Conversations
Episodes
The secrets and generosity of the dead
17 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist Jackie Dent explores the the world of anatomists and dissectors, the people who open up human cadavers to uncover their secrets
Maggie Dent - Raising Strong Girls
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Parenting expert Maggie Dent on on how parents can raise confident and well-adjusted girls
To Kythera, with my mother
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Susan Johnson was in her 60s when she decided to make a new life on the Greek Island of Kythera, with her 85-year old mother Barbara along f...
Matt Hall's life at supersonic speed
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Hall made his first solo flight at 15 years old and has been addicted to life in the air ever since. He became a top gun fighter pilot and after...
Family folklore: spies, secrets and suffering
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Phil Kafcaloudes grew up hearing stories about his legendary grandmother, who became a spy for the British in World War Two. It was even said she ki...
Kate Forsyth on the intrepid and curious Charlotte Waring Atkinson
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Charlotte was Australia's first children's author. She came to the colony of NSW from London in 1826, and now her trailblazing, tragic and dramatic l...
What the world can learn from Charlie Brown
07 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From Charlie Brown to Franz Kafka, psychoanalyst Josh Cohen explores why being a loser can be a good thing
Billy Bragg — the boy from Barking
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Billy Bragg grew up in working-class Barking, east of London. The expected path was to go from school to the local car factory, but Billy his sights ...
Gillian Bell — life and cake
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gillian has the best job in the world — travelling overseas to bake sumptuous and heartfelt wedding cakes, using foraged and fresh produce to tell ...
George Williams – the whacky world of micronations
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Micronations are home to fascinating, often eccentric characters who construct their self-declared countries in their own image, with pomp, pageantr...
Growing up in a country pub
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Max Beck had a wild, lively and at times devastating childhood, growing up in Bendigo's old Crown Hotel
Becoming a cowboy
31 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Roland Breckwoldt fell in love with the idea of being a cowboy as a child, so at 15 he railed against his strict German father's wishes, left home a...
How memory works
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Over her many decades as a practising psychiatrist, Veronica O'Keane developed a fascination for our memory, how it functions in the brain, and the ...
The alluring aliens of our forests
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fungi have given us many gifts, from penicillin to food, but they can also be quite scary. Dr Alison Pouliot spends her time trying to explain these ...
Keenan's courage
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Justice advocate Keenan Mundine broke the cycle of crime and incarceration in his own life after a chance meeting at a birthday party (CW: mentions s...
Saul Griffith's electrifying mission
27 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Saul Griffith believes that the key to solving the climate crisis is to electrify everything, starting with our homes. The inventor, engineer and e...
A daughter's unswerving love — Sarah Holland-Batt and her father
24 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Holland-Batt's dad Tony was a loving father, her intellectual mentor and her friend. At 18, she became one of his carers. Later she battled an ...
Lee Berger & the Cave of Lost Hominids
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lee Berger, the National Geographic Explorer in Residence and real-life Indiana Jones, has found remarkable things underground. His discoveries are r...
Rockstar animals and the Orthodox Church
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
John Simons is fascinated by the lives of animals which have become stars. From a famous hippo at London Zoo, to a wombat owned by a Pre-Raphaelite p...
Briana, Max and Freddy: love, trains and mouth music
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Briana Blackett was a journalist working in Qatar when she realised her baby son Max wasn't responding to his name. When Max was diagnosed with autis...
The Vietnam vet and the Arnhem Land community
20 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Neville White was trying to heal from the trauma of the Vietnam War when he travelled out to a remote community in Arnhem Land called Donydji. Thei...
The Great Fire of Salonika
17 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gail Jones grew up in an old quarantine station, wondering about the soldiers who stayed there on their way home from WWI. Her new novel imagines l...
Alex and the tree-climbing lions
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Braczkowski is a big cat exert and National Geographic explorer. For years he's been following a rare group of tree-climbing lions, including th...
Louise Kennedy on Belfast, bombs and a disastrous pav
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Louise Kennedy spent her early childhood just outside of Belfast. It was the height of The Troubles and violence was ever-present. After that ...
Peter Garrett: rock and roll changemaker
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett on his life in music, environmental action, and politics, and the end of The Oils.
Amar Singh's love for faith, family and country
13 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Amar Singh's sense of belonging to Australia has only grown since he leant into his Sikh faith, growing out his beard and his hair, wearing a turban...
Judith Heumann - disability warrior
10 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most influential disability rights activists in history tells her story of her fight for the right to receive an education, have a job, an...
Putting lipstick on a great white shark
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Rodney Fox was torn apart by a great white shark and it took 462 stitches to put him back together again. He was then instrumental in filming Jaws, t...
Esther Freud's unconventional family
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Esther Freud has many famous men in her family, including psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. But it is her mother's story which has left the greatest mark...
Fintan O'Toole: the evolution of modern Ireland
07 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fintan O’Toole grew up in an Ireland undergoing great change but before the country could move forward, it would have to deal with its sometimes d...
Is there a cheating gene?
06 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Once journalist and author Kate Legge recovered from the news her husband of 30 years was cheating on her, she uncovered four generations of infidel...
The fastest woman in the sky
03 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jess Johnston found skydiving after a tough few years, and while it might sound like a contradiction, plummeting towards the earth at 400 km/h saved ...
Richie Ramone and the record shop
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
No, he's not 'that' Richie Ramone, but this Richie Ramone's passion for punk is just as fierce (R)
The 700-room nightmare
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For a thousand years, Colditz Castle has existed in some form, perched on the edge of a cliff in eastern Germany. From a royal hunting lodge, to a ma...
The poker-playing cardiologist
28 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As a child, before she escaped communist Hungary, Bo Remenyi had no ambitions. But when she got to Australia all of that changed. She's gone from cru...
The forgotten children of the Empire
27 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Margaret Humphreys received a letter from Australia, she had no idea it would unearth a huge, heartless scheme that forcibly removed children fr...
Ben and the birth of Miss Ellaneous
24 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Darwin's Ben Graetz on becoming one of Australia's best-known Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Drag Queens (R)
My mother, South Africa and me
23 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Franceska Jordan with the story of her remarkable mother Isabella — a South African trade unionist and anti-apartheid activist who inspired her da...
Judy's fight for Victoria's first safe injecting facility
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up in Wangaratta, Judy Ryan learned we all have a responsibility to look after each other. When she moved to inner-city Melbourne that meant ...
Mark and the rainbow connection
21 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Trevorrow on how the music of composers Anthony Newley and Paul Williams influenced the course of his life and began the evolution of his alter ...
Mammal mania
20 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kris Helgen loves mammals and he's ventured to some dangerous, isolated places to find them. In fact, Kris has helped name and discover more than ...
Vivacious conductor and musician Umberto Clerici
17 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The new chief conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, on the chair of spikes that accompanied his early musical career, and why he doesn't to...
Love and music
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Two years ago, Karin Bäumler found herself in the fight for her life after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. In the thick of it all, making music...
Run-away memories: Anne's story of retrograde amnesia
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After a serious brain operation, Anne Howell woke up in hospital with retrograde amnesia, thinking she was nine years old. With no real understanding...
The case of the unknown sailor
14 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
DNA expert Dr Jeremy Austin on his 14-year quest to help solve one of Australia's enduring military mysteries: the identity of the 'unknown sailor' (...
The mystery of the travelling Taranaki panels
13 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Taranaki descendent Rachel Buchanan with the story of priceless Maori artwork and their role in the ransom of a child, kidnapped by Italian gangste...
Nance, Ruby & Nell: the women who changed Australian cricket
10 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How women cricket players saved the "gentleman's" game and repaired diplomatic relations between England and Australia
Teen mum Melissa Redsell proved everyone wrong
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melissa Redsell was 16 and in her last year of school when she found out she was pregnant. Although many people told her she'd 'ruined her life' she ...
Bronnie and the jaws of life
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Firie Bronnie Mackintosh is built from tough stuff - she attends emergencies to cut people out of crushed cars and rescue them from burning buildings...
The boy with op shop fever
07 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Tony Birch with tales of his Fitzroy childhood including his grandmother Alma's 'op shop fever', his love for pine cones and blankets, and the...
How Australia speaks to the world (and spies)
06 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Listened to around the world by locals, spies and military officials, Radio Australia has long been rated by its hundreds of thousands of global list...
Dr Koppe's new life and understanding of PTSD
03 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hilton Koppe on how his life as a soccer-obsessed country GP changed forever when he became a patient himselfHilton Koppe grew up knowing his paren...
Deborah's fight for her wings
02 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Deborah Lawrie had her first flying lesson at 16, then became a flying instructor herself. But when she applied for a job as a pilot, she found herse...
Where the Music Began — a story collection
01 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Vic Simms, Jen Cloher, Vika and Linda Bull, Rob Hirst, Elena Kats-Chernin, William Barton with stories from their formative years
John Grisham: lawyering, writing and innocence
31 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Novelist John Grisham with his life story; from his work as a trial lawyer, to writing, and how he became involved in a movement using DNA testing to...
Danielle, Jimmy the pig, and the inferno
30 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Academic Danielle Celemajer on how the Black Summer bushfires brought she and her rescue pig Jimmy into a terrible proximity with the inferno, changi...
How Aunty Val became the 'Afar Angel'
27 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Valerie Browning moved to the northern deserts of Ethiopia as a naive young nurse in 1973. A chance meeting on the streets of neighbouring Djibouti c...
From Croatia to the Canefields: a love story
26 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Debra Gavranich with the story of her mother Marija, who left her tiny Croatian island to make a life with a man she’d never met, in Far North Quee...
The ghosts of Babylonia
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Irving Finkel on the ghosts who joined the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians in their day to day lives (R)
Tim Ferguson: breaking barriers and taking names
24 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Ferguson was in the midst of a high-flying comedy career when he started experiencing 'whacky symptoms'. In his early 30s, doctors told him he ...
A song connection: Genevieve and the Tiwi strong women
22 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Dr Genevieve Campbell heard the intoxicating music of Tiwi song women, it made her hair stand on end. Immediately she knew she needed to meet t...
Dave Gleeson needs a damn good lie down
20 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dave Gleeson is known for his blistering performances in The Screaming Jets and The Angels, but he grew up singing at Mass in Cardiff, with a mum ...
The last keeper of Boston Light
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of America's oldest lighthouses was built in 1716 and survived the Revolutionary War. Its first two keepers met dismal ends, but Sally Snowman wa...
Cynthia's Swans
18 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Cynthia Banham survived the unthinkable, she had to reinvent herself, with the support of her family, and the kindness of the Sydney Swans AFL t...
Edita’s 600 days of longing
17 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Edita Mujkic fled the Bosnian War in Sarajevo with her two children, 50 American dollars in her pocket and no real plan. It took her almost two years...
Making peace with stuttering
16 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lifelong stutterer Jonty Claypole on how fluency can be a barrier to our creativity, authenticity and persuasiveness
Best of 2022 — Elizabeth Chong
16 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
At 90, Elizabeth Chong recalls the familiar abundance of the Queen Victoria Market of the 1930s, how her father popularised the dim sim in Australia ...
Best of 2022 — Tony Bull
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tony spent three decades in and out of jail. Inside Hobart's Risdon Prison, he joined a debating club with Chopper Read, and found his voice for the ...
Best of 2022 — Kelvin Kong
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Kelvin Kong is one of Australia's leading ENT surgeons. The proud Worimi man changes the course of children's lives by looking inside th...
Best of 2022 — Lindy Lee
13 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As a Chinese-Australian girl growing up in the era of the White Australia Policy, artist Lindy Lee always felt that she didn't belong. When she becam...
Best of 2022 — Stephen Walker
12 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The author tells the thrilling, surreal story of Yuri Gagarin, the loyal communist and father of two who became the first person to journey into spa...
Ken Done's vivid life
09 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Artist Ken Done grew up in a country town in NSW, drawing, fishing and listening to the Argonauts. Before he became a became a full-time artist, he...
Life on the inside when you're cast out
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Greg Fisher, CEO of Sydney's first queer museum, wanted to replicate his family's warm, loving spirit with his own future family. He and his wife did...
Niki Savva's brutal assessment of Scott Morrison
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Niki Savva has seen ten prime ministers move in and out of the lodge during her decades as a political reporter, but one of those leaders stood out ...
The story of English
06 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Linguist Kate Burridge with the story of how Old English began on a small, damp island on the periphery of the world (R)
Cephalopods — magicians of their watery world
05 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith on the mystery of the octopus and giant cuttlefish, and why cephalopods are the closest we will come to meeting an i...
Victor Perton and the secret to optimism
02 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Victor's refugee mother was widowed at a young age, his grandparents were tortured and killed by the Soviets, but Victor says he comes from four gene...
Eva's arrested development
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Eva's parents fled from their home in communist Poland, she was told to "ask no questions". But once she got to the 'free world' she couldn't st...
Richard E. Grant and his pocketful of happiness
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The actor on the late love of his life, his wife Joan Washington, and the final message she left him
Dee Madigan's precarious early life
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gruen's Dee Madigan on her turbulent early life as one of four children to a former Catholic Priest
Nick Cave and the bruises of experience
28 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nick Cave on how living through addiction, love and unthinkable loss has changed his inner life
What rugby stole from Michael Lipman
25 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Michael's professional rugby career came to a brutal end after dozens of concussions took their toll on his brain
Anna Yen, the Nanjing Acrobats and the family stories
24 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When acrobat and circus performer Anna Yen decided to become a playwright, in the process of finding out her family stories she unearthed a new facet...
How Sarah built a tall ship
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Parry first saw a tall ship sailing into Sydney Harbour in 1965. Two decades later, in an abandoned Hobart warehouse, she began building her o...
The hero of the Zebra
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Kent with the true story of the Prussians who fled Europe for a new life in South Australia (R)
The grief tapes
21 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After the loss of his mum Carol, James Crawley tried to push down his own grief. Then he watched 35 hours of raw and turbulent footage of his Dad Ri...
A rebel on the bench
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
David Heilpern with stories of drama, crime and heartache from his 21 years as a country magistrate (CW: references to drug use and sexual assault) (...
Heather Rose and the mystery at the heart of things
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Heather Rose on her decades-long quest to make peace with life and loss after a tragedy befell her family when she was a girl (CW: grief and loss)...
Paulie Stewart and the punk nuns of Timor-Leste
15 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Paulie Stewart made a name for himself as the frontman of legendary Melbourne punk band Painters and Dockers, but he's also spent much of his life...
Surviving two volcanoes — Ngaiire's story
14 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The singer-songwriter shares memories of her mother's sacred, ancestral mountain, surviving childhood cancer and being rescued via a message on AM r...
Sandi Toksvig and the school of life
13 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Danish-British author and comedian on her father's laissez faire attitude to school, and how this opened her mind and brought her to NASA's missi...
Diana Nguyen on making peace with her mother
11 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Diana Nguyen's mother would walk out of her performances at interval in protest of her career, but Diana forged on and in the process healed this mot...
Jo Medlin teaches adults to read and write
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Almost half of Australian adults struggle with some level of literacy — writing a shopping list, or reading a text message in private. Jo helps h...
The most perplexing musical instrument
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The French horn is made up of metres and metres of brass coiled around and around until it opens into a big bell. Let Peter Luff lead you through th...
The untold stories of the Battle of Long Tan
08 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Peter FitzSimons has written many books on Australian military history, but pulling out the remarkable stories from the Battle of Long Tan was a lo...
What humans can learn from animals
06 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Animal communication specialist, Justin Gregg on killer whales' grief behaviour, the Piping Plover's broken wing strategy, and what would happen if ...
Lamorna and the sea
04 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Lamorna Ash began to explore her Cornish ancestry she started work on a rusty yellow fishing trawler called the Filadelfia, scaling fish, guttin...
Love, power, and my PNG family — Dame Carol Kidu
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Carol, an Australian, and Buri Kidu, a young Papua New Guinea man, fell in love in the 1960s, their partnership defied convention (R)
Jonno Seidler: breaking the silence around men's mental health
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ray Seidler was a brilliant doctor and a family man, whose secret struggle with depression ultimately claimed his life. Now his son Jonathan is helpi...
Costa Georgiadis: Heart and Soil
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Costa is the friendly face of Gardening Australia, a devotee of composting, keeping chickens and developing insect hotels (R)