{"id":19329,"date":"2025-09-13T04:14:28","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T04:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/19329\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T04:14:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T04:14:28","slug":"country-life-mud-muck-and-merinos-600-stellar-stories-from-cosmo-kentish-barnes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/19329\/","title":{"rendered":"Country Life: Mud, muck and merinos &#8211; 600 stellar stories from Cosmo Kentish-Barnes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4K16THD_CL_Cosmo_1_jpg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"590\" alt=\"Cosmo Kentish-Barnes wearing his recording equipment at an A and P show\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nCosmo Kentish-Barnes with recording equipment and camera<br \/>\nPhoto: RNZ\n<\/p>\n<p>Many of Cosmo Kentish-Barnes&#8217; 600-plus stories have started with a cup of tea.<\/p>\n<p>The veteran Country Life producer is hanging up his gumboots after 17 years recording rural life for RNZ&#8217;s rural feature show and podcast.<\/p>\n<p>From tailing to tupping, poultry to pigs and devastating floods to catastrophic earthquakes, there aren&#8217;t many sounds of rural life that have escaped his two microphones.<\/p>\n<p>With his recording machine &#8211; a vintage Sound Device &#8211; 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.<\/p>\n<p>That cup of tea is essential to getting people to open up, he said during an interview on his last episode.<\/p>\n<p>Follow Country Life on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/nz\/podcast\/country-life\/id208010659?mt=2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/2mBFgtGt5H1eVMXXCQkKXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spotify<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/podcast\/1278-country-life-31125553\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">iHeart<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n<p>Cosmo grew up on a dairy farm in England and has a soft spot for Jersey cows.<\/p>\n<p>He has ranged widely over the South Island as Country Life&#8217;s lone producer there, researching, recording, scripting, editing and sound mixing each story himelf.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4K16XU7_cosmo_1_jpg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"1050\" alt=\"Country Life producer Cosmo Kentish-Barnes carrying recording gear walking up a grassy slope with a farmer against a backdrop of limestone rocks around the \u014cpihi River in Canterbury\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nCountry Life producer Cosmo Kentish-Barnes (L) recording a story with farmers protecting the limestone caves around the \u014cpihi River in Canterbury<br \/>\nPhoto: Supplied\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s has been an absolute honour to share so many amazing rural stories with our listeners here and overseas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4K2QRRC__BSI3332_jpg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"699\" alt=\"Country Life Interview - Barley Yoghurt\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nCosmo interviews Dr Gert-Jan Moggr\u00e9<br \/>\nPhoto: Craig Robertson\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4M4R5JH_Cosmo-Kentish-Barnes---1M1A9549_31489\" width=\"1050\" height=\"656\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nCosmo Kentish-Barnes.<br \/>\nPhoto:\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4K16THD_CL_Cosmo_6_jpg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"590\" alt=\"Cosmo Kentish-Barnes with two microphones recording an interview in front of a group of llamas\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nCosmo Kentish-Barnes with llamas.<br \/>\nPhoto: RNZ\n<\/p>\n<p>Cosmo is planning to work on more creative projects, including a film about a lightbulb collector, and recording people&#8217;s oral histories.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Capturing people&#8217;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You can contact Cosmo about having an oral history done at: cosmokb@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cosmo Kentish-Barnes with recording equipment and camera Photo: RNZ Many of Cosmo Kentish-Barnes&#8217; 600-plus stories have started with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[48,47,156,157,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":["post-19329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}