55: The little town that welcomed the world: A ‘COME FROM AWAY’ SPECIAL!

Full Episode description

We are joined by two wonderful guests from the town of Gander in remote Newfoundland, Canada, where locals showed amazing kindness to people from all over the world, following the terrible events of 9/11. We only briefly mention the planes that crashed into the twin towers: we focus on the heart-warming humanity that followed.

This true story is sweeping the world through the award-winning musical Come From Away, and we make good use of having attained the rights to the music! Even better, we spend time with local journalist Janice Goudie and animal shelter manager Bonnie Harris, who found themselves at the centre of events – and at the centre of Come From Away. Janice was reporting on events on 11 September, 2001, as 38 planes, carrying nearly 7,000 passengers, landed at the remote Canadian town of Gander. Bonnie was determined to discover if there were any animals on board – and she received quite a surprise. 

The population of the town almost doubled in just a couple of hours. How would the town cope? Well, the answer to that is: remarkably! 

Janice now works for the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and we recommend this CBC cartoon strip resource, featuring Janice, as a way to educate suitably-aged children about 9/11. 

At the end of today’s episode (after our outro theme song), there are bags of extras – including lots of outtakes, additional interview material and bonus music from Come From Away! 

Here are some questions to test your listening skills:

1. What was Janice’s job?
2. Why were 38 planes – and nearly 7,000 passengers – forced to land in Gander?
3. What was Bonnie’s job?
4. What examples of kindness can you remember that the islanders showed the passengers?
5. What types of animals were found on those planes?
6. Can you think of a time when someone has shown great kindness to you or when you have shown kindness to others?

For mature history lovers: read industry reviews of Dad’s World War II novels, A Chance Kill and The Slightest Chance, at paulletters.com. Available as e-books, as well as in paperback. Dad’s first wartime novel, A Chance Kill, is a love-story/thriller based on real events in Poland, Paris, London and Prague. The Slightest Chance follows the remarkable true story of the only escape from Japanese imprisonment by a Western woman during World War II.

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Podcast cover art by Molly Austin

All instrumental music is from https://filmmusic.io and composed by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Sound effects used under RemArc Licence. Copyright 2022 © BBC