Mrs Sparkle: The Trauma Cleaner
It can be horrible work, dealing with other people's trauma but Sandra Pankhurst says she's had enough of her own to make her good at it.
Sandra Pankhurst, also known as Mrs Sparkle is a trauma cleaner in Melbourne, Australia. Sandra's job involves clearing crime scenes and emptying the homes of extreme hoarders. Sandra often meets people at their lowest point but she draws on the traumatic experiences in her own life in order to help others.
For many decades, so-called "cinema travellers" have been visiting remote rural areas of India and showing films to people who otherwise wouldn't get to see them. For the last ten years, filmmaker Amit Madheshiya has been recording them and their decline as modern technology makes them redundant.
John Corcoran grew up in the US during the 1940s and 50s. As a kid, John was really looking forward to going to school like his older siblings. But once he got there, he realised he had a problem: he couldn't learn how to read and write. John felt demoralised and degraded, but he kept his secret for more than 40 years. During that time he managed to finish school, graduate, and he even became a high school teacher. How did he do that?
Image: Sandra Pankhurst
Credit: Robyn Buccheri
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- Mon 16 Apr 2018 11:06GMT±«Óãtv World Service except News Internet
- Mon 16 Apr 2018 15:06GMT±«Óãtv World Service Australasia
- Mon 16 Apr 2018 17:06GMT±«Óãtv World Service except Australasia, East and Southern Africa, News Internet & West and Central Africa
- Tue 17 Apr 2018 03:06GMT±«Óãtv World Service Australasia, UK DAB/Freeview & Online only
- Tue 17 Apr 2018 05:06GMT±«Óãtv World Service Americas and the Caribbean & South Asia only
- Tue 17 Apr 2018 06:06GMT±«Óãtv World Service East Asia
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Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary
Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected