📚 EXCLUSIVE CHAT | Lisa Wilkinson's Chronicle of the Only Australian Titanic Survivor

Susie O'Neill (0:05)

I'm very excited with our next guest now, Lisa Wilkinson, because we're in conversation this Sunday afternoon at the Powerhouse.

David Lutteral (0:11)

Yeah, I'm trying to, I don't know if I'll be back from Melbourne, but I'm amazed. This is going to be fantastic. 4.3 at the Powerhouse.

Susie O'Neill (0:17)

Yeah, her book, The Titanic Story of Evelyn, which is a female perspective on the sinking of the Titanic and the only Australian survivor from Titanic.

David Lutteral (0:25)

What a story.

Susie O'Neill (0:26)

But just quickly before I get you on, Lisa, I wanted to go over your resume really fast, which is difficult because you've got a very, very, very long resume.

David Lutteral (0:33)

We'll say good morning first.

Lisa Wilkinson (0:34)

Good morning, Lisa. Yes, good morning, Lisa. Good morning guys. The reason I've got a very, very, very long resume is because I'm very, very, very old.

Susie O'Neill (0:43)

And you started very, very, very young. You're the youngest editor at Dolly at 21

Lisa Wilkinson (0:49)

Amazing. Amazing. Then you went to Clio.

Susie O'Neill (0:51)

Clio, you were there for over 10 years. Then you went to Australian Women's Weekly.

Obviously, Beauty and the Beast, you're on TV. Today Show for over 11 years. Then you went to The Project. You think you'd want to rest after all that, wouldn't you? But to write a couple of books, your memoir wasn't meant to be like this, which was a bestseller.

David Lutteral (1:10)

Yeah, it's huge.

Lisa Wilkinson (1:11)

Thank you. I did feel like I needed a rest. And I thought, I really need to write a book that's 570 pages long about the only Australian survivor on the Titanic. And to be honest, I have loved every job I've ever had. But this was an absolute privilege, not only to even discover that there was an Australian survivor on the Titanic. I didn't even know there were any Australians on there.

David Lutteral (1:37)

No.

Lisa Wilkinson (1:38)

But this was a story and a woman who was almost lost to history. No one knew anything of her existence. And turns out she was this kick-ass 28 year old nurse from the backblocks of South Australia and the life that she lived was extraordinary. And at the center of it all is the most incredible love story that in the end is going to make you feel so good and then it's going to break your heart.

Susie O'Neill (2:07)

I concur with all that. It is like when I got the book, Lisa, it's very thick. Did you say it's 500 pages?

But I could not put it down. I thought I knew the story of Titanic.

David Lutteral (2:17)

Truly Lisa, she was coming in every day saying, this book is so good, I can't stop reading it.

Lisa Wilkinson (2:22)

Oh, thank you. It's an incredible story.

David Lutteral (2:25)

I think also that you think of the Titanic, Lisa, like in saying what you thought, we think we know the story. I guess every single person on the Titanic had a completely different view of how it happened. Any survivors certainly would have a different story because everyone's story was completely different. Obviously, why they're on it, where they were going, things like that as well.

Lisa Wilkinson (2:48)

Yeah, and there's so many amazing stories. And like you guys, I've seen James Cameron's movies. We know Jack and Rose. Exactly. And here's the thing, Jack and Rose weren't real, but Evelyn and the handsome ship doctor that she fell in love with, William James, they were real. And that was the first thing that blew my mind.

And she was actually a nurse stewardess in first class.

And what that gave us, what it gives us in me writing it and to the audience reading it, is that she was going in and out of so many spaces on the ship that your average passenger wouldn't see. So it gives an insight particularly into the extraordinary people who were in first class. And in fact, when I started working out, okay, I'm going to do this thing, and it's taken me two and a half years, is I thought, okay, I've got to watch every pod, watch every movie, documentary, listen to every podcast, read every book. And what I realized was, like so much of history, this is a story that's always been told from the male perspective. And there was so many amazing women on this ship, and their stories have never been collectively told. And so Evelyn sits at the center of that because she grew up in South Australia, which is only the second place on the planet, where women had the right to vote.