Conversations

A chance find at age 14 at Flinders Street Station led Tim Chappel to a life of silver lamé, sequins, girdles, and an Oscar.  Costume designer, Tim Chappel can’t remember all the places he lived, growing up on Army bases around the country, and overseas.  His one constant interest was nature.  He’d look for stick insects to pin into his collection and draw endless terrestrial orchids.  Tim was rea...

The musician reflects on the epic evolution of her singing from practical childhood speech therapy to sacred musical fluency. Meg Washington was born in a musical home in Port Moresby, where her parents had met as Australian expats. Meg and her sister spent a lot of their time watching classic Hollywood musicals and also down at the local yacht club where their dad DJ'd every Saturday night. Singi...

Jelena Dokic on the trauma and violence which underscored her extraordinary life in tennis, and how she worked to change her own story(CW: discussion of family violence, eating disorders) (R) After arriving in Australia with her family as a refugee, Jelena Dokic became a tennis champion while still a teenager. But her father’s drunken outbursts at Jelena’s tournaments got even more headlines than...

Jayden Sheridan was just 17 years old when he found out he was going to be a father, and immediately he knew he needed to give his son better opportunities than he had. Growing up in regional Victoria, Jayden experienced homelessness, substance abuse, violence and a general lack of direction. He had no male role models in his life, but he did have the local skate park. It's where he went to feel s...

The first sound Claire Smith heard when she landed in Australia from the UK was the carolling song of a nearby magpie. That was enough to make her fall in love with Australian wildlife. Very quickly, Claire poured all her energy into looking after injured animals, which seemed funny for a girl who grew up in the English countryside the daughter of a hunting dog master. She began volunteering for w...

Dave Pearson runs Bite Club, a support service for anyone who has survived a shark attack. Dave’s own brush with death came in 2011, when a three-metre-long bull shark almost tore his arm off. Dave lived that day, but it’s what happened during his recovery that he didn’t see coming. Dave Pearson was with his mates on the NSW mid-north coast back in 2011, and couldn’t get in the water fast enough t...

Meet Doug Quin, sound designer and naturalist who makes field recordings all over the world. Hear what Doug heard when he got up close to emperor penguins, lions and vultures. (R) Sound designer and naturalist Doug Quin has been highly attuned to sound since he was a young child growing up in Algeria under the threat of bombing.  Through his family’s travels and his years at a Scottish boarding sc...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Sarah's most memorable guests through out the years.  In 2018, Shanelle Dawson's family were the subject of a hit true crime podcast which helped convict her father Chris Dawson of her mother's murder. Now she's reclaiming her own story and the story of her mother Lynette. Help and support is always available by calling Lifeline on 13...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Sarah's most memorable guests through out the years.  Tony spent three decades in and out of jail for property crimes and safecracking. When he joined an unusual club inside Hobart's Risdon Prison, he found his voice for the first time. Then a few years ago, on a fishing trawler far out to sea, he began the painful process of changing...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Sarah's most memorable guests through out the years.  Sue Ellen Kusher’s father was an ASIO agent, and she and her siblings were taught to memorise number plates, spot unusual behaviour, and keep the family business secret at all costs. Sue-Ellen’s parents were ASIO agents living secretly in the Brisbane suburbs at the height of the Co...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Sarah's most memorable guests through out the years.  A songwriter's songwriter, John Prine turned his often bemused view of people and politics into songs for fifty years.  John Prine October 1946 — April 2020 John first picked up a guitar at fourteen, encouraged by his older brother. He started writing songs when he couldn't remember...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Sarah's most memorable guests through out the years.  Peter Lalor tells the story of 9 year old Lennie Gwyther's 1000km solo horseback ride to see the grand opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932. When the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in 1932, anyone who was anyone was part of the celebrations. There were floats and dancers, and...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Sarah's most memorable guests through out the years.  People travel from all over the world to learn about horses from Ken Faulkner. But after a life-threatening riding accident on his favourite horse, Smoke, Ken had to learn to walk and ride again, rediscovering himself in the process. When Ken Faulkner was growing up in rural Queensl...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Sarah's most memorable guests through out the years.  Gisela Kaplan fell under the spell of birds when hand-rearing a magpie nestling. After it learned to speak, she was so intrigued she switched careers and began her research into avian behaviour. Her many books on Australian native birds have been ground-breaking. Listen to Gisela's...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Sarah's most memorable guests through out the years.  Robyn Davidson on her adventures high in the Himalayas, her love affair with an Indian prince, and her late in life reckoning with her mother's story. In 1977, when Robyn Davidson was in her twenties, she set off with a dog and four camels to cross 1,700 miles of Australian desert t...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Sarah's most memorable guests through out the years.  Archie tells of writing Took the Children Away and playing it in public for the first time, of his belated reunion with his siblings, and his love story with Ruby Hunter. Archie passed away in 2022.  Help and support is always available You can call Lifeline 24 hours a day on 13 11...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Sarah's most memorable guests through out the years.  Brendan James Murray tells the story of the hunt to capture the Australian coastal taipan, and the quest to create the world's first taipan antivenom in his book Venom.  Listen here to Sarah's other Conversation with Brendan James Murray The story of George Rosendale, a 19-year old...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. This time it's Peter Hoysted. Peter Hoysted, known in print as 'Jack the Insider', tells the incredibly strange story of the Fine Cotton affair. The story includes a vicious gangster, a used-car salesman, a hapless horse trainer and a bucket of hair dye. 'The Fine Cotton Fiasco Con...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years.  Gill Hicks lost both her legs in the London bombings in 2005. But from the start of her recovery, she was determined not to dwell on hate or revenge, instead focus on the love that surrounded her, from family, police, doctors and nurses and complete strangers. She formed a charity...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years.  Ross Gittins is one of Australia’s most popular newspaper columnists. For five decades, he has explained the inner workings of the Australian economy to readers in plain English through his three weekly columns in the Sydney Morning Herald. Ross Gittins is one of Australia’s most...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years.  After a cruel and abusive childhood and an adulthood full of unemployment and homelessness, Gregory Smith decided to step out of society and into the solitary life of a hermit, living in the elements in a forest in Northern NSW.  Gregory is an academic in the School of Arts and So...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years.  Uncle Jack was forcibly removed from his mother as a baby and denied his Aboriginality. A one-off trip to Fitzroy connected him with a family he didn’t know about, and promptly landed him in jail. Jack died in 2022.  Help and support is always available You can call Lifeline 24 ho...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years.  When Sandy Mackinnon set of through the waterways of England towards Gloucester in a Mirror dinghy, he little imagined he would find himself crossing the English Channel, the river systems of Europe, and eventually the Black Sea, on an adventure full of friendly strangers, amazing...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. Elizabeth Chong has spent the last 90 years teaching Australian's the delights of cooking real authentic Chinese food.  Chef, author and teacher Elizabeth Chong was born in China's Guangdong Province in 1931. When her heavily pregnant mother was expelled from Victoria under the Whi...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. William McInnes is a much-loved Australian actor and an author, whose childhood in the sunny Queensland left him fluent in the peculiar, funny and colourful words and phrases unique to Australian English. Over the years, he's continued to collect them to celebrate how much they say...