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Dear Sad Goat: A Roundup of Truly Canadian Tales and Letters
Real letters and true stories-intriguing, delightful and entirely unexpected-sent to Bill Richardson from passionate CBC radio listeners across Canada.Since the autumn of 1997, Bill Richardson has been hosting a national afternoon radio program on CBC Radio One. Richardson's Roundup has a cult following of about a million listeners a week. It is a daily anthology of music, fiction, poetry, radio drama, anecdote and reflection. The heart of the show is the wide variety of domestic tales listeners relate through either letters or calls to a toll-free 1-888-723-4628, better known as 1-888-sad goat.Listeners love the notion of a sad goat, somewhere out in the ether, fielding and transmitting their calls. Before long, and with no engineering on the part of the Roundup crew, calls and letters addressed to Dear Sad Goat took over and imparted a particular character to the whimsical, odd, tangential, domestic, humorous and sometimes melancholy.For over six seasons, tens of thousands of Canadians of all ages and from every region have contacted Dear Sad Goat to tell their stories about families and friends. Stories about the joys and mishaps of travelling abroad. Stories about births and deaths and all the rites of passage that fall learning to shave, or kiss, or knot a necktie or build a campfire.Dear Sad Goat is a collection of some of the most memorable of these letters and phone raw and sentimental, sweet and subversive, funny and tender, these are the everyday stories of everyday Canadians that reflect life in every part of Canada, all of them told extraordinarily well.
- GenresNonfictionCanadaHumor
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
1 person is currently reading
43 people want to read
About the author
Bill Richardson
77 books51 followersBill Richardson was born and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba on a quiet little street. He admits to being a shy kid, a quality that has carried over into his adulthood. With his two brothers and the neighborhood children, Bill would play hide and seek, red rover and tag. They got into the usual sorts of mischief: garden raids and snowball fights.
Bill has always taken comfort in reading. As a child his tastes were very diverse, ranging from the adventures of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, the Happy Hollisters, and the Enid Blyton books to comics featuring Archie, Richie Rich, Little Lulu, Casper, Batman and Superman. The Alice in Wonderland books were favorites, and he still loves them today.
Bill’s parents also influenced his reading habits at a young age. His mother introduced him to a six-volume set called Our Bookhouse, an anthology of readings from many different sources; and Bill’s father would share his favorite poetry with the family. And Bill took to reading poetry as well: A Child’s Garden of Verses and the A.A. Milne poems. He claims that he didn’t start to read with anything like purpose or intensity until he reached adolescence. Many of the classic children’s books, such as The Wind in the Willows and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he came to as an adult.
In 1976, Bill received his B.A. from the University of Winnipeg. He went on to pursue a Master of Library Sciences at UBC, graduating in 1980. In 1998, Bill was honored with an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Winnipeg. For six years he worked as a children’s librarian.
Bill is well known in Canada as a CBC Radio host. He’s also made many freelance contributions to both network and regional shows. In 1992, Bill began hosting a summer show called Crosswords, which would continue for four years. He next became the guest host of a classical music request show, and when the show moved to Vancouver in 1996, he was chosen as the show’s permanent host; it became known as As You Like It, to reflect Bill’s interest in the music and letters of his audience. In 1997, Bill became the host of a new program, Richardson’s Roundup. The Roundup is very interactive with its listening audience.
Bill has always dabbled at writing. Even as a child he had a vivid presentiment that this is what he would do. His columns have appeared in The Globe and Mail, Western Living Magazine, The Vancouver Sun, Georgia Straight, and Xtra West Magazine. Bill won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 1994.
In 2000, Bill published his first novel for young adults. After Hamelin tells the tale of Penelope, the only child to escape the lure of the infamous Pied Piper. Now grown to the ripe age of 101, the feisty Penelope recounts her fantastic adventure to rescue the other children of her village from the clutches of the nasty Piper. Bill’s wonderful story has gone on to earn more than a dozen awards and nominations.
Bill makes frequent public appearances reading poetry, narrating musical works, giving keynote speeches and signing books. As time slips away, Bill hopes to use as much of it as he can catch. He believes that “if you’re going to write, you damage yourself if you don't pay attention to the ideas that come your way and try to make something of them. It’s a kind of responsibility, which isn’t to say that you’ll write well, but you still need to make the effort.”
Bill has always taken comfort in reading. As a child his tastes were very diverse, ranging from the adventures of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, the Happy Hollisters, and the Enid Blyton books to comics featuring Archie, Richie Rich, Little Lulu, Casper, Batman and Superman. The Alice in Wonderland books were favorites, and he still loves them today.
Bill’s parents also influenced his reading habits at a young age. His mother introduced him to a six-volume set called Our Bookhouse, an anthology of readings from many different sources; and Bill’s father would share his favorite poetry with the family. And Bill took to reading poetry as well: A Child’s Garden of Verses and the A.A. Milne poems. He claims that he didn’t start to read with anything like purpose or intensity until he reached adolescence. Many of the classic children’s books, such as The Wind in the Willows and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he came to as an adult.
In 1976, Bill received his B.A. from the University of Winnipeg. He went on to pursue a Master of Library Sciences at UBC, graduating in 1980. In 1998, Bill was honored with an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Winnipeg. For six years he worked as a children’s librarian.
Bill is well known in Canada as a CBC Radio host. He’s also made many freelance contributions to both network and regional shows. In 1992, Bill began hosting a summer show called Crosswords, which would continue for four years. He next became the guest host of a classical music request show, and when the show moved to Vancouver in 1996, he was chosen as the show’s permanent host; it became known as As You Like It, to reflect Bill’s interest in the music and letters of his audience. In 1997, Bill became the host of a new program, Richardson’s Roundup. The Roundup is very interactive with its listening audience.
Bill has always dabbled at writing. Even as a child he had a vivid presentiment that this is what he would do. His columns have appeared in The Globe and Mail, Western Living Magazine, The Vancouver Sun, Georgia Straight, and Xtra West Magazine. Bill won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 1994.
In 2000, Bill published his first novel for young adults. After Hamelin tells the tale of Penelope, the only child to escape the lure of the infamous Pied Piper. Now grown to the ripe age of 101, the feisty Penelope recounts her fantastic adventure to rescue the other children of her village from the clutches of the nasty Piper. Bill’s wonderful story has gone on to earn more than a dozen awards and nominations.
Bill makes frequent public appearances reading poetry, narrating musical works, giving keynote speeches and signing books. As time slips away, Bill hopes to use as much of it as he can catch. He believes that “if you’re going to write, you damage yourself if you don't pay attention to the ideas that come your way and try to make something of them. It’s a kind of responsibility, which isn’t to say that you’ll write well, but you still need to make the effort.”
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 14, 2022
Bill Richardson was the host of CBC’s daily afternoon program “Richardson’s Roundup”, a popular Canadian radio program on the air from 1997 to 2004 on Radio One. The show focused on a wide variety of domestic stories as well as fiction, music, drama, poetry, anecdotes and personal reflections. The show quickly became popular and soon more than a million listeners were tuning in every week.
Richardson is a well-known writer, broadcaster and story teller who won the 1994 Stephen Leacock award for humour for his book “The Bachelor Brothers Bed and Breakfast”. As an accomplished story teller, he wanted to provide an opportunity for others to share their stories and so created a show with that focus. Listeners could either mail their stories to him or participate in the show by calling in during air time using a toll free number. Which is where the title for the book was born: “Sad Goat” comes from the telephone keypad mnemonic, 1-888-sad goat for the number 1-888-732-4628.
Over six seasons, thousands of radio listeners across Canada contacted Richardson giving him a large collection of personal stories. Some were funny and some were sad and most of them were very good. He has sifted through his collection and organized the best for this book, published in 2002. He presents the collection in chapters each with a common theme, a loose organizing principle which avoided the problem of giving readers a collection of scattered material, but still allowed the narrative to wander in different directions.
The stories are fun, entertaining and charming reads with a little philosophy thrown in. The little book makes for a great gift for that person it is difficult to buy for, or as a hostess gift instead of the usual bottle of wine.
Richardson is a well-known writer, broadcaster and story teller who won the 1994 Stephen Leacock award for humour for his book “The Bachelor Brothers Bed and Breakfast”. As an accomplished story teller, he wanted to provide an opportunity for others to share their stories and so created a show with that focus. Listeners could either mail their stories to him or participate in the show by calling in during air time using a toll free number. Which is where the title for the book was born: “Sad Goat” comes from the telephone keypad mnemonic, 1-888-sad goat for the number 1-888-732-4628.
Over six seasons, thousands of radio listeners across Canada contacted Richardson giving him a large collection of personal stories. Some were funny and some were sad and most of them were very good. He has sifted through his collection and organized the best for this book, published in 2002. He presents the collection in chapters each with a common theme, a loose organizing principle which avoided the problem of giving readers a collection of scattered material, but still allowed the narrative to wander in different directions.
The stories are fun, entertaining and charming reads with a little philosophy thrown in. The little book makes for a great gift for that person it is difficult to buy for, or as a hostess gift instead of the usual bottle of wine.
December 29, 2013
I really hate giving a one star rating, but I really did not enjoy reading this book. Maybe I would have appreciated it more if I'd been a listener of Richardson's Roundup, or maybe these stories are better when told in smaller doses in a radio show format...but found myself becoming more annoyed as I read these stories (many I thought "I did not need to know that"). I did enjoy the first chapter that described how Sad Goat came to be. I also enjoyed seeing how Richardson organized the stories, with a mention of something in one story feeding into the theme of the next. And, there was one story in the book I did actually enjoy - it was one written by the pianist on Mr. Dressup's retirement tour, because who doesn't like a story about Mr. Dressup? :)
August 1, 2010
Perfectly Canadian
December 22, 2013
I love reading other people's stories. I love how it is put together and even the forward/introduction is interesting.
January 26, 2022
Entertaining little stories!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews