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About This Podcast
From the cold stone walls of the Sisters of Mercy orphanage to the red dust of the shearing sheds and finally the chalk dust of the classroom.
Ross Cooper’s journey is one of faith lost, wisdom found, and the raw poetry of the Australian outback.
A story where Banjo Paterson’s verses meet the grit of real men and one man’s search for purpose comes full circle beneath the wide southern sky.
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Chapter's - Final
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Chapter Thirteen - A lesson and learning - Teaching and taught
Ross had taken to teaching like a duck to a country dam, full of noise, splash, and a sense of destiny disguised as play. The classroom, to him, wasn’t a box for rote and regulation. It was a…
Chapter Twelve - I Doubt he'd suit the office
Of all places in the wide, bustling world of classrooms and chalk dust, Ross was to commence his “in-school practical training” at none other than Drummoyne Primary School. The irony was not lost on…
Chapter Eleven - In come the pennies’ out go the pounds
All to the tune of ‘Click go the shears’ 1966 was the year Australia woke up and found its pockets lighter and its world tilting slightly off-centre. Decimal currency arrived with a bureaucrat’s…
Chapter Ten - He was shearing when I knew him
Finally, Monday morning. The town yawned itself awake, and Ross was already standing at the brass-handled doors of Goldsborough Mort & Co., looking as if he’d been waiting there since…
Chapter Nine - A Vision Splendid
Indeed, it was a vision, scary and surreal, as Ross slowly opened his eyes. The room swam into focus, whitewashed walls glaring, faint scent of antiseptic pricking at his senses, and the persistent…
Chapter Eight -T he Drover McInnes
The first man Ross met who knew sheep the way a gambler knows odds was named Arthur “Blue” McInnes, though his hair hadn’t been blue for thirty years. It was the washed-out silver of an old coin and…
Chapter Seven - We don’t know where he are?
Unlike Clancy, who had apparently “gone to Queensland droving” and vanished into the dust and legend, Ross Cooper was charting his own curious version of a bush ballad. The difference was that Ross…
Chapter Six - Clancy of the Overflow
1963 Australia hummed along with its peculiar blend of promise and absurdity. Sir Robert Menzies, unflappable, eternal, and utterly convinced of his own indispensability, remained at the helm as…
Chapter Five - The Royal Hotel
That night, Ross sat at the kitchen table of his rented cottage with the cigar box open in front of him like a treasure chest from a parable gone wrong. The money was spread out in loose piles, …
Chapter Four - Father Ross Cooper
By 1957, the world seemed to have been set on a frantic spin, and Australia was hurtling along with it. Prime Minister Robert Menzies (Liberal Party) was leading a stable government that had been in…
Chapter Three - Saint Patricks Seminary Manly, NSW
Ross arrived at St Patrick’s on a Tuesday morning, the sky over Manly pale and uncertain, like an unpolished pew. The seminary loomed before him, sandstone walls rising in sharp, unwavering lines,…
Chapter Two - Christian Brothers’ Brothers of Our Lady Mother of Mercy,
Can things get worse for Ross?
Chapter One - House of Mercy
The orphanage
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A Good Shepherd from Mercy to The Long Paddock has published 14 episodes since November 2025, covering topics in Drama, Fiction.
A Good Shepherd from Mercy to The Long Paddock is currently sporadic with new episodes daily. Average episode length is 23m.
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