Julia Baird has been sustained through hard times by acts of "moral beauty". In a world marked by division, these gestures have the power to restore our shared humanity
Jan 29, 2024•48 min
Dr Robert Waldinger on what it takes to live a happy life
Jan 26, 2024•53 min
The hardship, cruelty and loneliness of the mission system during the Great Depression didn't crush Aunty Ruth Hegarty's spirit. She found her voice, God and her family. In 1929 during the Great Depression, Ruth Hegarty travelled with her mother and grandparents to Barambah, later known as Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission. After being told someone there would help them find a new home, they soon discovered they weren't allowed to leave. At 4 years of age, Ruth was separated from her family. She grew...
Jan 25, 2024•52 min
After a life of controversy, crime and corruption, disgraced former police detective Roger Rogerson died last week, aged 83. Peter Hoysted met with Rogerson on several occasions
Jan 24, 2024•51 min
Louise Pryke is one of few people in the world who can read the ancient language in which The Epic of Gilgamesh is written. The mammoth, wild tale is still being deciphered from thousands of clay tablets
Jan 23, 2024•52 min
Dr Liz Allen is a demographer fascinated by Australia's demographic trends. But her own story is a remarkable case study in deviating from the norm
Jan 22, 2024•50 min
Nancy Withers has been breeding and training kelpies for 50 years, but one dog stands out from the rest, and he changed her life forever
Jan 19, 2024•50 min
These are just some of the remarkable and quirky people who helped write the Oxford English Dictionary
Jan 18, 2024•51 min
At 19 years old Jane Perlez visited China in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. She would return there as a journalist decades later to cover the biggest story of the 21st century
Jan 17, 2024•52 min
In 1927 Francis Birtles set off on a grand adventure from London to Melbourne, through murderous mountain ranges and blustering blizzards, in a Bean motorcar
Jan 16, 2024•50 min
International Chess Master and champion Irina Berezina credits her incredible chess-trained mind with helping her survive multiple international disasters
Jan 15, 2024•53 min
Costa is the friendly face of Gardening Australia, a devotee of composting, keeping chickens and developing insect hotels (R).
Dec 24, 2023•52 min
Dean Laws was in his 50s when doctors told him he had Parkinson's disease. For a time, he was devastated. Then he formed a running crew with his friends called 'The Dean Team', and made a plan to run the Sydney Marathon
Dec 08, 2023•50 min
Some years ago, Karin Bäumler found herself in a fight for her life after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. In the thick of it all, making music was a refuge
Dec 07, 2023•54 min
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 and committing himself to the service of his entire community
Dec 06, 2023•50 min
Voyager frontman Danny Estrin on his unconventional path from heavy metal to law and the Eurovision grand final
Dec 05, 2023•52 min
Former top Detective Deb Wallace with ingenious and surprising stories from her working life smashing criminal gangs in Sydney
Dec 04, 2023•52 min
For 25 years Sandy wondered what became of the little yellow dinghy he left in Romania, after a months-long voyage from the UK. Could it still be waiting for him the marshes of the Danube Delta, ready for another adventure?
Dec 01, 2023•50 min
Melissa Lucashenko was a motorcycle detailer, a house painter, a prison advocate, and a game show contestant before finding her way as a writer
Nov 30, 2023•53 min
The actor and author thinks that nowhere in the world is the English language more poetic, colourful and persuasive than here in Australia William McInnes is a much-loved Australian actor and an author, whose books often recall his childhood in Queensland. It was there, in Redcliffe, that William became 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 about who we really are. ...
Nov 29, 2023•48 min
Alecia Simmonds with tales from a time in Australia's legal history when the jilted and broken-hearted could sue for redress in the courts
Nov 28, 2023•51 min
Tom Holland on the glories, bloodshed and barbarianism of the golden days of the Roman Empire
Nov 27, 2023•52 min
Antony Penrose grew up knowing little about his remarkable mother Lee Miller, who had studied with Man Ray in Paris, and become a model, a photographer, and a war correspondent. But then an unexpected find in the family attic changed everything
Nov 24, 2023•52 min
Lucy Godoroja deals in the business of buttons, and the stories each button carries with it from Bohemia, or Milan to her shop in Sydney, and then into the hands of passers-by
Nov 23, 2023•51 min
British-Australian journalist Hayley Campbell uncovers the secret society of the western world's death industry, run by people who have made death their life's work. CW: contains discussions of death and descriptions of dead bodies
Nov 22, 2023•47 min
Writer and journalist James Phelps takes you inside the bluestone walls and medieval-looking turrets of Australia's most infamous jail
Nov 21, 2023•49 min
Jon Owen on how he chose a life of 'intentional downward mobility' to help addicts, sex workers, and the homeless, from Calcutta to Mount Druitt to the Wayside Chapel
Nov 20, 2023•51 min
How a fashion-loving misfit from Sydney took over Hollywood with husband Baz Luhrmann, winning more Oscars than any other Australian (R)
Nov 17, 2023•53 min
Professor Ian Hickie has spent decades trying to understand clinical depression. Where does it come from? What role do genes play? And most importantly – what works to release its chokehold? Ian Hickie has spent his career trying to help people at their darkest times. He's a psychiatrist who is particularly passionate about taming the black dog of depression. Depression is not a simple puzzle to solve. Ian has seen how the right medical treatment can lift someone out of even the worst depression...
Nov 16, 2023•53 min
Brendan Watson took his Scouts promise very seriously as a young boy. He's leaned in to his pledge in some very unexpected ways, from Moscow to Mongolia and through temporary blindness back home again
Nov 15, 2023•45 min
