Lisa Millar is the co-host of ABC News Breakfast, a regular guest presenter on Back Roads and the author of a memoir, Daring to Fly. But her most delightful job is as the narrator of Muster Dogs, the ABC program that follows five graziers as they train border collie puppies to be champions. That heartwarming reality show returns for a second season on 14 January.
Millar’s first taste of journalism came as a child, when she’d interview her father, the National party MP Clarrie Millar, at home in country Queensland. Here the journalist and presenter tells us about how she cherishes the tapes of their conversations, as well as the story of two other important personal belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
A triathlon medal. I’d gone back to the US to be a foreign correspondent there for the second time in 2009. Everything was different to the first posting a few years earlier. I was divorced and single and I’d finally overcome the terrible fear of flying that had controlled my life for more than a decade. It was so liberating to jump on and off planes without wanting to vomit from the fear of it. What I hadn’t counted on was the empowerment I felt at having taken on a fear and beating it. I thought I was Wonder Woman.
So when a friend asked if I’d do an Olympic distance triathlon, I said: “Sure!” Except I’d never ridden a racing bike with cleats and I didn’t know how to swim properly. There’s a swim coach in Washington DC who is probably still recovering from the time we spent together.
It took eight months of training to get me to the start line but I made it. And even better, I got across the finish line. Just. It was so wet and muddy I did most of the cycling leg not being able to clip in properly and by the time I got to the run, friends – who had come to cheer me on – were running alongside me to keep me moving.
When I look at the medal it’s so much more than finishing a triathlon. It’s about facing fears and the incredible feeling when you’ve achieved something that was way beyond your capabilities.
My most useful object
How did I live to this age without having a pair of bamboo toast tongs with a magnet that attaches to the side of the toaster?
I’m a toast burner from way back. It’s hereditary. No one could burn toast like Mum. She did it deliberately because she loved the taste. The thick slathering of Vegemite she added was pretty much the same colour as the toast. I’m less intent about the amount of cooking my bread requires but, for whatever reason, it does end up well done. I’ve always pulled the toaster out of the wall and jammed a knife in, prodding around until it all came free.
The wooden tongs are genius – a gift from a friend who clearly has more experience in this area (or is more safety conscious when it comes to knives and electricity).
The item I most regret losing
When I was 10 I interviewed my father. I was the reporter with the cassette recorder and I put on what I thought was a proper voice, or at least the kind of voice I’d heard on the ABC, which was one of two channels we had access to in country Queensland.
I’d been trying out my skills on other family members for a few years, including my younger sister who, every time she opened her mouth, would face another rapid-fire question from me. I asked Dad something about the Berlin Olympics in 1936 but clearly had no idea what I was talking about. Dad patiently answered, trying to explain to a child what was going on in Nazi Germany. In the end I said, “Thanks Clarrie, we’ve run out of time,” and shut the interview down.
I had the cassette for years in storage but, as I moved from city to city, I lost track of it. I was sad because Dad had died and I’d thought it would have been lovely to have. When I started writing my memoir in 2020 I made one last effort to find it. And I did. So I’m cheating a little here in that it was something I regretted losing very much and has made me appreciate the things you want to hang on to. I had it digitised, and now I can listen to my little inquiring voice and Dad’s patience at the tap of a button.
Muster Dogs season two starts 14 January at 7.30pm on ABC and iView
