Cosmo Kentish-Barnes with recording equipment and camera
Photo: RNZ
Many of Cosmo Kentish-Barnes’ 600-plus stories have started with a cup of tea.
The veteran Country Life producer is hanging up his gumboots after 17 years recording rural life for RNZ’s rural feature show and podcast.
From tailing to tupping, poultry to pigs and devastating floods to catastrophic earthquakes, there aren’t many sounds of rural life that have escaped his two microphones.
With his recording machine – a vintage Sound Device – strapped to his waist, a camera slung over his shoulders and a microphone in each hand, Cosmo has wandered high country stations, kayaked up rivers and sat around many farm kitchen tables having a yarn over a cup of tea.
That cup of tea is essential to getting people to open up, he said during an interview on his last episode.
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Cosmo grew up on a dairy farm in England and has a soft spot for Jersey cows.
He has ranged widely over the South Island as Country Life’s lone producer there, researching, recording, scripting, editing and sound mixing each story himelf.
Country Life producer Cosmo Kentish-Barnes (L) recording a story with farmers protecting the limestone caves around the Ōpihi River in Canterbury
Photo: Supplied
“It’s has been an absolute honour to share so many amazing rural stories with our listeners here and overseas.”
Sometime he gets pulled into the story, in more ways than one, whether it be on horseback, in the stockyards or even on the ice rink.
Cosmo interviews Dr Gert-Jan Moggré
Photo: Craig Robertson
Cosmo Kentish-Barnes.
Photo:
Cosmo Kentish-Barnes with llamas.
Photo: RNZ
Cosmo is planning to work on more creative projects, including a film about a lightbulb collector, and recording people’s oral histories.
“Capturing people’s stories in their own voices is something I really care about and I believe it could bring real joy and value to families and future generations.”
You can contact Cosmo about having an oral history done at: cosmokb@yahoo.com