, and her best friend, who was staying at her house out where we lived out at Camden now, anyway. Those 2 girls we we split up to do our shopping, and you know I loved David Jones in Macas, where it was one of my favorite places to go. And anyway, we emerged from David Jones to the Food Court to meet up together.

497
00:51:06.460 --> 00:51:27.407
Jacqueline Harvey: and they produced pocketfuls of lipsticks. And and and I thought, Oh, my goodness, someone is gonna know someone is gonna find out like so, and we will all be implicated because we were all in the same group. Anyway, I remember the feeling of sheer relief when we got home, and then told my best friend's mom, and she was like.

498
00:51:28.420 --> 00:51:29.100
Tim Harris: Sorry.

499
00:51:29.100 --> 00:51:33.520
Jacqueline Harvey: I think they got marched back there and made to give it all back.

500
00:51:33.520 --> 00:51:37.470
Tim Harris: Say to them, right, Hey, guys, just before the movie, can we just visit the pet shop.

501
00:51:37.470 --> 00:51:38.890
nathanluff: Yeah, yeah.

502
00:51:39.600 --> 00:51:43.059
Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah. And hopefully, there was a python in there.

503
00:51:43.060 --> 00:51:44.059
nathanluff: Yeah, I would have taken a.

504
00:51:44.060 --> 00:51:45.020
Jacqueline Harvey: Life and girl.

505
00:51:45.340 --> 00:51:46.780
nathanluff: 18 sorry.

506
00:51:46.780 --> 00:52:04.050
Rachel Spratt: Tim, you've got lots of kids. Have you ever done inadvertent shop lifting like cause? When you have a pram and you're walking around the shops. You often put your groceries in the bottom of the pram, and then your kids are distracting you, your toddlers and everything, and you get home, and you realize there's like 6 liters of milk you didn't pay for, or something. Have you ever done that.

507
00:52:04.050 --> 00:52:19.220
Tim Harris: Yeah, that's an amazing preemptive question. Yes, we accidentally did time. But Heidi Jane is brilliant, and she said, Look, let's just go back, and and we'll pay for it, and that the the assistant or the checkout assistant was very impressed. Wow! Thank you so much. I think it was just like a bowl of milk or something.

508
00:52:19.400 --> 00:52:20.660
Jacqueline Harvey: Oh, yeah, that's that.

509
00:52:20.660 --> 00:52:21.069
Tim Harris: But yeah.

510
00:52:21.070 --> 00:52:23.369
Jacqueline Harvey: To show you good, good Karma for you, Tim.

511
00:52:23.370 --> 00:52:27.950
Tim Harris: Yeah, yeah, that was that was nice. But bullies is pretty cool, cause they have this like, free fruit for kids.

512
00:52:27.950 --> 00:52:29.340
Rachel Spratt: Yeah, that's right.

513
00:52:29.340 --> 00:52:31.750
Tim Harris: Is the thing to keep your hand occupied.

514
00:52:32.070 --> 00:52:34.046
Rachel Spratt: Yes, it's such a

515
00:52:34.610 --> 00:52:42.047
Rachel Spratt: yeah, that's such a great breakthrough cause that happens sort of halfway through my kids being that age. And when it came to me like praise the Lord! That's so good.

516
00:52:42.280 --> 00:52:43.140
Jacqueline Harvey: I.

517
00:52:43.140 --> 00:52:58.680
Rachel Spratt: I have. I have inadvertently stolen a hat because I was walking around the shops, and I picked out a hat that I wanted, and I was looking at other things, so I just put it on my head. So my hands were free, and then just walked straight out, bought all the other things and then get to the car and realized I still got the hat on. My.

518
00:53:00.910 --> 00:53:01.630
Rachel Spratt: yeah.

519
00:53:01.630 --> 00:53:04.800
Jacqueline Harvey: The $350 cobra.

520
00:53:04.800 --> 00:53:09.099
Rachel Spratt: It was like a straw hat from Big WI think if I picked it out it was probably on special as well.

521
00:53:10.100 --> 00:53:17.780
nathanluff: I was gonna say that I I read a lot of Charles Dickens when I was a kid and really was desperate to be a starving orphan.

522
00:53:17.790 --> 00:53:28.199
nathanluff: and so, when my mom would give us that pocket money for the week, I always thought, we can't afford this. We can't afford me to have this money, and I would secretly go and put it back in her.

523
00:53:28.730 --> 00:53:29.210
Jacqueline Harvey: Sh!

524
00:53:29.480 --> 00:53:32.720
nathanluff: What I didn't know was that my older brother was stealing money.

525
00:53:32.720 --> 00:53:33.190
Tim Harris: You for a moment.

526
00:53:33.190 --> 00:53:36.240
nathanluff: So he was just stealing my money back, which is why Mom never had any.

527
00:53:36.240 --> 00:53:37.300
Rachel Spratt: Goodness, that is.

528
00:53:37.300 --> 00:53:37.919
Jacqueline Harvey: I don't know.

529
00:53:37.920 --> 00:53:40.829
Rachel Spratt: Little thing. You should use that in a story.

530
00:53:40.830 --> 00:54:07.519
Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, that's like my little sister. She used to. My dad used to have heaps of change, you know, in the days when you come home and just put your change in, you know. He had like a try in on his bedside table or in the inside the bedside table, and my little sister would steal it constantly. She was always, and Dad would go. I thought I had about 20 bucks worth of change. There, there's like 50 cents left. So yeah, she was a bit naughty, much naughty than me.

531
00:54:07.520 --> 00:54:21.880
Rachel Spratt: If you offer to give kids cash, they look at you in disgust. If you say I wanted to be the auntie, that all my nieces and nephews loved. So I'm like, Hey, do you want money like $2 or $5? And they're like, Oh, now, what would I do with that. That would just be a pain.

532
00:54:22.100 --> 00:54:22.539
Jacqueline Harvey: Card, anyway.

533
00:54:22.760 --> 00:54:23.630
Rachel Spratt: In the aircraft.

534
00:54:23.630 --> 00:54:24.240
Jacqueline Harvey: God.

535
00:54:24.240 --> 00:54:26.679
Rachel Spratt: Yeah, you can transfer some money to my account.

536
00:54:28.390 --> 00:54:29.679
Jacqueline Harvey: We probably should wrap it up there.

537
00:54:29.680 --> 00:54:30.430
Rachel Spratt: Oh, gosh!

538
00:54:30.676 --> 00:54:33.390
Jacqueline Harvey: We've got. We got some more stuff to to do, but.

539
00:54:33.390 --> 00:54:49.229
Rachel Spratt: Yeah, well, thank you so much, Nathan, for coming and talking to us, and thank you all for listening to. You've been listening to real stories with random writers. I'm ra sprat. And if you want to find out anything about me, you can go to my website. Ra sprat.com Tim, where can we find out about you.

540
00:54:49.230 --> 00:54:50.989
Tim Harris: Tim Harris books.com.

541
00:54:50.990 --> 00:54:51.990
Rachel Spratt: And Jackie.

542
00:54:52.292 --> 00:54:54.110
Jacqueline Harvey: Jacqueline harvey.com.au.

543
00:54:54.260 --> 00:54:55.980
Rachel Spratt: And Nathan. Where can we find out about you?

544
00:54:55.990 --> 00:54:57.840
nathanluff: And nathanlaf.com.au.

545
00:54:57.840 --> 00:55:01.870
Rachel Spratt: Okay, well, thank you so much for joining us, and until next time, goodbye.

546
00:55:01.870 --> 00:55:02.750
Jacqueline Harvey: Bye, bye.

547
00:55:02.750 --> 00:55:03.410
nathanluff: Aye.

01:01:11.010 --> 01:01:15.699
nathanluff: Sweet, cool yep, I will be around alright, bye, bye.