15: This is Not a Book (with Tim Batt)

This week on SUDDENLY, an unbelievable true story. At age 19, Estonian-Australian immigrant Peeter Pedaja had his life changed by a Frank Sinatra film, THE KISSING BANDIT (1948). You will NEVER guess where this is going.

Born in 1931, Pedaja spent his entire Estonian childhood on the run from occupying Germans and Russians, including an exhaustive three-and-a-half year search for his lost family. He migrated to Australia by 18 and began hitch-hiking around the country - once riding a bicycle from Perth to Melbourne in summer, another time walking almost 300km in three days to win a bet.

At age 19, he saw THE KISSING BANDIT and was inspired. Brandishing a toy water pistol, he managed to hijack a motorcycle then hold up a couple in a car before being promptly arrested. "(Sinatra's character) in the film never meant to do anything bad and I didn't either", he told the court. "I've been honest all my life and always will be." He got off with a suspended sentence - and became known in Australia as "The Kissing Bandit in Real Life."

And his adventures were just beginning.

In 1957, he turned up in Darwin having constructed a boat out of oil drums. Oil drum sea travel had become an obsession. Despite warnings that the craft was unseaworthy, he was absolutely determined to cross the Timor Sea and arrive in Indonesia. As he set off, nobody expected him to even survive the trip...

THE KISSING BANDIT is universally agreed to be the worst ever Sinatra film, so we got podcasting legend Tim Batt from The Worst Idea of All Time to join us for this episode. But it turned out that all this was just beneath the surface - and maybe it had something to do with the Worst Idea after all.

How this incredible story became lost to history is unclear. But you'll hear all about it, for the first time in almost 50 years, on this week's SUDDENLY.

Voice acting cast for this episode: Pete Rush as Peeter Pedaja, Lewis Worthington as Gregory Black, Henry Giardina as Capt. Peter Petersen, Spike Vincent as Capt. H.I. Phillips and Sue Marsh as Rosalie Pedaja.

Peeter Pedaja (sometimes spelt Peter Pedaja, alias Stanley Lexton) was born on August 24th, 1931 in Talllinn, Estonia to Rosalie and Johannes Pedaja, and died on October 17th, 1985 in Melbourne, Australia. If you know any more about his amazing life, we would love to hear from you.

UPDATE: Since the recording of this episode, I've since learned I was mispronouncing his surname. It's "pe-DAI-ya." I looked all over the internet for someone pronouncing it and went by what Google Translate told me, but that turned out to be wrong - sorry!

EMAIL: suddenlypod at gmail dot com
INSTAGRAM: @suddenlypod
TWITTER: @suddenlypod