Conversations

Latest Episodes:

Treating dementia — a new way of caring for the elderly Sep 12, 2024

Show notes

Psychiatrist Duncan McKellar wrote the report that triggered the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. He has seen how care changes when we take someone's life story into account.

Duncan McKellar is a psychiatrist specialising in the care of older people with dementia and serious mental health conditions.

When Duncan first started working with these patients, he was shocked to find elderly people tied to chairs and left in locked rooms.

His advocacy helped trigger the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and he devoted himself to running a very different kind of care facility — one where everyone’s story is understood and respected.

This episode of Conversations discusses aged care, elder abuse, older Australians, aging, Alzheimer's, dementia, aging population, family dynamics, grief.

Further information

Duncan's book An Everyone Story: Finding our way back to compassion, hope and humanity is published by Wakefield Press

Read more about Duncan and his daughter, Erin's musical A Box of Memories here.

To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, singers, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

The man with the magnificent voice James Earl Jones, and his legacy including Star Wars and the Lion King Sep 11, 2024

Show notes

The late James Earl Jones grew up with a stutter and hardly said a word for years. After an English teacher intervened, he grew up to become one of the world's finest actors. (R)

Actor James Earl Jones died recently, at the age of 93.

When he was touring Australia in 2013 with a production of Driving Miss Daisy, Richard had the chance to sit down with him and ask him about his life.

Although we knew him for his magnificent voice, James Earl Jones grew up with a stutter.

A stutter which was so severe that he hardly said a word for years.

But after the intervention of an English professor, he decided to become an actor.

He grew up to become one of his generation's finest stage and screen actors, in films like The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games and of course, in Star Wars.

This episode of Conversations explores Hollywood, film, cinema, stuttering, acting, Star Wars, cinema, obit, obituaries.

Epic sharks — the ancient origins of the monsters of the sea Sep 10, 2024

Show notes

From sharks with wheels of teeth, to gargantuan sharks like the megalodon, palaeontologist John Long has traced the long and storied history of these oceanic hunters.

Sharks and humans have a complicated relationship.

We have long considered them monsters and super predators that should be eliminated for our own safety.

But sharks are much more than scary and fearsome.

The history of this incredible animal stretches back hundreds of millions of years.

From sharks with wheels of teeth, to the ascent of the super predators like the megalodon, palaeontologist John Long has traced the long and storied history of these hunters, asking how they've managed to survive extinction despite everything that's been thrown at them.

This episode of Conversations explores science, origin stories, ancient history, sharks, palaeontology, the ocean, climate change, megalodon, hunting and predators.

Further information

The Secret History of Sharks: The Rise of the Ocean's Most Fearsome Predators is published by Hachette

Words of love — writing stories of Aboriginal land Sep 09, 2024

Show notes

Author and professor Anita Heiss on her parents' story of romance, and how she brings true history alive in her work.

Anita Heiss is a Wiradjuri woman, an author of many books and Professor of Communications at The University of Queensland.

She has described herself as a “concrete Koori with Westfield dreaming.”

Many of Anita's books focus on great love stories, and the inspiration for these romances came from the enduring, devoted love she saw between her parents – the very Austrian “Joe-the-carpenter”, and Elsie, a proud Wiradjuri woman.

Anita’s latest book goes back to the 1800s, bringing to life the brutal frontier wars in Bathurst, when martial law was declared.

This episode of Conversations discusses First Nations Australians, interracial relationships, Indigenous culture, colonisation, colonialism, family, origin stories, love stories, Australian history, ancestry.

My brother's death — writing the story of a family's grief and loss Sep 06, 2024

Show notes

For decades, Gideon Haigh and his mother were the only two people who really knew what happened on Jaz's last night. This year, it all poured out.

Gideon Haigh's brother Jasper was 17 years old when he died in a car crash.

Until this year, Gideon and his mother were the only two people who really knew what happened to Jaz on that tragic night.

Gideon has spent decades perfecting answers to questions about his brother — answers that never invited further discussion.

This year, something peculiar happened, and in 72 hours Gideon poured his pent-up recollections onto the page, to be turned into a book about the story of his brother, Jaz.

This episode touches on grief, family stories, loss, mothers, brotherhood, love, life, death, writing, reflection, secrets, storytelling, memoir, life stories, family dynamics and personal stories.

Quitting alcohol – the story of how Seana got sober Sep 05, 2024

Show notes

After a childhood spent trying to escape her father's booze-fuelled outbursts, Seana developed her own problem relationship with drinking. But by her mid-50s, Seana decided she had had enough.

Seana Smith grew up in a beautiful house in rural Scotland, and when things were good at home, they were wonderful.

But Seana’s father loved to drink, and his habit took over her family’s life.

Despite the fights, abuse and violence, Seana's mother couldn't bring herself to leave her husband, and so Seana found every excuse to get away -- from pony camp at 12 years old, to applying for boarding school without her parents' knowledge, and then to Oxford University.

Eventually Seana fell in love and ended up on the opposite side of the world, in Australia, where she started a family of her own.

But as she reached her mid 50s, Seana realised that the way she loved to drink meant she hadn’t really left home at all, and so she started her own journey of sobriety.

Seana's story deals with themes of alcoholism, substance abuse, problem drinking, dementia, family violence, sobriety, motherhood and getting sober.

How dogs think — and what they think of us Sep 04, 2024

Show notes

Dog behaviourist Laura Vissaritis uses science and psychology to better understand what our dogs really are telling us and how our behaviour influences theirs (R).

Laura is a dog behaviourist with qualifications in both animal behaviour and human psychology.

Dogs were the first animals to become domesticated, and over the centuries they've evolved from their wolfish origins to become more useful, attentive and appealing to us.

Laura says that when a dog is displaying 'difficult' behaviours like too much barking, pulling on the lead, or jumping up, the first step in the process is often changing the behaviour of their human.

She also believes with the increasing tendency in Australia to view our dogs as quasi-people has led to heavy expectations on many dogs, to which they can't always measure up.

This episode of Conversations explores dogs, pets, animal behaviour, animal psychology, fur babies, service dogs, psychology, co-dependence, animal rescue, death, grief and animal welfare.

My Stolen Generations story: how Brenda was taken from her family, twice Sep 03, 2024

Show notes

As a young child, chunks of Brenda Matthews' early memories were missing until her biological mother told her the truth of what happened. Together they are slowly healing

Wiradjuri woman Brenda Matthews was stolen from her family, along with her six siblings, when she was two-years-old.

She came from a loving, hardworking, religious family.

She was fostered by an affectionate white family, and she blended into her new life happily.

After six years of living with them, she was told it was time to return “home” to her biological family — who she didn’t remember at all.

For most of her life, Brenda suppressed her memories of her white parents and their love and care.

Then, as an adult, she worked up the courage to bring both sides of her family together, so they could all slowly heal.

This episode touches on family history, the Stolen Generations, memoir, life stories, ancestry, modern history, origin stories, personal stories, epic storytelling, reflection, grief, loss, exploration and memory.

The story of the melancholy spy Sep 02, 2024

Show notes

When a devastating injury ended Jack Beaumont's career as a jet fighter pilot, he decided to become a spy, in the French Secret Service.

Jack Beaumont (not his real name) is a former intelligence operative and the author of several spy thrillers.

Jack grew up in a turbulent family in Paris and when he got older he decided to train as a jet fighter pilot with the French Air Force.

During a training dogfight at supersonic speed, Jack suffered a devastating injury that meant he could no longer fly jets, but he still wanted a job steeped in adventure and danger.

So he began piloting covert spy missions, and eventually became a spy with France's secret intelligence service: the DGSE, maintaining up to five secret identities at a time.

While he now lives in a beautiful part of Australia with his wife and family, Jack has struggled to leave behind the extreme hyper vigilance of his early working life.

This conversation discusses family dynamics, adventure, history, global politics, spies, military life and spycraft.

The psychedelic revolution — how MDMA mended Rebecca's mind Aug 30, 2024

Show notes

While struggling with PTSD, social researcher Rebecca Huntley chose an unconventional and underground path to healing — MDMA therapy.

Rebecca Huntley is well known to many Australians for her formidable intellect and career as a broadcaster, an author and a social researcher.

But despite her impressive public-facing life, in private, Rebecca's trauma from a difficult upbringing refused to leave her.

At 50, she walked the Camino in Italy and realised that after 30 years of therapy, she was still living with a great deal of anger about what had happened to her as a child.

She decided to take a radical step to deal with her PTSD and her suffering.

She had three sessions of MDMA therapy, delivered by an underground healer.

The treatment changed Rebecca's life and her view of the world.

This conversation discusses therapy, trauma, psychedelics, drugs, parenting, grief, family, mothers, ancestry, fathers, family dynamics, domestic violence, going no contact, exploration and loss.

To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversation podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

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