Andrew grew up in Sydney with a rare bone disorder (XLH), underwent painful surgeries, and experienced contrasting childhoods with his healthy twin brother.
Despite physical challenges, Andrew pursued music and sound engineering, then became a Bunnings manager, utilising his organisational and managerial skills.
At 24, Andrew confronted robbers at Bunnings, displaying bravery but subsequently faced trauma, legal challenges, and lack of workplace support.
Andrew struggled with PTSD after the robbery, facing workplace pressures and critical remarks, ultimately resigning to focus on his mental health.
A stray cat named Sergeant Pepper provided emotional support, helping Andrew through depression and reminding him of the importance of caring for others.
Inspired to help others, Andrew transitioned to teaching students with special needs, finding fulfilment and daily gratitude in positively impacting their lives.
Despite past violence, Andrew focuses on humanity’s goodness, suggesting selfless acts and nurturing relationships, with people and animals, as keys to happiness and overcoming adversity.
*****
We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Animals & Us (Kintsugi Heroes).
Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.
If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here – https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact
We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!
Warmly,
The Kintsugi Heroes team
YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website
Theme Song: “Follow the Sun” by Xavier Rudd
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎙️ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit Australian podcast network sharing real stories of resilience, disability, and transformation.
Named after the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold — the philosophy that what’s been broken can become more beautiful for the mending — every episode honours the cracks, the rebuild, and the human underneath.
We believe every story matters. Every scar has something to say. And every person quietly finding their way through deserves to be heard.
🏷️ Topics we cover: resilience, disability, trauma recovery, mental health, transformation, lived experience, chronic illness, neurodiversity, grief, identity, community, caregiving, refugee stories, animal therapy, ageing, older Australians, wellbeing, invisible illness, inclusion, personal growth, hope, rebuilding, human connection, Australian stories
📺 Series on this channel:
– Kintsugi Heroes — real stories of resilience | hosted by John Milham
– Animals & Us | hosted by Natalie Stockdale
– Grit Diaries: from Grit to Grace | hosted by Simone Allan & Maryan Bova
– From There to Here | hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd
– Golden Threads — stories of disability & resilience | hosted by Dan Dougherty
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔗 CONNECT WITH US
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌐
▶️
https://youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes
📘
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084850387170
📸
https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes
💼
https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💛 SUPPORT THE NETWORK
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kintsugi Heroes is listener-supported and run entirely by volunteers. Your support helps us keep sharing stories that matter.
❤️ Donate (tax-deductible):
🤝 Partner with us:
🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week and join a community that believes in the power of human stories.
We’re all in this together. 🩡
#KintsugiHeroes #ResiliencePodcast #TransformationStories #DisabilityAwareness #AustralianPodcast #MentalHealthAwareness #RealStories #NotForProfit #HumanExperience #Resilience #PodcastAustralia #TrueStories #HealingJourney #StrengthInVulnerability #DisabilityInclusion