The Pacific odyssey of a runaway rebel

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ruth Shaw spent years on ships and islands, trying to outrun her past.

She left her home in New Zealand as a young woman, driven away by a traumatic attack that would shape her life for years to come. Ruth tried to find escape on sailing ships, in Tahitian gambling dens and in the bars and kitchens of Papua New Guinea. But ultimately she had to head home, to face up to deep adolescent scars, and to find the child she’d been forced to give up years before.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: May Cameron Editor: Munazza Khan

Photo: ‘The Bookseller at the End of the World’

Transcript

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0:49.8	Search for The Global Story, wherever you get your BBC podcasts, to find out more.
0:58.2	We're in Brisbane, and people always hung their clothes on clotheslines back then.
1:05.1	And so I walked around the streets and had to look for clotheslines that were easily accessible
1:13.0	away from lights at night.
1:15.0	Was you doing a proper rackie?
1:16.3	Yeah, I did.
1:17.2	Yeah.
1:17.9	And the more involved, I got, the more excited I got it.
1:21.4	I thought, God, this is going to work.
1:23.4	I only need to borrow the clothes for a couple of days.
1:27.3	It's 1969 in the city of Brisbane, Australia.
1:31.6	And Ruth Shaw is covertly pacing through the dark on the hunt for an outfit.
	...

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