Lucinda Light was running a speed dating company in Byron Bay when she auditioned for 'Married At First Sight'. While on the show, she became a huge hit with fans because of her emotional intelligence and open-hearted soul. When it ended, she embarked on an unexpected new life In 2024, a woman named Lucinda Light burst on to Australian TV screens on the reality show juggernaut 'Married at First Sight'. At first, Lucinda seemed to be another wild and kooky reality TV character. She was filmed hug...
Feb 04, 2025•44 min
Mark Balla was on a business trip to India when he met two young men on a train. They invited him back to see their home, one of the world's biggest slums. This meeting changed the course of Mark's life. (R) A former Lonely Planet writer and researcher, Mark was wary of participating in 'slum tourism', but something made him say yes to the invitation. That visit changed the course of his life: it was where he learned many millions of people go about their lives with no access to a toilet - at ho...
Jan 31, 2025•52 min
Belinda Probert knew her father as an English war hero named Bill. What she didn't know, was that he was born Roy and that his spying did not end when the war did. Belinda Probert knew her father to be a decorated English war hero and successful businessman, whose family had all died long ago. But a few months after Bill Probert died as an old man in France, a letter arrived at her mother’s house from a man claiming to be her father’s nephew. Slowly, the much more complicated story of Bill's lif...
Jan 30, 2025•53 min
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 ready to focus his life on botany. This all changed when he found a copy of French Vogue at Flinders Street...
Jan 29, 2025•50 min
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. Singing became something Meg was encouraged to do herself after she developed a stutter as a little girl....
Jan 28, 2025•53 min
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 her playing. What the world didn’t know was that Jelena’s father was also violently assaulting her a...
Jan 24, 2025•53 min
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 safe and to feel himself, and Jayden wanted to create that same feeling for his son, and all the othe...
Jan 23, 2025•51 min
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 wildlife rescue groups, and caring for animals at home, where at one stage she had 43 baby birds in h...
Jan 22, 2025•54 min
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 to try out his brand new surfboard. He’d caught a few ripper waves when he was slammed by what felt l...
Jan 21, 2025•53 min
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 school, Doug fell in love with the outdoors, and especially with wintery landscapes. He later transform...
Jan 20, 2025•50 min
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 11 14 Shanelle Dawson was four years old when her mother Lynette disappeared from the family home. Sha...
Jan 17, 2025•53 min
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 his life. Tony Bull grew up across the road from Hobart's Risdon Prison. As child he started running ...
Jan 16, 2025•51 min
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 Cold War. Their mission was to locate and track Soviet agents, and they enlisted their 3 young children...
Jan 15, 2025•51 min
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 the lyrics to existing ones. Growing up in Maywood, a suburb of Chicago, the Prine boys had a wealth ...
Jan 14, 2025•53 min
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 a spectacular firework display. Right in the heart of the grand proceedings was the young Lennie Gwyt...
Jan 13, 2025•51 min
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 Queensland, he saw horses as tools for farm work, using them to muster and get around the station. But his v...
Jan 10, 2025•53 min
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 other conversation with Sarah Kanowski here. Many assumptions about the nature of birds and their beh...
Jan 09, 2025•52 min
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 to the sea. Her book about the journey, called Tracks, brought her a taste of fame. But that life wasn...
Jan 07, 2025•52 min
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 14 Widely admired for his powerful lyrics and the grace of his pin-drop performances, Archie overcame ...
Jan 06, 2025•51 min
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 from Hopevale North Queensland, became the stuff of legend when he survived being bitten by a coastal ...
Jan 05, 2025•52 min
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 Conversations Bonus' is available to listen to here . Richard's other Conversations with Peter Hoysted:...
Jan 03, 2025•49 min
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 called MAD for Peace, which invites us all to look for peace in our lives. Gill Hicks was living in ...
Jan 01, 2025•52 min
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 popular newspaper columnists. For five decades, Ross has explained the inner workings of the Australi...
Dec 31, 2024•52 min
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 Social Sciences at Southern Cross University in New South Wales. He recently completed his PhD highlight...
Dec 30, 2024•52 min
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 hours a day on 13 11 14 In a career spanning more than half a century, Uncle Jack Charles used the stage...
Dec 29, 2024•52 min
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 scenery and even a threat to his life. Listen here to Sarah's Conversation with Sandy MacKinnon Sand...
Dec 26, 2024•51 min
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 White Australia Policy in the 1920s, the whole family returned to China. Years later her family returned...
Dec 25, 2024•51 min
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 about who we really are. William McInnes’ Stories of Fatherhood William McInnes on life after the d...
Dec 24, 2024•49 min
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 serving food from his mother's cookbook. Shaun Christie-David's family migrated to Australia during th...
Dec 23, 2024•51 min
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 film and television, and is perhaps most beloved by Australians for her role as Sharon in Kath & Ki...
Dec 22, 2024•52 min
