19 in 89 cover art

19 in 89

19 in 89

Written by: Benjamin Wasley
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About this listen

 My name is Benjamin Wasley, you may remember me from my work as Giggling Ben on Hamish and Andy, or even Bad Boy Ben with the Vixen back in the 90's, but way before any of that, when I was 19, I moved from the seclusion of my bedroom at my parents house in Adelaide, all the way to the isolated Western Australian mining town of Karratha, to start work as a radio announcer for the very first time at a little radio station called 6KA. My Godmother gave me a diary to record every momentous occasion and now, 30+ years later, I'm going to find out how weird, arrogant, lame, self absorbed and closeted the teenage version of me was. To hold my hand while we revisit the end of the 80's and work our way through 365 days worth of embarrassing diary entries, I'll be joined by the people who've know me the longest, so we can have a giggle at the teenage version of me, and compare it with who I am now, and also revisit the world as it was at the end of the 80's, compared to how we're living right now.2026 Benjamin Wasley Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Mummy's Boy On A Mission (Week One)

    Mummy's Boy On A Mission (Week One)
    Jul 12 2020
    Touch down in Karratha, it's January 8, 1989 and my teenage dream of having a career in radio is about to get underway. It’s my first week of a new job and a brand new life, I'm 19 years old and I’m about to find out my first shift on air starts IN JUST 3 DAYS and I've never been on air before (aside from reading scripts as part of the 15 week Vaughan Harvey Radio Course I attended in Adelaide in 1988, and a fully scripted hour of radio at the end of the course from a tiny radio station in Port Augusta called 5AU that I'll then use as my audition tape to secure this job). I’ve also gotta navigate a share house with all the other announcers, and this is the first time I’ve lived out of my parents home. Will I shit myself before my first shift? Can a mummy's boy make it on his lonesome? Also why would anyone in their right mind allow a teenager access to an open microphone and leave them ALONE in a radio station? What was radio like before the internet, mobile phones and social media, and how did I adjust to all of the things? We've got almost 365 days worth of diary entries to work our way through, find out how the first 7 days went as I read a weeks worth of entries, for the very first time in 30 plus years to my parents Anne and Graham.

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    22 mins
  • Self Absorbed Lawn Mower Man (Week Two)

    Self Absorbed Lawn Mower Man (Week Two)
    Jul 16 2020
    If 19 year old me thought a life in radio was going to be endless audio glamour and non stop, star studded everything...then this week must have been very sobering. Week two of my heady career in the media includes a bunch of manual labour involving a lawn mower and an expanse of grass desperately trying to cling to life around my new share house. Pretty sure that WASN'T in the brochure, naturally teenage me will find a really obscure reason to get shitty about it. Thankfully I’ll chew through more 80’s culinary highlights including making a chop stew, which someone will refuse to eat, how very dare they, plus I try a new cuisine I’ve never experienced and scoff a true 70’s dinner classic using chicken and fruit..because 70's. I’ll also get another pay packet that leaves me confused and make more grandiose assumptions around how important I am to others without any actual proof WHAT. SO. EVER. So prepare yourself for more of the usual teenage over reactions and drama within the snazzy confines of regional radio.

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    24 mins
  • How To Be A Clingy Teenage Weirdo (Week Three)

    How To Be A Clingy Teenage Weirdo (Week Three)
    Jul 19 2020
    Prepare yourself for some of the most demented diary entries I've made so far, and it’s only been 3 weeks, so it's a safe bet we are just scratching the surface of my teenage stupidity. I'll endure a workday I'll go on to describe as my ‘pain in the asshole” day, which naturally is a "slight" over reaction. I meet someone I’ll insist feels like my best friend, the fact that I've only spent a handful of hours with them clearly means bugger all, and in super clingy teenage style, I’ll come to that conclusion without them even having the foggiest idea, OR even a choice in me friending them so hard. Plus there’s this guy who will ring the radio station to check in with his former workplace, leaving a big enough impression for me to record his name in a dairy entry. Here's the even weirder thing though, unbeknownst to both of us, we will actually meet and become actual friends roughly 3 years later in the dark of a private cinema at a preview screening of Sylvester Stallone's 'Cliffhanger'. I know freaky right, or is it just proof that the radio industry is just the same people swapping jobs here, there and everywhere? Thankfully, I won’t have to force friend him into being my mate and he actually joins me to reflect on that moment and hear what happened after that call with another weeks worth of diary entries.

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    23 mins
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