Conversations

Wongaibon woman, Gayle Kennedy tells the story of her childhood, punctuated by years of treatment for polio. A bright child, she blitzed school and was drawn to comic book writing, which led to an award-winning career as an author.

Gayle was two when she contracted polio. The family was living in a camp outside Condobolin when little Gayle collapsed at her aunt’s house.

Gayle’s mother was in hospital at the time, where she had given birth to Gayle’s younger brother. 

She ran from the hospital to her sickly toddler, and brought Gayle in for treatment.

Gayle was sent to Sydney and spent six months in an iron lung, a mechanical respirator that covered her whole body, leaving her head exposed.

For years she would return to Sydney for follow up therapy. 

Gayle was a bright student who overcame racism at school and after she graduated she worked with the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, then set up the Ivanhoe Land Council.

During this time, Gayle was introduced to Streetwize Comics, which inspired to give writing a go and got a job as a comic book writer.

Years later, Gayle became unwell again, and she was diagnosed with post-polio syndrome.

She was miserable and suffering, and when she joined the NDIS her life changed for the better.

She started writing stories that were published in the Sydney Morning Herald and went on to win the David Unaipon Award for her book Me, Antman and Fleabag.

Further information

This episode was produced by Rebecca McLaren. The Executive Producer of Conversations is Nicola Harrison.

This episode contains reference to father's love, mother's love, polio, post-polio syndrome, Abbotsford station, Ivanhoe, Wangaaypuwan, Royal Flying Doctor Service, rehabilitation, children's hospital, kind nurses, long drop toilet, racism, Catholic school, Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, cousins, nepotism, Balmain, NDIS, scooter, how to drink in the park, Redfern, blackfellas, saying yes, giving things a go.

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.

Troy grew up travelling between two very different worlds with his Indigenous mum and his Maltese Dad. At just 17 he started on his path to becoming one of Australia's biggest country music stars (R) CW: Mentions suicide, please take care when listening

Troy Cassar-Daley is a proud Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung man, and one of Australia's most beloved country music stars.

As a 17-year-old musician just starting out, Troy joined a band called Little Eagle. 

Soon afterwards, he won the Tamworth Starmaker Quest, and within a few years, Troy was a fully-fledged country music star.

In his long career, Troy has won 40 Golden Guitars and 5 ARIA Awards, among many other accolades. 

In his most recent album, Between the Fires, Troy digs deep into his own family history, with songs of grief, love and connection.

Further information

Troy is touring now - more details here

Help and support is always available

If you need to talk, 24/7 crisis support is available from Lifeline by calling 13 11 14.

You can also text and chat online with counsellors here.

Writer Anita Heiss has based her novel  Dirrayawadha on stories from the 1800s during the frontier wars in Bathurst, when martial law was declared.

The filmmaker on her series which documents a period some historians call the most important war Australia has ever fought in.

Rachel Perkins is one of this country's great storytellers, translating distinctively Australian stories for the screen, including a television series first released in 2022 called The Australian Wars.

It tracks the bloody conflicts that broke out across the continent after the arrival of the British colonists.

Rachel says these are the most important wars in our history: they were fought on Australian soil, between Australians, to determine the ownership and control of the entire country.

The stories from this era are stories of violence, of peace, of epic adventures, which make up the foundational narrative of this nation.

This episode of Conversations was first broadcast in 2022 

Further Information

The Australian Wars is available to watch on SBS on Demand.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris, the Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.

It explores Aboriginal history, British colonial history, frontier wars, the Native Police, death, conflict, grief, Australian history, guns, violence, land ownership, control, documentary

Tagalaka man, Victor Steffensen on the ‘walking encyclopedias’ — dear old men he met who entrusted him with their decades of cultural knowledge and taught him to apply the right traditional burn for the right environment, so Country can thrive. 

Victor advocates for small, cool fires that emit white smoke. This is something Indigenous people have done for tens of thousands of years to help Country survive and thrive.

Victor was a young man who wasn’t sure which direction to take when two elders in Far North Queensland took him under their wing.

He was hungry for knowledge and a beautiful, trusting relationship grew between the three men. 

The old men poured their expertise into Victor, who captured it all on videotape.

Today Victor teaches all around the country, using traditional methods on how to safely burn the landscape so plants, animals and people can flourish.

Further information

The Knowledge: Learning from ancestral wisdom to save our challenging global environment is published by Allen & Unwin.

This episode was produced by Alice Moldovan. The Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. 

This episode covers Indigenous elders, cultural knowledge, doubt, backburning, bushfires, fuel load, drip torch, cool burn, mosaic burn, everything is connected, sacred knowledge, climate change, native grasses, crocodile country, knowledge sharing, Indigenous knowledge systems, NAIDOC week, lost language, mentors, Indigenous rangers, Kuranda, camping, fishing.

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.

For 40 years, crime was the only constant in Lincoln Lynch’s life, until a prison stint forced him to look inward and change the trajectory of his life for good.

His young mum went to prison for dealing drugs when Lincoln was little, and eventually he followed in her footsteps.

Lincoln endured periods of homelessness and institutionalised abuse as a teenager, and he became a teen father, before winding up in prison himself.

There, in his cell, Lincoln discovered God’s teachings about compassion and forgiveness, and he resolved to leave prison a different man.

On the outside, he was given practical, real-life support to re-establish his life at a halfway house in Sydney called Rainbow Lodge.

With new-found confidence and purpose, Lincoln started studying psychology, fell in love and is now working at the lodge, helping other men find their way outside of prison.

Content Warning: this episode of Conversations contains discussion about childhood abuse and sexual assault.

More information about Rainbow Lodge can be found online.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Rebecca McLaren and Meggie Morris. Executive Producer was Eliza Kirsch.

It explores judicial system, justice system, recidivism, substance abuse, heroin, meth, speed, homelessness, sleeping rough, childhood abuse, sexual assault, sexuality, institutional abuse, mother son relationships, grief, drug dealing, crime, guilty verdict, prison system, prison sentence, serving time, changing your life, turning your life around, love, relationships, fatherhood, psychology, Vince Hurley, policing, criminology, intergenerational trauma, God, spirituality, reform.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

The inaugural winner of Alone Australia on her life as a creative, outrageous, nature-loving misfit who grew up to live through great depths of love and grief. Warning: Discusses the death of a child.

In 2023, Gina Chick spent 67 days by herself, in the wilderness of Tasmania’s West Coast, surviving on worms, fish, and one unlucky wallaby.

After those 67 days, Gina became the first-ever winner of a reality show on SBS called Alone Australia, but her approach to the competition was very different from the other contestants.

For Gina, the wild was not an enemy to be overcome but a place with no hierarchy, where she feels completely herself.

It’s always been that way, since she was a 'weird' little girl with a rare affinity with birds and nature.

As an adult, Gina spent years inside Sydney’s queer club scene and working for an all-girl security firm, but life changed completely for Gina when she became a mother herself.

Further information

If you need support after listening to this story, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Gina's book We are the Stars was published by Simon & Schuster in 2024.

The Executive Producer of Conversations is Nicola Harrison.

This episode explores motherhood, parenting, reality television, Alone Australia, winner of Alone, hunting, survival, did Gina catch the wallaby? adoption, adoptees, Kiama, South Coast NSW, ADHD, birds, neurodiversity, bad boyfriends, debt, sexually transmitted debt, scent, pheromones, younger men, Oxford Street, survival, nightclubs, podium dancing, synaesthesia, breast cancer.

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.

Nuking the moon, putting mirrors in space and blowing up the Polar ice caps are just some of history's hairbrained schemes to control the weather, an obsession man has had since the dawn of time.

As a major heatwave tears through Europe, millions of people are frantically trying to stay cool, or praying for some relief. Their desperation is not new.

For thousands of years, human civilisations have been obsessed with trying to control the weather, to stave off drought and famine, in order to survive.

There are ancient tales of great kings who could part the oceans, and deities who would bring down the rain if they were presented with the right kind of sacrifice.

But it wasn’t until the last century that we suddenly had the technology to actually do these kinds of things, or at least attempt to do them.

Some of these wild ideas - to bring water to the desert, drain the Mediterranean Sea to make farmlands, simply make Russia a warmer place to live - have involved blowing up the Polar ice caps, putting mirrors in space, and nuking the moon.

They sound dangerous and unlikely, but some of them have come true.

And now, many people are at work on brand new gigantic geo-engineering solutions to counteract the effects of the warming planet.

Palaeontologist and explorer, Tim Flannery, has been tracking the progress of some of these schemes.

A Brief History of Climate Folly, written with Emma Flannery, is published by Text Publishing.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores weird science, crazy science, Elon Musk, China, Trump, feats of engineering, space exploration, the human ego, wild weather events, magic, supernatural, religion, God, divinity, human sacrifice, famine, starvation, migration, global warming, climate change, European heatwave, Paris heatwave, fossil fuel, deforestation, COP, climate change policy, sea levels, floods, Summer, water, gas, electricity, solar power, politics, renewables.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

John Hockney's memoir gives a rare insight into the unusual life of one of the world's most famous artists.

He grew up in the industrial town of Bradford in Northern England and was one of five children in a creative household, led by his iconoclastic father Kenneth, a conscientious objector who always told his children to 'never worry what the neighbours think'.

During the war, there were many shortages. As child, John's brother David would creep downstairs in the morning and draw on whatever paper was available.

He drew figures, streets, houses, landscapes and cartoons on the white edge of the newspaper, his mother's magazines, or whatever comics arrived that day.

When David got his first sketchbook at the age of 10, his parents realised his drawing was much more than compulsive doodling.

This episode of Conversations was first broadcast in 2020

Further Information

John Hockney's memoir is called The Hockneys: Never Worry About What the Neighbours Think

For more than a century, Melbourne's Abbotsford Convent was occupied by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, and the "wayward" girls and orphans they took care of. Patricia Sykes was one of those girls.

She was dropped off at the orphanage with her three sisters in the early 1950s after their mother died.

Their father couldn't afford to take care of four girls at home, but wanted them to stay together, so an orphanage felt like his only option.

As a girl, Patricia, a gifted student who loved music and words, desperately wanted to escape the convent.

But later in life, after finally finishing school and then university as a mother and mature student, Patricia returned to Abbotsford Convent.

As a poet in residence, Patricia went back on her own terms to hear and to tell the stories of dozens of women who passed through its doors, and to interrogate her own understanding of her time with the nuns.

Patricia's collection of poetry is called The Abbotsford Mysteries. You can find information about all of Patricia's books online.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer was Eliza Kirsch.

It explores religion, Christianity, Catholicism, Australia of yesteryear, modern history, Melbourne, Victoria, nunnery, orphanages, grief, sisterhood, education, women's rights, motherhood, losing a mother, the Queen, writing, books, late life career change.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.