Connecting Seniors
The Second Family: How a Lawyer Found His Children Fifty Years Later
Bill Kable
A lawyer turned broadcaster gives fathers a platform after family law took everything from him.
Kintsugi Studio
Connecting Seniors
Bill Kable
A lawyer turned broadcaster gives fathers a platform after family law took everything from him.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
Bill Kable is a practicing lawyer fifty years into his career and a fifth-generation descendant of Henry Cable from the First Fleet. For decades, he has navigated fatherhood through fracture: seven years fighting in Family Court for time with his children from his marriage, limited to four days in fourteen despite no accusations ever made against him, followed by ten years of silence after his ex-wife turned them against him. Then, unexpectedly, he was contacted by a man who existed because of a sperm donation Bill made as a student fifty years earlier. That man had a sister too. Bill suddenly had two adult children he had never met, and three new grandchildren.
In 2009, Bill was handed a microphone at a community radio station and asked for his legal perspective on air. That moment became the beginning of his work with Dads on the Air, a program he now hosts and has used to interview nearly 247 people, drawing on his own lived experience of family law, separation, and loss. He has spoken to parents like Chrissy Foster, who lost daughters to abuse and suicide, and others who endured catastrophic loss. Bill sees the Family Court as fundamentally broken, arguing it should return to social workers and mediation rather than being run by lawyers debating whether a child should be picked up at 9:15 or 9:30. He believes the next generation of Australians shows real promise because of their capacity to care.
What matters most now, Bill says, is health, meeting interesting people, and staying engaged with the world. He sees a role for older Australians in mentoring and passing on wisdom, even as he remains clear-eyed about the threats facing humanity. The gold in the cracks, for Bill, has been the unexpected gift of connection: to his biological children, to the hundreds of guests who have trusted him with their stories, and to a community of fathers trying to do right by their kids.
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