Do you remember 2001? No, not the film, the year Australia celebrated its Centenary. The year we started watching a group of St. Kilda based twenty-somethings in The Secret Life of Us. The year Ansett released its infamous advertisement– Am I with Ansett? Absolutely– only to collapse months later along with One.Tel, HIH and Enron.

It was the year of the 2001 census and the year that Francesca Higgens, a librarian, became the first woman to be awarded a year of paid maternity leave.

Who can forget, it was also the year that a Norwegian fishing boat called the MV Tampa intercepted a wooden fishing vessel packed with asylum seekers between Indonesia and Australia, and setting off a series of events that dramatically transformed the way that Australia deals with asylum seekers who arrive by boat.

Most people remember one particular date that year- September 11. The attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon dwarfed most other events in our collective consciousness and have since shaped the world we live in.

On this episode, Tamson and Anna speak to Phillipa McGuinness whose upcoming book, The Year Everything Changed 2001, chronicles her personal history that year, interwoven with the larger historical events occurring around the world.

Phillipa has been a publisher, mainly of Australian history, for more than twenty years. This is her first attempt at ‘swapping sides.’ 

You can pre-order 2001 through Penguin Random House here.

If you have a GLAM idea for something that should be on the show- get in touch -GLAMcity@2ser.com.

Music: Kylie Minogue Can’t Get You Out of My Head