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On 2 December 1972, Joan Wiffen, her husband, son and daughter started a camping trip. But it was far from ordinary. They were obsessed fossil-hunters and they were deep in the largest rainforest of New Zealand's north island at a spot by a river described casually in an old geological map as having \u201cSaurian\u201d bones.

For Joan, as she started to search for remains, it was \u201clike opening up the Christmas stocking". At the time, scientists believed dinosaurs had not inhabited New Zealand. With the help of archive audio, Joan\u2019s son Chris Wiffen describes how his mother, who left school at 12 and had no qualifications, would meticulously search the rainforest site and go on to find the tailbone of a theropod dinosaur \u2013 turning scientific beliefs on their head.

He describes to Josephine McDermott how his mother devised her own DIY palaeontology lab in their garage and he would visit from university to find her surrounded by acid baths where the rocks she excavated would yield their fossils. \u201cThey had visitors from world-renowned palaeontologists and they\u2019d say \u2018Oh my gosh. Look at this. Unbelievable\u2019. And it was.\u201d

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the \u2018Indian Titanic\u2019 and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy\u2019s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and G\xf6rel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they\u2019ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America\u2019s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

Archival audio in this broadcast was from the Radio New Zealand collection at Ng\u0101 Taonga Sound & Vision.\n(Photo: Joan Wiffen. Credit: Courtesy of NZME/Hawkes Bay Today)