Playlist: Richard Fidler's Portfolio
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Conversations 101: Gill Hicks
From Richard Fidler | Part of the Conversations with Richard Fidler series | 53:35
Richard Fidler's conversation with Gill Hicks, survivor of the 2005 London Underground bombings.
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- Conversations 101: Gill Hicks
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- Richard Fidler
Richard Fidler talks with Gill Hicks, survivor of the 2005 London Underground bombings.
Gill Hicks was living in London in 2005. One morning she boarded a train on the Picadilly Line. Right next to her in that crowded carriage was a man who was carrying a bomb.
As the bomb detonated, Gill felt as though she was being enveloped in inky blackness. When the emergency lights came on she saw her legs and feet were shattered.
Gill heard two insistent voices in her head: one was female, inviting her to surrender into the peace of death. The other voice was male, demanding that she choose to live.
As Gill waited for help to come, she made a contract with herself to survive. But as she now says, she wasn't fully aware of the 'fine print'.
Today Gill has become close friends with the many police officers and medical staff who saved her life. She says the kindnesses she received from complete strangers is much more important to her than the hateful attack on herself and her fellow passengers.
(Edited for a US audience)
Conversations 102: Andrew Westoll
From Richard Fidler | Part of the Conversations with Richard Fidler series | 53:26
A conversation with Andrew Westoll, who worked in a sanctuary for 'retired' chimpanzees: former pets, circus animals or subjects for medical research.
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- Conversations 102: Andrew Westoll
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- Richard Fidler
Andrew Westoll is a writer and a former primatologist.
He worked for a while in a sanctuary for chimpanzees in Canada; this was a kind of retirement home for chimps that had once been kept as pets or used as circus animals or as subjects for medical research experiments.
Andrew watched these chimps recover from the trauma of their earlier lives, and he was astonished when some scientists came visiting, looking for forgiveness from their former subjects.
He also saw what happened when some of the chimps managed to escape their quarters and invade the human spaces in the sanctuary.
Conversations 103: Ian Brown
From Richard Fidler | Part of the Conversations with Richard Fidler series | 53:26
A conversation with journalist Ian Brown, author of 'The Boy in the Moon'. Ian Brown talks about life with his son Walker; born with an extremely rare genetic mutation that holds him at the developmental level of a two year old child.
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- Conversations 103: Ian Brown
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- Richard Fidler
Ian Brown is a feature writer with Toronto's Globe & Mail.
Ian is one of Canada's most respected journalists; a guy who was often seen as a brilliant but somewhat difficult man. Then the birth of his son Walker completely up-ended the life of his whole family.
Walker was born with an extremely rare genetic abnormality: as he grows bigger as he gets older, but developmentally he remains at the level of a two-year-old child.
Walker's must wear cuffs to restrain him from hitting himself. To get to sleep he often needs to be held and sung to. Ian and his wife spent a decade without adequate sleep.
Ian confesses there were moments where he seriously questioned the value of surrendering so much time and energy for a boy whose life seems so constrained. But even so, he says Walker has brought him moments of almost perfect grace and peace.
Conversations 108: Richard de Crespigny
From Richard Fidler | Part of the Conversations with Richard Fidler series | 53:29
A conversation with Richard de Crespigny, the pilot in command of flight QF 32 out of Singapore, when one of its engines exploded, crippling the flight systems and terrifying the 440 passengers on board.
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- Conversations 108: Richard de Crespigny
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- Richard Fidler
Richard de Crespigny is a senior pilot with Qantas, an airline that prides itself on its safety record.
One morning in November 2010, he was the pilot in command of a brand new Airbus A380 jet out of Singapore, carrying 440 passengers and 29 crew.
Just minutes after take-off, one of the plane's jet engines exploded, and fragments tore through the fuselage like shrapnel, crippling the flight systems.
Richard de Crespigny knew something had gone badly wrong, that everyone's life was in serious danger, but the true nature of the accident was unknowable while the plane was in the air.
As the system failures piled up, he realised he needed to focus on what was working instead of on what wasn't. Meanwhile the cabin crew were keeping a close eye on the startled passengers to stop panic breaking out.
The world watched the crisis unfold in real time: within minutes of the explosion, shattered engine pieces crashed onto a Pacific island. Images of the debris were tweeted to the world and then picked up by cable news networks. The CEO of Qantas was alerted to the crisis when he was told the share price had suddenly tanked . All this within 15 minutes of the explosion.
Richard brought the crippled plane to the ground successfully, but at some personal cost to himself.