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From drug smuggling and opium dens to marching in the first-ever Mardi Gras—Kate's coming out
22 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: What wild adventures shaped Kate Rowe's early life?
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Kate Rose Life has been full of adventure. and hard living, ever since she stepped off the boat at Circular Quay as a 20-something, 10-pound pom. Kate travelled around Australia picking tobacco and hitchhiking and spent her weekends running riot in King's Cross. Then in 1974, she tagged along with some random guys she met who wanted to walk across the island of Timor.
And so they did, just as all the turmoil there was about to break out. From there, Kate ventured into Southeast Asia, coming up with a lunatic idea to smuggle bricks of cannabis out of Thailand into Nepal. But everywhere she went, she brought herself along with her. All kinds of baggage from her early life came along for the wild ride.
But eventually a cloud lifted and Kate realised something absolutely huge and significant about herself. Now, just to let you know, there are some distressing episodes in Kate's story and some unavoidable strong language. So to put it on the airwaves, I might have to drop the levels here and now, starting right here, because Kate's memoir is called How the Fuck Would I Know? Hello, Kate.
Hi there.
Good to meet you, Richard. Where was home for you in most of your childhood?
It was in a place called Putney on a dreadful council estate. We lived there for 10 years from when I was 7 to 17 and it's always been my thing that I say it was a nightmare.
Where did your family fit into the wonderful British class system as it was back then?
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Chapter 3: How did Kate transition from drug smuggling to self-discovery?
And I just thought this was fabulous because it meant I didn't have to deal with what was going on at home. Clearly, for me, I could see that I was depressed. My life... My childhood was changing rapidly. But the hormones start. I mean, I had my first orgasm with him. He explained what was going on and this is what adults do. And in no way did I think it was...
Were you making dinner and putting them... So what hour were you coming home at night?
Well, I always said to my parents, who were negligent to some degree, because they'd met him. He'd come round for dinner. I'd gone away to Birmingham to see his parents.
Oh, this nice man.
Yeah, they trusted him. And I'd say, I'm going to be home at nine o'clock. And I always made sure I was home at nine o'clock. If they twigged, they never said anything.
What's been some of the lingering... after effects of that grooming and that abuse?
Well, I can work it out now because they do say, you know, childhood sexual abuse can take 30, 40 years to come to the surface, sometimes never. I'm just very ordinary in that regard. Just that's exactly what happened. I'm 75, nearly 75 now. That's...
still I learn how to trust but I'm always a bit tentative about that trust and in terms of intimacy that's always been really difficult and probably still is I don't know I don't go I don't I'm not kind of sexually intimate anymore but you know I have to really trust people to be open with them and I've got one or two especially good friends that I feel I can just be totally myself and not be guarded so there's always that sense of well if I let you in are you going to hurt me
And I don't think that ever goes away. I've just learnt to live with it.
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Chapter 4: What traumatic experiences did Kate face in her childhood?
I mean, I didn't get stopped at any of the borders. But when I got to Kathmandu and I took it out, it absolutely reeked of talcum powder.
LAUGHTER
So I could barely sell any of it because, and also because people were, what do I want to buy that crap for? It stinks. When, you know, I can go down there and get just down the road, down Pig Alley, it's called Pig Alley, where, you know, that's where they were. I mean, it was harebrained, but that could have got me into a Thai jail for a very, very long time.
What happened to your health while you were in there?
Well, yes. So I went with a group of friends. We went to what was then Burma and we went up to Mandalay and Pagan and it was a great trip, but we all caught dysentery badly. So we ended up going to Calcutta, very, very sick. And I was left behind because I was sick for quite a while. and lost a lot of weight. And then I got the train and then the bus up to Kathmandu.
And I was carrying speed decks, I think they called it in those days. I always had drugs on me. And we got caught in this landslide, had to stay overnight in the bus. The local came in with some chai in those little clay pots. I'm thinking to myself, I really shouldn't drink this. I really shouldn't drink this. But I was so thirsty, I drank it. And the next morning, blood in my stools.
I knew I had diarrhea again. So I dropped a few of the deck speed to walk the 10 or 14 miles back to Kathmandu. And then I was stuck in Kathmandu for another two weeks, really sick. getting thinner all the time. And then I decided to do the Jamison track, like in Plimsolls, like really, Kate. It was about a day's walk with some Gurkhas who were fabulous. They guided us.
And I felt really sick and I stayed up there. Annapurna, I can still see Annapurna right in front of me. I stayed up there for a couple of days, lice in the bed. It was horrible. And I came back down because I knew I just was getting weak. Peed into a can and yes, my urine was black. And I knew that that meant I had hepatitis.
What kind of healthcare could you get there?
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Chapter 5: How did Kate's relationships influence her journey through addiction?
and when she used that word fragmented, there was like an actual gut reaction.
Chapter 6: What led to Kate's decision to move to Australia?
That's how I felt I had been, not even thinking about the abuse, but certainly since the abuse. There was no joining of the dots. I was just a bit of this and a bit of that, which is why I could see I would travel, oh, I'll go and do this, because I had no sense of who I was, what I wanted to do. It was always what other people wanted to do, oh, I'll do that.
And what do you do about that once you know that?
Well, it was an epiphany because she said, well, you can start again, Kate. You can start again. Like a blank notebook, you can start your life again if you just grip the support stuff with both hands. And that's what I did. and I haven't picked up a drink or a drug all that time.
Many, many things have happened in that time, some awful, but I've come to believe, for me, that picking up anything, that means I've got the problem back again, worse probably. So it was all about learning to deal with life on life's terms without any substances.
There's a missing piece of the puzzle, though, that finally helped you connect all those fragmented bits of you, wasn't there? Yes.
In my first year of not having any drugs and alcohol, the first thing that came into me that I thought, oh, my God, I'm a lesbian. how crap is that? Like, just another reason to beat myself. Oh my God, I'm a lesbian. I'm one of those. Oh, I hate myself. Everybody else hates gay people. And I just couldn't accept it. I just wouldn't accept that that's what I was.
Despite the fact that I started mixing with other lesbians, especially in the feminist women's liberation, then I started getting involved in politics and all of that and sleeping with lots of other women. And
realizing yes this is me but the other side of me still hated myself because society said you're shit you're not you're not straight so you're not you're not normal that's the word you're not normal we're talking about like the late 70s late 70s 77 78 how different were things in that i mean for people who don't remember you know well very different because i had actually by this time i had a job at the maritime services board which is now the museum of contemporary art had the best view ever i was just a shit kicker there
But back then the whole culture was the gay male culture, which is still something else. But within the lesbian community, it was these, you were either a dyke, butch dyke, or you were a femme. Like there's nothing in between. And I've always and still really identify as being quite androgynous, not just in dress. I'm just, I don't identify, I'm just me.
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