The Goldster Conversations Podcast

We may think of ‘globalism’ as a recent development, but its origins date back centuries,  when courageous seafarers pioneered routes across the oceans with the objectives of exploration, trade and profits. Improvements in ship design, compasses and mapping, enabled navigation across unprecedented distances. The embarkation points were the vibrant ports of the West – Venice, Amsterdam, Lisbon – and their destinations the exotic ports of the East – Malacca, Goa, Bombay – where they tracked down the elusive spices. 

This development of maritime communication brought benefits apart from culinary delights: the spread of ideas on art, literature and science. But it was not beneficial...

George Mehok is an exciting mix between thriller author, software designer and angel investor for new companies working on the edge of our technological revolution. His debut novel, Going Dark, skillfully keeps us on the edge of our seats. He weaves today’s most challenging issues with threads back to 1791 and a secret military unit tasked with delivering a secret message to Thomas Jefferson that altered the trajectory of the War of Independence against Britain.

In Going Dark, that same secret unit, generations later, is tasked with an equally pivotal mission. George feeds into his story-telling real-life experiences wo...

TJ Halbertsma is the living equivalent of Superman – one moment Clark Kent; in a suit and tie, commuting to work in an office, in his own words, “just an ordinary guy”. Next, spinning through an imaginary revolving door and you find the same person achieving extraordinary feats. From climbing some of the most notoriously dangerous mountains such as the Eiger and Denali, to crossing the English Channel on a stand-up paddleboard, walking to both Poles and ‘escaping’ from Alcatrez. 

Success hasn’t always come easily and the author extols the virtues of grit, resilience and commitment. In his book,‘Many Wo...

The term ‘rat-race’ was coined long before we had smartphones and social media. It has even more meaning today when we’re at risk of becoming rats in a worldwide laboratory, monitored and manipulated by technology giants and artificial intelligence.  Therefore, it is even more important to take control of our own minds father than let other do it for you. Michael Hutchinson shows the way through yoga, with a combination of bodywork, breathwork and attention, a concept often referred to as mindfulness.

Michael trained under a late renowned teacher, TKV Desikachar in the 1980s when yoga was just be...

Craig Brown’ latest book A Voyage Around the Queen not only became an immediate best-seller, but also gathered praise for being a unique, deep and thought-provoking portrayal of the late Queen Elizabeth and the monarchy. Craig is best known as a humourist for Private Eye and the Mail whose tools of the trade are usually sharp lines and throwaway wisecracks. Craig has written eighteen books including Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret and One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time where he wraps his satirist’s eyes around the iconic treasures of our age. 

In A Voyage...

With great panache, Kim Lengling explains hope, kindness, fear and that slate of emotions that weave their way through all our lives.  Her podcast is called Let Fear Bounce. Among her many books are Nuggets of Hope: Cultivate Kindness and Paw Prints on the Couch: How Pets Enrich Lives. Her office manager is called Dexter, a loyal hound who barks at squirrels and birds and remind the boss when to take a break. Very often that will be to appear as a guest on the Voices for Vets show of her local radio. 

One of Kim’s missions is t...

Dr Orit Gal is an entrepreneur, advisor, and senior lecturer in Strategy & Complexity at Regent’s University London. She specialises in analysing trends and identifying potential for systemic change within complex environments. Her extensive experience includes collaborations with tech startups, non-government organisation, innovative policy think-tanks, and corporate market research. Her current research focuses on the future of cities, exploring the interplay between technological efficiency, social friction, and the inherent serendipity of urban life. Having the opportunity to closely observe decision-makers operating in messy, dynamic, and highly complex environments, she has focused her work on exploring the intersection between complexity science an...

Mihir Bose face and voice became known to millions after he won the job as the BBC’s first non-white sports editor building on his earlier reputation as a sports correspondent on The Telegraph and Sunday Times. Among his latest books is Thank You Mr Crombie – a tribute to the Home Office official who allowed him to settle in Britain and pursue his career and dream. Mihir compellingly tells how Britain has taken enormous strides to create a multi-racial society since the days in the Sixties when landlords refused to rent him a room. 

Another recent book is Dream...

Angela van Breemen is a soprano soloist, a poet, a wildlife activist and she has just published her first novel. For those Goldster creative writers, how does that feel?  Past Life’s Revenge is a crime thriller with a twist of surrealism. Since childhood, David Harris has suffered from debilitating nightmares. He has sought the advice of psychiatrists and other health professionals without obtaining any relief. When he meets an attractive young psychic, Emma Jackson, she encourages him to seek the help of her friend Anna Tungsten, a hypnotherapist. As the story unfolds from here, David realises he had to exa...

No, the world is not broken. Gloom can be conquered. As for those headline stories about the young going astray, homelessness, prison overcrowding, come and meet Goldster’s light that shines through fog. The charity work of the magnificent and bubbly Eva Hamilton stretches from Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying in Calcutta when she was in her twenties to founding Key4Life which helps thousands serving time in some of Britain’s most dangerous prisons.   Eva and her colleagues have turned around lives of the most vulnerable young men, many raised without a father and challenged by poor mental...

On 12 November, Lucinda Hawksley will be joined on the Goldster Magazine Show by Laura Payne, host of the highly-acclaimed The Dreamboat Podcast. Laura, a psychotherapist with a passion for uncovering the mysteries of our minds, has become one of the leading voices in dream research. The Dreamboat Podcast explores the fascinating world of dreams, delving deep into the science, psychology, and personal stories behind what happens when we close our eyes at night.

From lucid dreaming to recurring nightmares, The Dreamboat Podcast invites listeners to explore the deeper meanings of their nightly adventures, showing how dreams can be...

Austin Williams is an architect, author and podcaster who imagines our society and cities far into the future. For many years he has worked closely with Baroness Claire Fox at the Academy of Ideas, organising regular weekend-long events of debate, argument and fun. He is frequently a contradictory voice on a range of issues from climate change, sustainability and development.  As one critic noted, "Austin Williams has a gift for lobbing well-directed grenades."  


Much of Austin’s latest writing has been examining how China is building cities and societies. His books include New Chinese Architecture: Twenty Women Buil...

“A terrific overview of Japan’s long and rich history that covers an astonishing amount of ground. A gem of a book that is as engaging as it is readable.” Peter Frankopan


This week on the Goldster Magazine Show, Lucinda Hawksley will be joined by author Lesley Downer who will take us on a captivating journey into the heart of one of Asia’s most enigmatic countries, via her latest book, The Shortest History of Japan. 

Zen, haiku, martial arts, sushi, anime, manga, film, video games ... Japanese culture has long enriched our Western way of life. Yet...

Peter Abrahams is fascinated in the human body.  As a young man he worked with the Peace Corp in the jungles of Sarawak, went on to train as a doctor, planned to become a surgeon but got side-tracked into writing a ground-breaking book, praised by his medical peers: Clinical Anatomy of Practical Procedures. He has taught and researched around the world, a pioneer in explaining how our body is pieced together. His work includes an Apple App, Aspects of Anatomy, used worldwide by medical students and doctors. He has been designing 3D anatomy for downloading onto mobile phones as well a...

How do we place a value on happiness?  Can we measure our sense of well-being and fulfilment through science? Richard Layard is founder and former director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. He has been editor of the annual World Happiness Report which examines the state of happiness at various stages of life. Richard’s latest co-authored book is Wellbeing: Science and Policy which uses science to establish what matters most to us. The book shows how well-being can be scientifically measured, what creates it and how feeling good it can be made even bet...

Psychotherapist Jennifer Cox believes that women are never allowed to truly express their anger, and this is making them ill.  After a lifetime of being told to repress it, to hide away and fear it, anger has begun to manifest in female bodies in myriad ways that cannot be controlled. Do you agree? Jennifer has drawn her conclusions from talking to women from all walks of life and ages in her work as a therapist. The tendency of women to shrug off anger and not make a fuss is dangerous because an autoimmune condition ravages and, she witnesses the devastation d...

Until last year, Professor Alf Collins was NHS England’s Clinical Director for personalised care. His mission in health and well-being is to build around an individual’s needs bringing in shared decision-making, care planning, self-management support, social prescribing and that Goldster concept of ‘rethinking medicine.”  Alf worked for a decade with the Health Foundation, helping lead applied research and implementation programmes in person-centred care.

He has researched and written widely on the changing the relationship between patients and healthcare professionals and he led on the NHS’s implementation of ‘Universal Personalised Care’ one of key initiatives to change thinking...

Iain McGilchrist is a leading psychiatrist with a vast body of work and connections around the world. In his latest book The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, Iain asks blunt questions that rattle around in many of our minds. Who are we? What is the world? How can we understand consciousness, matter, space and time? Is the cosmos without purpose or value? Can we really neglect the sacred and divine? He knows how different sides of our brain work to feed into what is our character, our emotions and each of us...

“My son’s death will never make sense to me. But it has taught me that it’s possible to find meaning, collectively and individually, in the loss of what we love.” Liz Jensen


On 3 September, Lucinda Hawksley was joined by Liz Jensen, the best-selling author of eight novels including The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, which was adapted by Hollywood into a box-office feature film starring Jamie Dornan. Before becoming a full-time novelist, Liz Jensen was a print and radio journalist in Hong Kong and Taiwan. She then spent four years as a freelance writer, translator and scul...

We rely on our doctors as a first port of call if we feel sick or down and, very often, the last port of call toward life’s end for ourselves or our loved ones. But what is really going through our doctors’ minds? How do they cope with the stress and trauma in their everyday working lives?   

Betsy Gall is a widow who was once living the American dream. Married to an oncologist with three healthy children, she was living a great life. That all changed on Thanksgiving Day of 2019 when her husband took his own life. Dr Mat...

Sarah Stacey is one of the most knowledgeable and connected journalists in the field of health and well-being. Back in the 1990s, she detected a paradigm shift in healthcare toward lifestyle, nutrition and generally healthier living that prevented sickness rather than tackle it once it took grip. First at the Telegraph, as long-time health editor of the Mail-on-Sunday and at the Express, Sarah reported on how patients’ health concerns were often triggered by non-medical factors; housing, debt, loneliness, anxiety, lack of exercise, poor diet and as one doctor put it ‘joylessness’.  In 1994, she became the first chair of the Guild of Heal...

Tim Eggebraaten is a retired police chief whose advice to all around is to identify the rhythm unique to each of us and use the gifts we have for the good of people around us. It’s a tactic that wins every time, he says – looking for our beat.  The course of our lives can be made better with the thinking: “I am. I can. I will.”  Tim sees himself as a messenger of optimism.  With a bundle of heartwarming stories and practical wisdom, he reveals how he finds beauty amidst the chaos and the resilience within.  In conversation with Humphrey Haw...

Are you living intentionally, with purpose and passion? Are you embracing the flame that ignites within you, or are you evading it? Will your future self be proud of your story, or do you yearn for something more? John R. Miles is the creator of Passion Struck: Twelve Powerful Principles to Unlock Your Purpose and Ignite Your Most Intentional Life, delving into the heart of what it means to live a life fuelled by passion and purpose. John runs the Passion Struck podcast, described by critics as a leading platform on debating alternative health initiatives, much centred around our...

Health and well-being specialist, Professor Robert L Kilpatrick, has spent a career working on the science around preventative healthcare and well-being.  He is a founding partner at Technology Vision Group LLC which advises clients on strategic development issues. His two current projects are a book The Future of Human Care: Health Innovation and Social Impact and a six-part documentary film and book,  Paradigm Shift: A Wellness Revolution. As a Strategic Development Advisor to Scientific American in New York City, Robert helped create a media project The New Science of Wellness, which was sponsored by Google and Phenome Health.  He is now...

As Britain's best-known headmaster, Sir Anthony Seldon famously introduced happiness, or well-being, lessons at his school, Wellington College. In 2011, he co-founded Action for Happiness, a body to raise awareness of the discovery of happiness and reduction of depression, whose influence is growing rapidly in Britain and across the world.  He is the author of Beyond Happiness: How to find lasting meaning and joy in all that you have' where lays out the difference between pleasure, happiness and joy, and offers an original 8-step approach on how to make our lives far more meaningful and rewarding. The pursuit of happiness can a...

If you are alive and breathing, you are growing no matter what you believe or what is happening. Embracing yourself as who you are is a key factor in being able to move anything forward, an empowered manifestation of the honest YOU. Such is the Goldster Conversation we will be having with the great Glenda Benevides, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter who has now written a book called Courage: Find Your Fire and Ignite Your Action in Life.  Critics have described is a sweet step-by-step coaching book. It coaches you to find yourself and to be you. 

This writer writes in...

Jane Corry is a writer and journalist who has spent time working as the writer in residence of a high security prison for men - an experience that helped inspire her Sunday Times bestselling novels. Before taking up the post, Jane had never been inside a prison and says that the experience “really opened up my eyes. Initially I was terrified about doing the job but as soon as I started, I was hooked. Here was another world. I’d always thought that prisoners were simply “born bad,” but I soon found that some had committed crimes because of messed-up childhoo...

What does it mean to be human?  Here is a question many of us ask ourselves and from it comes thoughts about morality, freedom, good and evil, ambition, passion, religion and more. Peter Hacker is a leading philosopher, unafraid at slaying myths. He has written four books about human nature, looking deeply into the neuroscience of how we all think and live.   They deal with many of these issues that turn in our minds throughout our lives and are the culmination of half a century of studying and teaching philosophy.

His latest is simply called The Moral Powers: A...

All of us, at some stage, find ourselves faced with impossible choices or in some form of conflict from which there seems no way out. The choices we make affect our families, the  people we love and our lives. Rebecca Tinsley understands these challenges first-hand from her life helping others in the developing world. Her passion for fairness and her personal mission to end suffering began as a teenager when she campaigned against South Africa’s apartheid. Sinc then she has worked as a journalist and lawyer on war and human rights drawing lessons that stretch from Auschwitz to Bosnia to...

We all see news headlines and wonder about our future -- war in Europe and the Middle East and the rise of China.  Many worry or don’t watch it. But what can each of us do to help keep us as safe as can be. Sir Julian Brazier is a former government minister and a scholar in Maths and Philosophy from Oxford. He served for thirteen years as an officer in the Territorial Army, including five with the Special Forces. He is chairman of a security company, and a distinguished fellow of Royal United Services Institute.  He is active in d...

Dr James Ray is Emergency Medicine Consultant at Oxford University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Clinical Governance Lead for NHS 111 in Oxfordshire. His main current interest is to improve the urgent care pathway by making it as accessible as possible without compromising safety and effectiveness to improve the patient experience. His aim is to spread out the workload across services, encourage team working throughout providers and continue to develop the workforce needed for the ever-increasing demand. James is an advocate of all doctors and nurses, from all backgrounds, whether primary or secondary care, working together with the sole aim of...

Being understood is a basic human need. We all have a right to express our voice.  But conscious efforts are often needed to put over our viewpoint. Kendra Dodd specialises in removing barriers that divide us. In these current troubling times, we need to understand better our own inner core and perspective, as well as that of others who may think very differently. We need to work on unifying and learning how to step into the shoes of others. Kendra Q Dodd teaches how this can be done in our community, family and at work. Her new book Perspectives: Building m...

Exposing the Hospital Myth: NHS Boss on True Health. Insights from Lord Nigel Crisp, Former Head of the NHS

Are you feeling trapped in a cycle of hospital visits? Join us for a candid discussion with Lord Nigel Crisp, the former head of the NHS, as he sheds light on what it truly means to achieve optimal health. In this episode, we uncover the limitations of hospital-centric care and delve into often overlooked strategies for enhancing well-being from the comfort of your own home.

Join us to learn:

- Why hospitals may not always...

A very special Inside Story brings together Goldster Conversations’ two founding hosts Lucinda and Humphrey Hawksley in both a Zoom and in-person audience event at Kingfisher Wharf, Riverstone, Fulham. Three years ago, at the height of the pandemic, with millions isolated and alone, Goldster founder Mike Reid had a vision: What if he could deliver activities, social interaction, community and stimulus straight into people’s homes. With his experience in health and well-being, Mike did exactly that to make Goldster the brilliant success story it is today. His plan included a Book Club to encourage discussion and reading. This became Gold...

High-stakes casinos, black market gambling, Formula One racing, drug trade espionage, shipping piracy, sports fixing and a cast of intriguing characters created by Doug Stewart . One of the most compelling is Insp. Todd “Ratso” Holtom, whose latest adventure Deadly Hush is published at the end of February; a serial killer on the loose leaving a playing card with each victim. All of the above comes from imagination of a distinguished lawyer who has worked courts and cases of London, Las Vegas and beyond. Doug is part-time chair of the Isle of Man Employment Tribunal and, now in his early eighties, he i...

Join Lucinda Hawksley for the final Inside Story, with special guest Karim Alrawi, who will be joining us very early in the morning his time, from Canada. Karim grew up in both of his parents’ countries: England and Egypt. His experiences of both countries’ literary heritages have made him a superb writer, able to master several genres. 
Karim’s first produced work was a radio play submitted, when at university, to a BBC competition. After graduating, he became a playwright, literary manager of the Theatre Royal Stratford East, and resident writer at London’s Royal Court Theatre. His plays have won...

Juliet Campbell was the first of Britain’s pioneering female ambassadors -- ‘An inspiration for those with ambition to make a difference in the world’, says diplomat, Karen Pierce, Britain’s current ambassador to the United States. In Playing Britannia Juliet tells her story through letters and diaries she kept at the time. Besieged in a chateau with the Queen, looping the loop in a jet and meeting top Chinese Generals in the Great Hall of the People became everyday stuff for Juliet, who rose to be Ambassador to Luxembourg and went on to be appointed Mistress of Girton College, Cambridg...

Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie, and Sylvia Plath are three of our most famous authors. In her new book, Rachel Trethewey tells the story of the remarkable mothers who shaped these amazing women, through first-hand testimony and rigorous research.

Julia Stephen, Clara Miller, and Aurelia Plath were fascinating women in their own rights, and their relationships with their daughters were exceptional; they profoundly influenced the writers’ lives, literature, and attitude to feminism. Mothers of the Mind charts their complex, often contradictory, bond and offers a new perspective.

Rachel Trethewey read History at Oxford University, where she won th...

Michael Muthukrishna is a psychological and behavioural science specialist at the London School of Economics. Drawing on the most recent research across the sciences, humanities, and the emerging field of cultural evolution, Michael paints a panoramic picture of who we are and exactly what makes human beings different from all other forms of life on the planet. He argues that it is our unique ability to create culture, a shared body of knowledge, skills, and experience passed on from generation to generation that has enabled our current dominance.But it is only by understanding and applying the laws of life...

Amanda Craig is the author of nine novels, including her latest book, The Three Graces – which is about three friends in their 80s, who have retired to Tuscany, where they must stop one grandchild from a disaster wedding, redeem another and save a life… 

A State-of-the-Nation novelist whose work has been compared to that of Dickens, Trollope, E.M. Forster and Kate Atkinson, Amanda combines strong, interlinked characters and plots involving crime, romance, social comedy and satire about modern life. Two of her recent novels, Hearts and Minds and The Golden Rule were long-listed for the Women's Prize for F...