Conversations

Author Helen Pitt has written a history of the iconic fun park and it's a tale bound up with con men, crooked cops, and developers who have long wanted to snatch up the prime piece of waterfront real estate. Millions of people have happy memories of walking through the teeth of the gigantic face on the edge of Sydney Harbour but it wasn't the first Luna Park in Australia, that honour goes to the Melbourne version which opened a decades earlier. But the tale of Sydney's Luna Park is arguably the most dramatic and it's one of only two amusement parks in the world protected by government legislation.   Helen Pitt's book is called Luna Park: the extraordinary story of the showmen, shysters and schemers who built Sydney's famous funk park is published by Allen And Unwin. This episode of Conversations explores Luna Park, amusement parks, Sydney, Sydney Harbour, history, show rides, engineering, the Great Depression, the Ghost Train fire, tragedy, historical preservation, waterfront real estate, protest, Martin Sharp, the Big Dipper, protein spills.

When Sonia Henry signed up to work as a GP in a remote mining town in the Pilbara, the experience changed almost everything she believed about Australia. An unfortunate romantic entanglement just before her final exams left her questioning everything, just as she was about to qualify as a doctor. To escape her life in Sydney, she signed up to work in some of Australia's most far-flung medical clinics. While working as a GP in places like the Pilbara, outback NSW, the Northern Territory and Broome Sonia had many experiences with her patients which completely altered how she saw Australia. Content Warning – suicide and adult themes. Listener discretion advised. Further information Put Your Feet in the Dirt, Girl is published by Allen and Unwin Lifeline on 13 11 14 MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978 Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36 Headspace on 1800 650 890 Doctors' Health Advisory Service is a 24 hr support line for doctors, medical students, dentists, veterinarians and students of these professions.

Jane Messer grew up with a loving father who never really understood why as a child his mother left him and his older sister at a boarding school, so she decided to find out the full story and prove that he was in fact, loved. Her father Michael was born in Berlin in the years between the two world and to escape Nazi Germany he was sent to live in England as a child. There were a few fleeting visits but then Michael didn’t see his mother again for another 13 years and he always said she never loved him. As Jane grew older and became a mother herself, she knew there had to be more to Bella’s story and so she went on the trail from pre-war Berlin to Tel Aviv to Melbourne, to try to understand the choices made in extraordinary circumstances.  Further information Jane Messer's family memoir is called Raven Mother  This episode of Conversation explores family history, the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, suicide, boarding school, Palestine, the Nakba, Berlin, World War 2, immigration, the British Mandated Palestine, memoir.  

Novelist Emma Pei Yin ran away from Hong Kong as a teenager to start fresh in Australia. But she found herself repeatedly drawn back home whenever she put pen to paper. Emma grew up in England and Hong Kong. But her life in Hong Kong wasn’t so much about the neon skyscrapers as it was about her family’s ancestral village, tucked away in the New Territories. Emma spent her school holidays there with her grandparents, learning how to take care of the family cemetery and joining in Chinese Festivals. Sometimes her grandfather would share his memories of the Second World War, when the Japanese military invaded and occupied Hong Kong. As Emma became into a teenager, her relationship with her parents deteriorated. She eventually decided to leave them and Hong Kong, coming to Australia to make a life for herself as a writer. But whenever she wrote, Emma found herself drawn back to Hong Kong; to the hundreds of islands, the fishing villages on stilts, the mountains, woodlands and beaches – all the things that tourists who think of Hong Kong as a city of neon lights and free Wi-fi don’t know about. This episode of Conversations was first broadcast last year. Content warning: This episode of Conversations contains discussion about sexual assault. Further information When Sleeping Women Wake is published by Hachette. Help and support is always available. You can call Lifeline 24 hours a day on 13 11 14. This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris and first broadcast in 2025, the executive producer is Nicola Harrison. It explores family dynamics, multiculturalism, China, Hong Kong, modern history, writing, books, literature, historical fiction, Japanese occupation, World War 2, assault, victim-blaming, abortion, filmmaking, black sheep, family honour, London, forgiveness.

Writer Cynthia Banham on discovering the shocking truth about her great-grandmother, reckoning with buried family secrets, and the criticisms mothers face from others and sometimes most harshly, from themselves. Cynthia Banham grew up hearing the story of her great-grandmother, Natalina, who had supposedly been orphaned in Italy in the 19th century. But when Cynthia became a mother herself she felt compelled to look for the real story of her maternal line, which suddenly stopped three generations back. What she found shocked her -- a period of time when infant relinquishment was so common, the era became known as the 'century of foundlings', and her great-grandmother was one of them. She had not been orphaned, as the family thought, but abandoned by a nameless mother. Cynthia took off to Bologna, Italy with her own young family in tow to find the truth. Along the way she uncovered the stories of 'bastardini' (a home for bastards), literate midwives, epigenetics and possible incest. Cynthia also stood in the house where Natalina was born, and came to terms with her own harsh judgement of herself as a mother. Mother Shadow is published by Upswell. Richard also spoke to Cynthia in 2023 about surviving the 2007 Garuda plane disaster in Indonesia. This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. It explores ancestry, epigenetics, anthropology, family history, writing, books, orphans, adoption, child abandonment, truth, journalism, parenting with a disability, mothers in wheelchairs, self confidence as a mother, self criticism as a mother, marriage, love, mothers and sons, school communities, Indonesia, Garuda Indonesia Flight 200, memoir, modern history, travel, family bonding, wild gardening.