Conversations

When Megan Gilmour's son was 10 years old, he spent nearly two years in isolation at the Sydney Children’s Hospital. The months he missed at school didn't just affect him academically. 
Megan, her daughter and her husband all relocated from Canberra to be with Darcy in Sydney as he underwent life-saving medical treatment, and lived at hospital.
Over his many months in hospital, Darcy missed a lot of school. 
What worried Megan wasn’t just that he was falling behind academically, it was his loneliness and the way he was losing connection to his friends and his community.
Over time Megan watched how Darcy’s sense of belonging vanished because he wasn’t physically at school.
So along with two other mums she met through the Sydney Children’s Hospital, Megan decided to do something about it.
Not just for the kids who are missing out of school because they are in hospital, but for the growing number of kids who are away from school for a whole host of reasons.
Megan is the CEO and co-founder of Missing School, and she was the 2025 ACT Australian of the Year.
This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.
It explores chronic illness, sick kids, school non attendance, school refusal, my kid doesn't want to go to school, young carers, neurodiverse children, autism, ADHD, AuDHD, learning difficulties, childhood cancer, blood disorders, lonely children, invisible siblings, parenting, motherhood, online learning, COVID, digital schooling, bone marrow transplant.
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.

It was a Sunday night in the garage of their family home when journalist and author Kate Legge found out her husband of 30 years had been cheating on her for decades.
After a downward spiral as she came to terms with the news, the two of them took a road trip to Broken Hill to investigate the four generations of cheaters in his family line.
The process led Kate to look into the murky waters of how love was expressed in her own family, with an intellectually frustrated mother who could be surprisingly cruel.
This episode was produced by Alice Moldovan and the Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.
It covers topics including marriage, divorce, cheating, infidelity, relationships, alcohol, lies, counselling, research, memoir, family history, writing, psychology.
Further information 
Infidelity and Other Affairs is published by Thames and Hudson
Kate Legge's new book coming out in April is series of essays on food and friendship called Delicious, published by Allen and Unwin.
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.
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Lisa Petty began her dance career in 1980s New York, intoxicated by the grime and flamboyant life of the city. She witnessed countless friends lose their lives to AIDS,  and the lessons she learned in closeness have stayed with her.
As a young woman, Lisa Petty was visiting her aunt in a retirement home when she started to speak to the older people there about the role of wartime dance halls in their lives.
These were stories of luminous intimacy. 
The old men and women’s faces would light up as they remembered being close enough to attractive strangers to smell them, to move together with music, and to have a few hours reprieve from the stress of war.
These stories inspired Lisa’s masters studies and she moved to New York to pursue a career in dance.
There, she found a friend soulmate in a man called Raymond, and they lived together for several years, before and after he became sick with AIDS.
After Lisa returned to Melbourne, she left her dance career behind and began working as an intimacy and movement director, helping performers to channel their character’s energy and translate that into the language of touch.
Further information
This episode was produced by Alice Moldovan. Conversations' Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. 
It covers topics including intimacy, touch, single mum, AIDS, New York, Kaposi sarcoma, dance, intimacy co-ordinator, movement coach, theatre.
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.

For the last decade or so we’ve looked on as the United States has radically changed itself, but the UK has been changing too as it continues to struggle with economic stagnation and the fallout from Brexit.
The British people, famous for their aversion to radical and emotional politics, have embarked on a course which was supposed to take them back to the comforting certainties of the past, but has instead, brought them into an uncertain new world.
It began with the huge shock of Brexit, then the constant turnover of Prime Ministers including Liz Truss whose term in office was famous outlived by a head of lettuce.
In 2025 British Labor won government in a massive landslide, which saw many hope things might settle down, but now Kier Starmer is hanging on by his fingernails.
And for those looking to the monarchy for a sense of continuity and national unity, that’s not going well either.
So what on earth has happened to the land of toast and tea? 
Ian Dunt is a British political journalist and author of How Westminster Works and Why is Doesn't 
Ian is also a regular contributor to Late Night Live on Radio National.
This episode of Conversations was produced by Jen Leake, the Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.
It explores British politics, Brexit, the financial crash, austerity, David Cameron, The Conservative Party, referendum, European Union, New Labor, populism, government services, the UK-US alliance, Christianity, Marxism, puberty, disillusioned, dogma, ideology, psychedelic, journalism, political discourse, British public school system, elites, power, Prime Ministers, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, immigration.
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.

In the 1990s, Glenn Jarvis was living in London working for a very powerful American corporation called Enron. He was under a huge amount of stress at work, when his mental health began to spiral downwards.
In the late 1990s Australian Glenn Jarvis won a job in London with Enron, a giant American energy and investment corporation. Life was exhilarating and he made lots of friends.
But after a time Glenn began to notice some very odd transactions at Enron.
Giant amounts of money were flooding in to the company that simply couldn't be accounted for.
Glenn took it up with with his bosses, but they didn't want to know.
In part because of the questions he was asking, Glenn's reputation at work began to change, and his mental health began to deteriorate.
He had a psychotic episode, and spent the next 2 years in and out of mental health units in Australia and the UK.
Eventually he found himself back in town of Queanbeyan where he grew up, with no job, no money, and few friends who understood what he'd been through.
His family stuck by him, but things were difficult, and he ended up in supported accommodation.
Across the road from where he was living was a local Bowling Club. He would go there and buy a single beer most nights, and eventually befriended some of the regulars.
With the help of these elderly friends, and meaningful work, Glenn began a slow and painstaking climb back into an entirely different kind of life.