I've been on a huge learning curve, but you know one I think I'm stronger for. You know, I know who counts in my life. I have seen enormous kindness. I've seen the best of people, and I've seen the worst of people.
Lisa Wilkinson has spent literally decades telling other people's stories. As a journalist, editor and broadcaster, She's been one of the most recognizable and trusted voices in Australian media. She's someone who's helped shape not just the stories we hear, but also how we understand ourselves. From her early days at Dolly mag and calioh through to her years on Breakfast TV, Lisa's been a constant presence in the cultural conversation, part of the rhythm of people's lives and part of
the way we've understood the world around us. But there's a difference between building a career on asking questions and finding yourself in a position where you're the one being asked to answer them. Now, after those defining chapters in magazines and television, Lisa's moved into her third act, one that's quieter, more reflective, and centered on long form storytelling. Her latest book returns her to what first drew her to journalism, telling someone else's story, this time through the
life of Australian Titanic survivor Evelyn Marsden. In this conversation, Lisa reflects on the different chapters of her career, from her ambition and early success to the complexity of her time in TV and the more uncertain, quieter space she finds herself in. Now we talk about identity, about success, about what happens when something that has defined you for so long begins to fall away, and about the process of finding your way back to yourself when the noise subsides.
This is Lisa Wilkinson. Well, Lisa Wilkinson, welcome to No Filter.
It is so nice to see you, Kaylin.
Oh my goodness. I feel like you were like from a Shakespeare play from the womb, untimely ripped because we used to see each other at the project and then I didn't see you anymore, and neither did the viewer. I'm just going to say to our listeners, the No Filter listeners, that we will not be in this discussion, in this conversation discussing Britney Higgins or Bruce Lammon. That's
for legal reasons. So this is an auspicious day for you because we're also here to catch up with you and to find out where Lisa Wilkinson's been at, but also to discuss your new venture, which is an epic, like an epic undertaking. And this is very much a hallmark of you. I've realized that when you take on jobs, you don't take on small jobs.
I also have a tendency to take on jobs that I'm not even sure I can do yet.
Will you go? Where As the ancient mariners would say they be monsters, no one has charted that map for you.
True.
So it started for people who may not know when you're nineteen at Dolly Magazine as the receptionist. Yeah, an ad barring journalist, and then two years later I.
Was the editor. Like what with the management thinking now crazy? I just I still don't know why they gave me that opportunity. But what I knew was I was not going to waste it. I couldn't understand why me, this kid from the Western suburbs, who you know, didn't have the old school tie or any kind of cushy media
links that got me there. I just got there on hard work and whatever it was that my talent was that those above me recognized, and I think they just thought, we'll give this kid a shot, and I decided I'm just going to go for it.
Well, you are the sort of person that if you give them a shot, like you'll take out the whole fleet. That is because you'll die trying totally.
You know, I do enjoy hard work. I always have and I've always worked.
And where did that come from? Because I was also in the time that I spent with you, I was also reading your memoir. It wasn't meant to be like that.
Goodness me, you've gone I have, You've done your homework.
If you want to know anything about yourself, you can ask me.
I'm a little bit over me at this point from.
Going well, it's because your upbringing, as you describe it, was just so at that time, like a slice of average Australia with your beautiful dad and mom Ray and Beryl and your ballet lessons, and you're going to the local school and you loved ballet, adored it, absolutely adored it, and it brought the eye and the eye of some of the girls at school.
Ballet was not cool at Campbelltown High School.
But there was also something about you, because I always think so many people who end up in the public eye, I think have had experiences when they were at school that were not necessarily pleasant. Maybe for guys it's different. I think our industry is populated with guys who with how fellow well met those guys you know, for whom the Red Sea parted. But most women in media seem to have an experience there's something that's different about them, and that's what draws the eye. What was it about
you that what that was different? And that drew the eye? If you reflect back on, say, being bullied when you were a kid, when you're older, sometimes I think you get to see yourself through the prism not of your own gaze, but of how you look to them.
I can say, hand on heart, I have no idea. Oh really, it baffled me at the time. I was told that the chief bully's boyfriend was apparently saying nice things about me. Ah, so that was possibly the original catalyst. But you know, it is that thing of once someone's been targeted, and I mean and a pylon begins, yes, and we're talking the seventies here, Yes, that bruise becomes a bit of a gaping wound, and you become an easy target, I think, and you want to make yourself
small and you want to disappear between the cracks. But then once I was out of school and I was out of that environment and that backdrop where I'd felt so humiliated and belittled, I wanted to prove something to myself that I was better than the way that they saw me. That I could prove to myself. I didn't care about anybody else, but I wanted to prove something to myself. And I did that through hard work.
And that's amazing because not everybody has that epiphany or has that breakthrough. You know. Sometimes people are shrunken and diminished, and that's a very weak place to be trying to emerge from. What was it that gave you the strength and the drive and the clarity to go, There's a world out there, I'm going to see it.
I think it was my dad, Yeah, right, because Dad always believed in me. And I never ever ever told my parents about what was going on at school because that would make it more real, and I didn't I knew my mother. My mother would not be able to give me advice because she'd had such a shocking childhood, and right throughout my career until my beautiful late mother passed away, whenever I would do something a bit gutsy in my career, she would always say to me, I'm
daring you really sure? Have you got advice on that? Do you know you don't think you're pushing it a little bit too far? She would regularly call me after I'd interviewed the Prime Minister on the DA Show and say, oh, Darling, really, did you really have to speak to mister Abbitt like that. She didn't beate me, but she would always fear for me. Yes, So I don't know. Maybe she sensed what happened in high school, but because she'd.
Had I mean, she'd been a bird that a little bird that had its her feathers pecked herself really bad.
Completely, and she was fortunate enough to meet and marry an angel in my father Ray. And I think it was Dad's ongoing quiet belief in me that saw me through all of that, because I think for Dad, I was always this right, and I think I always wanted to lift for Dad. And Dad wasn't someone who would give out huge compliments or you know, it's and He's one of those people.
You know.
I'm a great believer that your children always see the real version of you when you think they're not looking.
Yes, yes, you think that you're editing yourself.
Yeah, but they actually get a full three sixty completely and it's not always pretty, no true, But I think you know, in so many ways, Dad was my north star and has been my entire life. He still is now. You know. He was such a community minded person, you know, social justice, you know, giving.
Back the Lions Club.
The Lions Club, he was president there. He was president of the local rugby union club. Who would know that I would, Well, Dad never discovered that I would go on to marry a wallaby.
Which is incredible.
I met Pete eighteen months after Dad passed away.
And how long have you dad known him?
Well, Dad had known him as a wallaby and.
In fact years before you met him.
Yeah. Yeah. And the first time I met Pete we
were both guests on the Today Show. I was editing Cleo at the time and he was a part time reporter for the Today Show And it was one week after Dad had passed away and he was getting out of the makeup chair as I was just getting in and we were introduced by the producer and I remember him putting out his hand just as he was starting to get out of the chair, and I put my hand out to his, and I remember my hand going up and thinking, when is this guy going to be fully erect?
Oh, if you're pardon the expression, hang on and what was the end? He stopped at two meters and the producer said my name, and she said, Peter FITD Simons, this is Lisa Wilkinson and I felt this beautiful, warm handshake, but strong. And then about a half a beat after she'd said my name, Pete said to me, Oh, you're not Ray Wilkinson's daughter, are you?
And I thought, do not mention my father's name. I have got to go on national television in five minutes. I am only here because I've had a week off with buried dad. I need to focus on work so I can find something else to fill my life other than the grief of losing my north Star. And he said some beautiful words about Dad, and I just I just kind of thank you very much and sort of sat down.
Especially in that situation where the grief is raw, it's often the kindness completely you undone.
Always has, always well and to.
Encounter him, the giant of him, who knew your dad and loved your dad, to speak of him beautifully.
Yeah. He Dad was just so loved by everyone who knew him, worked with him, did charity work with him. And I still get people saying things about my dad to this day, people who knew and loved him deeply.
He said, you quote him in your book, and it was something of a mantra I gather that you've lived by, which was he said, Dad always taught me to try to look after the bird with the broken wing. And I was thinking about that in light of you and the troubles which you have found yourself immersed in over the last three years, yeah, four years or three or years, and I thought to myself, who was looking after you when you had your broken wing?
My family never left my side. They've been incredible.
And when you were at what period? I mean, I'm trying to put together the pieces of because you have been so present in our lives.
You're sorry about that everyone.
It's not amazing really, to the point where we now know we can't take TV for granted at all. Right.
I think there's a lot of people in TV finding that at the.
Moment, right, But because you were so present, you were so present on the Today Show, everyone was waking up with you, and then you were very present on the project and then you were gone. When you were gone, what did that feel like for you? Because you're also wired two be seen? Do you know what I mean? And to do that work in the public eye?
No, No, I wouldn't say that. That is not how I would define it. I would say I'm wired to work and the fact that I was in the public eye was just like a cause and effect thing, you know. It was it was something that fell off the back of doing work that I loved.
That happened to have a visual aspect to it.
Yeah, But I mean I didn't disappear completely, because it's quite something when you find paparazzi chasing you down the street and jumping out from behind bushes and you're appearing in a way that is designed to put you in a certain light. So you know that do you think that light was? Do you think a very negative light? What was?
What was that? They?
Strong? Something young woman does work that challenges the norm doesn't go down well in some quarters.
Right, I'm very curious about that, because it seems to me that the tone around you changed when your memoir came out. And I'm reminded of that quote, never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, right, Oh yeah, yeah, And I wouldn't say that I picked a fight. No, I just told the truth. But to some it was perceived.
Yeah, and strong forces can decide we need to shut this down.
And what was it in particular? Do you think was it the pay, the gender pay disparity with it was all of your host Karl? Was it you having asserted yourself in a negotiation? What was it?
I think you'd have to ask those who were behind it all. I mean, I'm not really sure, but the reaction I got from women was wonderful. I think a lot of people could see what was going on, and people could see that all I was doing was telling the truth. But you know, quite often in memoirs people avert the truth because of the effect that it might have. And also, when I was reading it, I was very conscious of the fact that you weren't being inflammatory, you
weren't poking a bear. I thought it was a very moderate It was a very interesting telling of as you say in the book what a lot of women encounter in their jobs.
Yeah.
Completely. And I disappeared off the show, off the Today Show. So I felt the audience was owed an explanation about exactly what happened because I wasn't rejecting the audience.
No, you were not given the option.
No, And how did that feel? Because I was really sad.
Yeah, that's hard.
I loved that job, I really really. It was such a privilege to wake up with Australia and to present the news and to interview every major politician in the land. We had a stream of prime ministers during my tenure there, so there was a passing parade.
So and also you had built the show from it being well back in the field, and you had built it built well.
Cart and I were a really good combination. We had an incredible chemistry. In many ways, we were quite different from each other. But you know, I would I say this in the book that you know, right up until the very last day, we could still make it each other laugh, We could still challenge each other, we could still you know, talk through interesting ideas. You know, there
was still a huge amount of chemistry between us. But the management of the day, made a call on who they wanted to proceed with and who they didn't.
And do you think the aim of that was to pit you against each Other's too strong? But do you know what I mean, to drive a wedge there as a negotiating tactic or as a divide and conquer.
I'll never know, because I was never told.
And did you speak to Carl after that?
Oh? Yeah? Yeah?
And how was he? What was his We've probably had.
More honest conversations since. But you know that was a difficult position for him to be in as well. But you know I moved on. I went to the project which I had an options move on, So you know, in many ways I couldn't complain. I was just I was sad to lose that particular role.
Yes, But.
I have always looked at jobs like that. Every job I've ever had, I've always thought, oh my god, what idiot put me here?
Like?
How did I end up in this role? And every day I always approached every job I've had as.
Though it's run by idiots.
That wasn't how I was going to finish that sentence, But I don't dismiss it. No, I've always approached work as at some point someone's going to come and tap me on the shoulder. And that's a great way to approach any job, particularly in the media, because it's such a peripatetic kind of existence, and you know, swings and roundabouts, the whims of others, management changes. So I always walked in there thinking, I'm so lucky to have this job. I'm going to make this a great show. I'm going
to do a great interview. I always did my homework, you know. I always approached the role with gratitude and having done my homework, So I don't I don't look back and regret anything about that role.
Other than not getting to say goodbye.
Yes, but that wasn't my call.
No, And the same on the project, not getting to say goodbye.
Well, I did say goodbye, but it was under or it wasn't my call. That was somebody else's decision. Once again, So of.
All the jobs that you've had, which one do you look back on with the most fondness? And I gain I know that you're not a pillar of salt sort of person, so prone to the revision mirror. But which of those stirs the heart? I would say, editing, Dolly ah, yeah, leaving.
That job that had given me so much joy, and the engagement with the readers, like that relationship was so beautiful and pure and honest and trusting because it was a teenage bible, you know, young girls trusted us in a way that was never lost on me.
More with Lisa Wilkinson after this short break. So I just finished reading your book this morning, right, the.
Second one, the second Evelyn, The second book Evelyn, The Titanic Story of Evelyn, Yeah, Marston, which is such an epic.
It's an odyssey. It was an odyssey. Yeah, And I can't I couldn't help thinking I was reading about Evelyn, this extraordinary Australian woman.
Isn't she amazing?
Extraordinary from South Australia.
I just love her.
I didn't know that there were six Australians on the Titanic either, did.
I, which is where the idea came from. Because my husband is a very successful author of great Australian history stories.
Yes, and how many is he written.
I think he's in his forties, forty plus books, I know. And the really annoying thing is he works incredibly hard on them. The research is enormous. But Pete has always written with such incredible ease. It just flows out of him. And he's quite poetic in his writing. He's like, you, you're an extraordinary writer. You have the most beautiful turn of phrase, and Pete is like that and so. But the history thing adds another dimension to oh really does?
I mean? It was one thing to write my own memoir, but to disappear into the life of a woman from more than one hundred years ago was an extraordinary exercise that I'd never embarked upon before. But it's an idea I came up with for Pete because I was in the middle of the nightmare of the Trial and Pete was working on an upcoming book that he's got and a picture of the Titanic came up and he just said to me, isn't she a beauty? And I said, what are you talking about? And he showed me the
picture and I said, oh, is that the Titanic? And he said, yes, isn't she a beauty? And I said she was probably not so pretty these days, But and I just thought about it for a second. I said, were there any Australians on the Titanic? And he said, I've got no idea. And I said, I don't either, And how do we not know whether there are any is Like, there might be an amazing story there for one of your upcome books. You really should check it
out anyway, and he agreed. A couple of days went by, I asked him, you know, if he'd done anything, and he hadn't, and I thought, hmm, I've got a computer. I've heard of that thing called the internet. I should check and see. And I discovered that there were six Australian born passengers and crew on the Titanic and only one survived. This twenty eight year old kick ass nurse, youngest of five children, grew up in Hoylton, an hour
and a half north of Adelaide. She was a champion horsewoman and she used to love to row on the Murray River.
And when I read that, but I thought, by the way a pursuit that a lot of women engaged, So she was very unusual. Yes, love of horse riding in her physical pursuit.
Yeah, and you know, very athletic. And when I read the words, there was very little on the internet about her. You know, she only ever gave two interviews, and it said that Evelyn was so good that she wanted to challenge herself when she rode on the River Murray at murray Bridge in South Australia. And so you know a lot of the rowers would row with the current and when the title flow turned, they would row back to shore with the current. Evelyn didn't want to do that.
Evelyn wanted to row against the tide right. And when I read those words, a young woman who wrote against the tide, I just thought, how many Australian women women feel like they are constantly rowing against the tide?
So you say, how many Australian women did Lisa Wilkinson feel that?
Sure? Yeah, And I just the fact that she was doing this one hundred years ago. And the more I looked into it, I thought, oh my god, the Titanic actually happened during the rise of the Suffragettes. And this was a young girl who, unlike her two older sisters, didn't want to get married, didn't necessarily want to have children, or you know, she wasn't sort of saying that as there's my goal in life. She decided she wanted to
be a nurse. She wanted to give back, so she went to train at Adelaide Hospital and while she was at Adelaide Hospital. A woman, a patient needed to go back to the UK and she needed a nurse to accompany her.
Yes offered the gigs when they'd have a companion.
Yes offered Evelyn the gig, and Evelyn thought, I now get to see the world. So she got to London and she thought, this is the life for me. So she applied to be a nurse stewardess on cruise ships and she couldn't believe her luck. And in the middle of it all meets a handsome ship's doctor, William Abel James. They become engaged and the two of them hear about the Titanic, which is launching in April of nineteen twelve,
and they both apply. They are both successful, but with a few days to go, William is told sorry, you're not going to go on the Titanic. You're going on the Macedonia, which is traveling to Sydney, and so Evelyn sailed alone.
Now this book I wept when I read it, particularly the I mean basically my education about the Titanic. I don't know if you know they've made a movie.
I've heard.
I bet you were like me.
I thought, oh yeah, I know. The Titanic story. I've seen what James Cameron did I have your friend, Yeah, yes, I've seen the docos. You know, we all know the Titanic story. And you know why we do, because it's widely believed that the three best known words in the English language are God, Coca cola, and Titanic.
Who said that, that's bizarre, it's widely reported. Well, I want your sources. There's a lot of sources in here.
Here's the thing that I couldn't believe when I was going through the process of researching this, you know, sitting at home, sitting in cafes, writing it. And I wasn't telling a lot of people that I was writing the story because I just thought, how oners has this story Laine idol for over a century? That this story has never been properly told, and lay it on top of that.
Once I started going back and watching movies. You know, there was a wonderful one in the nineteen fifties called A Night to Remember, and I remember that was the first time I ever cried watching a movie because the heartbreak of this story. It's an old black and white and I was a teenager when I first saw it. The heartbreaking stories in the Titanic, and I do tell quite a few of them, you know, the ones that really kind of sat with me when I was doing
the research. But one of the things I realized is all of the documentaries, all of the movies, all of the books have always been told by men. This story has never been told through the female lens. And yet this happened during the rise of the suffragettes, and there were so many incredible women on that boat, and a lot of them fighting for women to get the right to vote. All these pieces of the puzzle started fitting together.
Where was the second place in the world where women got the right to vote Evelyn's home state, South Australia they got it in eighteen ninety four. Was New Zealand first. New Zealand was first, and you know, in first class in particular, because that's where the educated women were who had careers. There were poets, philosophers, businesswomen, millionairesses, extraordinary fashion designers.
The role like the role call of people.
Yes, the highest paid actress movie actress in the world was in first class, Dorothy Perkins, and she in fact made a movie four weeks after the sinking of the Titanic she wrote it, directed it, did everything, and played herself, and that was released four weeks after the sinking, four weeks she.
Barely would have recovered from our hypothermia.
Well, she even wore the same outfit she had on that she was rescued in, and it haunted her for the rest of her life.
Okay, So I don't know if you've wondered this or not. I imagine that you have because you were so immersed in this, and this did not come to you easily. It's a formidable work. Were you drawn to the story of Titanic and drawn to the story of Evelyn because of what you were going through at the time, do you think?
No?
But what it did give me. I mean, what I've done throughout my career is if there's a common denominator through magazines and through television and radio, it's as a journalist, you're a conduit to helping other people tell their stories, and to find this amazing woman whose story had never been properly told, and to immerse myself to the point where I was going to be able to finally have this woman's story told, celebrate her heroism, her desire to
always give back, to tell the incredible love story that happened between her and William, which ultimately will break people's heart with the way it all finishes. So I was drawn to it because it gave me an enormous project to work. And I've never worked on a project this big in my life. You know, in magazines they came
out every month, Television came out every day. So to work on something, you know, with all of my heart and all of my energy and bring all of my research and journalistic skills to it was again, it was such a privilege.
Because also I think in circumstances in which your back is against the wall, work can be such a salvation.
Oh completely, you know, just I was utterly immerged in her story.
Coming up more of my conversation with Lisa Wilkinson Evelyn Marsden. I'm putting her to one side, and I want to know when you had to get into the lifeboat. What period when you're in the troubles, were you like, Okay, I've got to get off this ship. What was yours?
I couldn't really get off the ship, you know, it was a ship that was sailing and I had to row. I just had to row. And how was that challenging, but I got through it. What did you learn about yourself? Then? That I have reserves of patients because I knew that this was going to be a very long process. I can be quite forgiving ah, because I didn't I really didn't want to bottle things up. I didn't want to get sick during all of this. I mean through all
of this. I mean, perspective is a wonderful thing. I've had a few friends who've been going through enormous health challenges, one of whom I've lost, And you know, I had a job to do. I had no choice but to go through all of this and come out the other side.
And also it mattered to you. It had to matter to you because much like Evelyn saving her life by having learned to row, you were hardwired because of what you had done those twelve years of waking up with today where you've got to wake up whistling doesn't matter.
What's going on.
So your muscles for positivity, and I do believe that they're muscles were trained, very well trained. But even so, you got such a terrible kicking that it hurt many of us who were not a part of it and were not privy to it and we're not whatever, but could feel it.
And I saw that through messages that people such as yourself sent through and they meant the world, the absolute world because often, and you were one of them, I would get messages from people on just another day, just checking in to see how I am. And I will never ever forget the kindness of that.
Did you ever think and I can't imagine that it's a part of your makeup? But did you ever think this is too hard?
Oh? Sure, yeah, plenty of times. But there's there was no alternative.
If you said that to Pete, what would he say?
I can't say that I remember the specifics of it, but you know, I'm very fortunate that that guy I met in the makeup room back in May of nineteen ninety one, you know, has been a rock right throughout my marriage, and never more so than over recent years. You know, he's just he's made a very strong stuff. Petros rock.
Really it's in the narrying. Yeah, I think you're right, so knowing what you know now and on the cusp of you being a historical author.
Wow, I hadn't thought about suppose I am.
Yeah, you are when you think about success, which as much as you are quite modest about you know, you kind of act like you were just kind of bumping into the furniture and you were just a girl who got lucky. There's much more to it than that, obviously. But when you look at the definition of success now, how do you define it?
Gee, that's a huge question. Probably living a life that you know personally has meaning that makes a contribution and to live authentically.
Has that changed? Do you think? I mean, you've got more time now. Sometimes I think when you're in the cut and thrust of a job, a big job, you don't have the time to be analyzing what's going on in your own life. But did you did anything change upon reflection with time about how you live or how you want to live? No?
Not really. I just you know, I'm getting older now, so I'm very aware of the passing of time and wanting the way I spend my time to have meaning and to live with an open heart.
To everybody. You said you're very forgiving. You learned that that was an interesting thing. Who have you had to forgive people who.
Probably made some bad decisions along the way because of the stress of everything that was going on. And I understand that you know, when you when you're under a lot of pressure, people can make bad choices.
And if your dad saw you, now, what would he say.
I think he'd just say I'm very proud of you, and the hug would have lasted for about ten minutes.
And be like you married him.
Well. I always rejected the footballing millieure that Dad was surrounded by when I was a teenager, because all of my girlfriends were dating the guys in dad's football team. Mum was doing the sospoge quite popular, it turns out, and so I always rejected it. But I would sit with Dad and watch the Wallabies weirdly, and of course Pete would have been one of the Wallabies who was
playing when I used to watch them on TV. But you know, on the day we got married, which was nine months after we met, like we were in a serious hurry. And so I'm walking down the aisle on the arm of my older brother towards a Wallaby and there as best man is the World Cup winning wallabye captain Nick varr Jones. I just looked to the sky and whispered to Dad, you got me. I've finally given in.
Beauty in surrender.
He's a good man.
If you could project something for yourself going into the future.
See, I've never planned ahead ever, and it's not a case of just you know, thinking, taking good luck for granted. But I also believe in making space and that gives you the freedom to make hopefully wise decisions. And right now I'm just completely focused on Evelyn. I really want
Australia to get to know Evelyn. And somebody said to me the other day, you know, if Evelyn had been a man, Australia would have known about him, and I said, that's true, and then I said, but hang on, no, Only twenty percent of the men on Titanic survived, and as it turned out, there were only two ships doctors on the Titanic, So if William had been one of those doctors, William would have died.
The men and the men built it, and the men, you know, sunk it. But it was the same men who said women and children first.
Absolutely I can, and that has been a really interesting line that I've had to walk, you know, from a purely feminist point of view, because you cannot take away from the extraordinary heroism of those who, in order to save others lost their own lives, and that was overwhelmingly men, no question, and it was women and children first.
Yes, And it's like a metaphor for also the lines that we straddle as feminists in the modern world is that equality doesn't mean that we can't avail ourselves of the strengths that men have, that we don't have physical strength or valor or whatever. It's not that women don't have them necessarily, but it's true that men have got them in different proportions often.
Yeah. True. There's a wonderful story in that. It's one of my absolute favorites because you know, I've tried to elevate wherever i could in equal measure. I hope the heroism of many of the women who are on board, but also their kick assedness, which I know is not
a word, but I've just made it a word. Because there's this amazing couple who arrive, William and Lucy Carter, he is heir to a coal mining fortune dynasty, and his wife Lucille, and they have two children, also called William and Lucille, because that's what rich people do, they create children in their own image. And they arrive they're heading to New York. Obviously, and they arrive with everything but the kitchen sink, a coterie of servants, and a
bunch of polo ponies. Yes, so you know they're well and truly in first class. And on the night they hit the iceberg, William wakes Lucille up and says, quick, we've hit an iceberg. Get the kids dressed. I'll meet you up on deck. So she does exactly that dutifully, and she gets up on deck and cannot find William anywhere, and she keeps resisting getting into the lifeboats because she has to find her great love, William. And eventually the ship is so close to sinking she has no choice.
She is ordered with the two children into the lifeboat. And so, like so many moments of desperation where couples are being torn apart, the men have to stay on the ship, the women get in the lifeboats. She eventually the rescue boat is the Carpathia. She arrives at the Carpathia. So often, wives who think they've lost their husbands are hoping against hope that maybe they've been rescued by another boat or a lifeboat, and they might see them on the Carpathia. And she's pulled up to the top of
the Carpathian. She looks around, hoping that she's going to find William. And she looks up and there is William leaning casually against a railing, smoking a cigarette, and he takes one look at her and says, I've just had a jolly good breakfast, before adding I thought you and
the children would never make it. And how do we know that he said those words, because those exact words were quoted in the divorce papers that Lucile filed the following you coward, you awful, awful man, and it came to like that he was more than likely one of the men who dressed as a woman and got into a lifeboat. So I just I love that she divorced him after that act of complete and utter cowardice.
Well, I think that that's probably not an uncommon thing when your feet have been held to the fire and you've seen how your life partner responds under that pressure.
And that's the other thing. You know, It's been such an interesting intellectual exercise to go through writing Evelyn's story, because you do think, how would I act? I don't think until we've all had our feet to the fire that we really know how we would react. Would we be heroic? Would be would we be so terrified? What would that final moment of death had been like for
all of these people? I mean many times while I was writing this, I was crying the stories of magnificence and absolute utter tragedy, particularly when it came to some of the children.
I wanted to You've reminded me that one of the one of the characters that you introduce us to, Violet jessp when are they on the lifeboats and they're watching the Titanic and the unsinkable sink extraordinary, watching the rows of lights yes slowly go out? Yeah stick, And she says, for a fraction of a second, my heart stood still, As is often the case when faith hitherto unshaken, faith gets its first setback.
She was a beautiful writer. She wrote her memoir and it wasn't published until the nineteen nineties. One of her relatives made sure that it became a book, and that was one of the books you know, that I've drawn on because she was so eloquent in her prose about what she experienced, and she was a fellow stewardess with Evelyn. They'd worked together on the Olympic, which was the sister ship to the Titanic, because of her eloquent description of
hitherto unshaken faith? Was there a time when your faith was shaken? You're talking about in the last couple of years.
Or even before then. You know that even though your pivot from you know today to the project was quite an elegant one, that's still that that hurts that stuff because it's they're colleagues, but they're also friends, and the bosses are you know.
I think we should separate the bosses and the friends. Well maybe, but because you'd had you know, everyone loves the Golden Child, which you were until you were quite sure how to respond to that.
Well, until you weren't so well, I was a point at which you were shaken by I.
Certainly disappointed, like deeply disappointed, But I just and I think again, this comes from my father. You count your blessings. You know what, what doesn't shake us makes us stronger.
Don't look at me like I don't look at me like that.
I know exactly what you're doing because I've done it myself. Well I don't.
I'm just I'm just I think you've been through a lot and I think that it's like your tetris blocks are very well arranged, and I'm happy for that for you.
Thank you.
Kay.
It's I've been on a huge learning curve, but you know one I think I'm stronger for. You know, I know who counts in my life. I have seen enormous kindness. I've seen the best of people, and I've seen the worst of people. And you can't say that I'm not still learning.
When you say you've seen the worst? What did that look like?
Oh, disappointment?
Were you prepared for that or sometimes not?
Yeah? Yeah, I just find dwelling on the negative a real waste of energy that you know, I had to have energy and I couldn't dwell on things. I just had to keep moving forward.
But you've got to take the lesson as well, you know, the old when someone shows you who they are, believe believe them, And sometimes it means rethinking people that you've known for a long time.
Yeah, and I'm definitely older and wiser as a result of the last few years.
Well, you know, your travails have been good news for readers.
I hope. So I really, you know, as I said, I really fell in love with Evelyn, and I really hope that readers do too. And I'm thrilled that you enjoyed it so much.
I do think more than you do that you were drawn to her because of the rowing against the tide.
Oh yeah, I.
Heard those words very early.
On in looking at her story. And I'll tell you one of those weird moments that you know, just led to I now have to do this story because Pete. Actually I put a little dot point memo to Pete once I looked into her story, and I said to him, you've got to go to your publisher with this, because
this story is extraordinary and no one's done it. And he went to the publisher, and you know, his beautiful female publisher, Vanessa came back to me and said, Lisa, everyone here is talking about this idea that you've had for Pete. I don't think this is a Pete book. I think this is a you book. And I said, Vanessa, I can't do this. I've never written a book like
this before. The amount of research alone will be huge, and she said, I just want you to sit with it and have a think, because I think this would be an incredible project for you to work on. And I said, look, I just you know, my energies are elsewhere at the moment. Literally three hours later, news of the Ocean Gate submersible going missing broke around the world, and Vanessa called me and she said, have you seen the news? And I said, yeah, I think Evelyn and I are on a journey.
And it starts and is she the person that said I think Evelyn was sent to save you?
She said it to me a couple of months ago.
Did she did Evylne save you?
She gave me a focus that I didn't even know I needed. And I have been everywhere the last couple of years, and I didn't want to read about myself anymore, and I'm sure others didn't either. And to be able to not focus on me, not feel sorry for me, to be elevated by this woman's otherwise unknown magnificence. Just every day I worked on this project, I just felt good and I felt like I was maybe I was meant to be given this space to work on this project.
And you know, the funny thing is when you know we're launching it April fourteen, which is the one hundred and fourteenth anniversary of the Titanic hitting the iceberg, twenty minutes to midnight, and it sank a twenty past two on the fifteenth of April, so we're launching it on the fourteenth. And Pete said to me a couple of months ago.
At midnight, I hope that's too macabre. What's to launch it at the time? No, no, no, no, no no no.
We just you know, we wanted to mark with respect to the anniversary of the sinking. And Pete said to me, who you're going to get to launch it, because we're launching it at the Maritime Museum. And I said, I don't know. I sort of don't know any boty people. And I said, I sort of feel like I need maybe a woman from South Australia who's always wrote against
the tide. Oh my god, Julia Gillard. And I emailed her and said, I don't know if you've ever heard of this woman, Evelyn Marsden, but this is who she is and I've written a book about She got right back to me and said, Lisa, how on earth do we not know this woman's story. Of course I'll launch it for you. So another woman who's wrote against the tide, well that's going to be quiet and even I'm very much honored that she's agreed to do that.
It's amazing. I hope that the rest of your the cruise of your life, you're.
Going to get all poet.
Are you these straits of all moons that you're unencumbered, thank you by the troubles of the past.
Are you tired or invigorated? I'm invigorated by the boy. I really am tired of the other who isn't far out.
Even as I say that, I don't even know how many incarnations there are of it, but it's honestly like the marrow being leached out of your bones. Lisa Wilkinson, good luck to you and to all who's sailing, which are believe. It's just it's only one that just got really creepy at the end. What about you talking about waiting for Pete to get a wrecked?
Well, it's how long did that take?
By the way, between that first afternoon tea?
What until we got married? No? Oh, you're you're somewhere else completely of your memoir.
You're like, if you meet him, if you finally meet him and then suddenly three months later you're engaged, I'm like, what happened in between?
Just you know, a lot of conversations late into the night, and you know, I mean, you know what it's like when you when you meet someone where you just feel like where have you been? And it just happens so easily that you know, we we sort of didn't leave each other side. It's lucky, isn't it so lucky? Just a few frogs? Yeah, you know, you sort of you work out what you don't want. But I certainly didn't go into that relationship with a checklist.
No. And also you don't know, you know, Nancy Reagan, he said, you don't know what a woman's made of. She's like a tea bag till you put her in hot water.
Oh yeah.
But also a relationship is like that.
Yeah.
Yeah, because when you fall in love, it's good times. Very few people fall in love in bad times. It's always good times. Because you're falling in love, you don't know what's going to happen, or really necessarily what that person is made of until you know the shit gets going.
I got a pretty good idea early on that, you know, Pete comes from the most incredible family, and to be welcomed so completely into that family, you know, I thought I was on pretty solid ground from the beginning, But you know what I've been through the last couple of years, that certainly tests the marriage, because you're not always at your absolute best when you're being tested like that. So I'd probably say I tested him a little more than
he tested me in recent times. And he was not for flinching, no notting him only strong.
Oh I know where a couple of those are.
Yeah, no, we're never stronger in fact fully enough, he said to me the other day, he said, did you know that apparently you and I have split?
Oh?
Apparently there was something on social media saying, you know, sad news that we have split. And it's just it's an indication of how useless social media is that you know, I didn't even know that. Yeah. I was just like, did I miss something?
That's right. There's a version of Lisa Wilkinson that most of think we know, But this conversation sits just outside of that, in a space that's a little quieter, a little more reflective, and probably a lot less certain. And maybe that's what stays with you, not the headlines or the moments that defined a career, but the idea that, even after decades of clarity and success, there's still room
to question, to shift, and to begin again. We've linked the details of the Titanic story of Evelyn by Lisa Wilkinson in the show notes. Thank you for listening to No Filter. The executive producer of No Filter is Breed Player. The assistant producer is Coco Levine. Audio production and video editing by Josh Green. I am Kate Langbrook. I will see you next Monday for another incredible conversation.