Conversations

At the age of 20, speed skater Steven Bradbury nearly died on the ice. Then he won history's most unexpected gold medal (R)

How a boy who grew up on a fishing trawler became the first man in Australia to run 100 metres in under 10 seconds (R)

Christie splits her time between training for road and track wheelchair races, holding down several jobs, and raising her family. The Tokyo Paralympics will be her seventh as a competitor, but Christie almost gave up marathons after the 2013 Boston Marathon, and the most frightening experience of her life (CW: mention of suicide)

How a boy from Glasgow named Norman Swirsky grew up to become Australia's most famous doctor

From his daily coffee addiction to the 'war on drugs', science writer Michael Pollan's research into three psychoactive substances derived from plants was broad in scope. In this episode he talks about how caffeine, opium and mescaline affect our brains, change us as people, and make a profound impact on societies that use them(CW: Drug references)

Brisbane-born Carol followed her heart to Papua New Guinea in the 1960s. Her husband, Buri Kidu, a young lawyer from a village near the capital with a deep sense of duty went on to became the nation's first Indigenous Chief Justice. After Sir Buri's premature death, Carol entered politics, blazing a trail for women in a intensely patriarchal political system

Philosopher Tim Dean on why human morality needs an update for the modern world

When archaeologist Dr Jamie Fraser opened an 'empty' Egyptian sarcophagus, he found a 2600 year old mummy of a temple Priestess inside (R)

Being a single mother and student doctor in 1960s Ireland was merely the 'first act' in Caroline's gutsy adult life. She became a pioneering obstetrician, delivering sometimes contraband contraception, and babies, for fifty years

Gordon Parker is the founder of the Black Dog Institute, which works to remove the stigma around depression, mental illness and bipolar disorder. For the past few years he's been looking closely at the phenomenon of burnout at home and at work

From Scotland's Orkney Islands, stories of how a chance meeting in a pub led Andrew Greig to climb the Himalayas, how golfing helped him recover from a near death experience, and his quest for the Loch of the Green Corrie

A former ABC chief foreign correspondent, Philip began at the ABC as a stagehand in 1975. He left the organisation 46 years later after reporting from Japan, Washington, the Middle East, Nyngan and the Ukraine

When Anne was ten, she walked onto the school playground and a girl spat in her face after calling her ‘a dirty, Arab Muslim’. To her shock, her teacher did nothing. The incident changed how she saw the world, and helped set her on the path to becoming the first Australian Muslim woman elected to parliament (R)

Darwin's Ben Graetz on becoming one of Australia's best-known Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Drag Queens

Surf-loving athlete Nick Marshall is a former professional ironman. Now a physiotherapist, he's created a new way for kids with special needs to be included at the beach (R)

Megan Davis was raised as a 'Queensland Rail kid', then in a book-loving household in a housing commission home. She grew up to become a lawyer at the UN, then began a history-making process of helping Australia's First Nations people speak the truth to power

Zooarchaeologist Dr Melanie Fillios uses the remains and fossils of animals, including dingoes, to understand more about ancient humans (R)

George Megalogenis looks at the Morrison government's response to the pandemic so far, and asks whether the 'exit strategy' fully comprehends the changed landscape of the post-COVID world

Cheryl is a Wadjuk traditional owner playing the long game in the Swan Valley community where she grew up (R)

A Gangulu elder, Mick was Co-Commissioner of the high profile Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory. Mick's fierce advocacy for young people is due in part to a sliding doors moment in his teens(CW: Discussion of suicide. And for ATSI listeners please be advised this conversation contains the names of people who have died. Take care when listening.)

Aunty Kath, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, was Valerie's godmother, and just one of many staunch political figures on both sides of her family. Val worked her way to becoming a powerful advocate for Aboriginal people and her family CW: ATSI listeners please use discretion when listening as the program references people who have died.

Vic grew up on an Aboriginal mission in Sydney's La Perouse in the 1950s, becoming a singing star in his teens. He went on to write and record Australia's first Aboriginal protest album, while in prison. Luke Peacock 'unearthed' Vic's album decades later, and worked alongside him, to bring it to a new public (R)

Gurindji man and ABC presenter Charlie knew a little about his mum's life as he grew up. But after her death, he began to reckon with what she'd lived through as a child (CW: contains mention of ATSI people who have died; mentions of sexual violence)

Tarang Chawla with his family's story of migration from India to Melbourne to make a new life, and how the murder of his sister Niki changed his own path (CW: graphic discussion of family violence. Discretion advised)

How does Ben Crowe get elite athletes to the top of their game? What he asks footballers, surfers and tennis players to do seems counter intuitive, and a lot of the work happens off the field. (R)Ben Crowe is a mindset coach who has worked with elite athletes like surfer Steph Gilmore, tennis superstar Ash Barty, and the Richmond Football Club.But Ben's method of coaching seems counter-intuitive.Rather than telling these athletes they're the best, he encourages them to own their flaws, make sense of their life stories off the field, prioritising vulnerability and human connection, so they can take both wins and losses in their stride. Further informationOriginally broadcast in July 2021.Ben Crowe's new book, Where the Light Gets In, will be published by HarperCollins in January 2026.This episode of Conversations was produced by Michelle Ransom Hughes, executive producer was Carmel Rooney.It explores sport, NBA, basketball, football, Bayern, David Beckham, Hawks, Tigers, Magpies, Warriors, Tottenham, Jake Weatherald, Champions League, Wimbledon, Tennis Open, US Open, Australian Open, Arsenal, UCL, sports trading, UEFA, FIFA, mindset coaching, positive, books, writing, origin story, grief, death of a father.

Vic Simms, Jen Cloher, Vika and Linda Bull, Rob Hirst, Elena Kats-Chernin, William Barton with stories from their formative years

Even the cheapest guitars are made in part from trees which are becoming increasingly rare. Chris Gibson's curiosity about these timbers led him on a worldwide journey to understand the guitar's past and future

Betty Klimenko grew up as an heiress to the Westfield fortune. Then she turned her back on it all to marry the man of her dreams (R)

Ianto Ware with the story of growing up in the suburbs of Adelaide with his radical feminist lesbian mother Dimity

Ben grew up in a Glasgow housing estate, then married, went to University and made a life for himself as a musician. But some years later, he was homeless (R)

Kyle was a 55-year old children's author and husband when she began living her truth as a trans woman

Lynne Kelly became a senior memory champion after she began researching ancient ways of transforming landscapes, objects and the human body into 'memory palaces.'

After years teaching in the remote Northern Territory, Julie began to trace her ancestry among the Darug people around the Hawkesbury River. Her most recent novel was written in response to Kate Grenville's The Secret River

'Love on the Spectrum' star Jodi Rodgers on her life as a sexologist and relationship counsellor for people with Autism, and her unexpected chapter in reality TV

Alexandra Seddon with the story of her aristocratic Russian family and their legacy, which helped her found a wildlife refuge for potoroos, koalas, snakes and kangaroos (CW: childhood abuse, historic suicide)

Parenting educator and retired psychologist Steve Biddulph was in his 50s when a chance conversation over lunch shifted almost everything about how he saw himself

Physiotherapist Sky Fosbrooke’s stint as a volunteer health worker led to a deep attachment to the people of a small South Santo village (R)

The screenwriter and showrunner on writing television drama, her struggles with mental health, and how her time in psychiatric hospitals inspired the acclaimed ABC TV drama series Wakefield (CW: drug references and suicidal ideation. Please use discretion when listening)

By uncovering the complicated history of her grandfather, Carolinda Witt also gained a sizeable extended family (R)

From working in a bank and behind a bar, to rowing solo across an ocean, the story of Michelle Lee’s remarkable transformation and the voyage which made her an Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year

Two separate stories today: bakery tales from Judith Anderson whose family history is intertwined with Warwick's bread trade. Then, Bruce Munday who fell in love with building dry stone walls, then began to delve into their history

Kristin Weidenbach on her father's early life in Moonta, a Methodist-run mining town in South Australia (R)

A broadcasting veteran, Bob spent 70 years on air, hosting TV shows as well as topping the radio ratings in Sydney. In 1964 he was sent to London to join The Beatles on their only Australian tour

Hugh Mackay believes humans are ‘hardwired’ to behave kindly. He returns to the program to talk about how his early-pandemic prophecies on community, loneliness, and resilience have played out

Writer Susan Orlean on the enduring mystery of who set fire to the Los Angeles Central Library (R)

Anthony Venn-Brown was a gay teenager when he gave his life to God. He tried to destroy his sexuality by exorcism and 'gay conversion' therapy before he became a rock star Pentecostal preacher. Then everything came crashing down

Anne Poelina, the daughter of a Timorese pearl diver and an Indigenous mother, has always been drawn back to her home town of Broome (R)

Jason Yat-sen Li on how his family story, marked by war, migration and knighthoods, and his own working life helped him embrace the complexities and contradictions of modern China

High school English teacher, Brendan James Murray with funny, heartbreaking, inspirational and strange tales from his working life

Donna Duggan fell in love with a Tanzanian man and together they built a safari company, before an accident changed everything (R)