Conversations

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...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. Shaun Christie David grew up eating the Sri-Lankan recipes his mother brought with her from Sri Lanka. After a life-change trip to his parent's homeland, Shaun left a successful career in finance to open a social enterprise restaurant, Colombo Social, giving jons to refugees and se...

Conversations is bringing you a summer treat - a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. This time it's Magda Szubanski. At the height of her successful career, behind closed doors, Magda was coming to terms with the past of her Polish-born father, whom she loved dearly, and who was an assassin in his early life. Magda is well known for her comic performances across fi...

Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. The child of doctors, Bhawani followed her parents footsteps into medical school without a second thought. But after the dissatisfaction of decades as a GP, Bhawani discovered the field of voluntary assisted dying and it changed the course of her life.  Help and support is always available...

Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Ruth Shaw runs a collection of three tiny bookshops at the southern tip of New Zealand's South Island. Even more than the books on her shelves, Ruth's life has been a high adventure full of danger, tears, heartbreak and love.  Help and support is always available You can call Lifeline 24 h...

Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Ken Wyatt was the first Indigenous minister for Indigenous Affairs. When he made his first speech to parliament, he wore a kangaroo skin cloak given to him by Noongar elders in Perth and he shared with his government colleagues the extraordinary journey he took from a boy in a remote Weste...

Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Kasey Chambers grew up surrounded by country music, singing around the campfire with her family, and listening to her father's cassettes of old country classics. She now makes her own country music, which has won her a devoted following and recognition as one of Australia's favourite count...

Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Candice Fox is one of the world's most successful crime writers, but she when she is not at her writing desk, you can find her rushing around Sydney rescuing stranded and injured wallabies, cockatoos, lizards, frogs and ducks.  Listen to Richard's first Conversation with Candice Fox here. ...

Gideon Haigh is a prolific author, but it took him decades to write down the story closest to his heart — the life and tragic death of his brother, Jaz, who was killed in a car crash at just 17 years. But eventually, on a hot summers evening, it all came pouring out onto the page, and became his book My Brother Jaz. Gideon Haigh's brother Jasper was 17 years old when he died in a car crash. Until...