From Sunday 19 March, Indira Naidoo will begin a new job hosting the ABC’s long-running current affairs program Compass. Landing the gig is a “dream come true” for the veteran news host.
“It’s such a legendary program,” she says. “And Geraldine Doogue, who has been the longtime host of it, is someone I’ve personally admired for a long time.”
Naidoo has been a fixture on Australian screens for three decades, having reported for and anchored 7.30, ABC Late News and SBS World News. Her television career began in the early 90s, after she graduated from what’s now the University of South Australia and landed a cadetship at the ABC. While Naidoo spent her final year of high school in Adelaide, she was born in South Africa and raised between England, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Tasmania.
As a young child living in London, Naidoo was given a piece of jewellery, but later lost it in her moves. Here, she tells us how that very special brooch eventually came back to her, as well as the story of two other important personal belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
Last year I published a book called The Space Between The Stars, about the healing power of nature following the death of my younger sister during the lockdown. I wrote about going to visit a Moreton Bay fig tree in the botanic gardens when I was grieving, and how it helped me feel connected to my sister. A really good friend of mine did this amazing painting of me with my two younger sisters after she read it, under that fig tree.
It’s the most stunning image – it was exactly how I pictured my relationship with my sisters and this tree. And my friend, just from reading the book, has captured it. It has become very, very precious to me and hangs on the wall of my apartment. I’m not someone who has ever thought about taking anything with me when there’s a fire, but now I have this one thing I’d definitely grab on the way out.
My most useful object
I’ve got a reputation in my family for constantly burning toast. I never put the setting at the right place, I leave it in too long, and then the whole apartment smells like it’s on fire.
So one of my family members got me this pair of tongs that you can use to grab the bits of toast that are stuck at the bottom of the toaster, to save you from turning it upside down and shaking it for all those little crumbs. Whenever something gets stuck, or there’s a shorter bit of toast you can’t quite reach, you can just pop the tongs in and pull them out. And because they’re wooden, you don’t feel like you’re going to electrocute yourself! The toaster is also unplugged as a precaution.
It seems like a simple thing, but it has changed my life.
The item I most regret losing
It’s a lost and found story. When I was little, we were living in London and our neighbour was this beautiful woman called Mrs Petite, who would be our occasional babysitter. I developed a really close relationship with her. Before we left England to come to Australia, Mrs Petite gave me this little mouse brooch, which I loved as a five-year-old. I wore it all the time, I took it to school, it was with me everywhere that I went.
We moved around a lot, so I was a bit paranoid that eventually I would lose it. When I was about 13 and we came from Zimbabwe back to Australia, I thought I’d put it somewhere safe. Then when I emptied my bags, it was gone. It was lost and I was so devastated. I don’t generally get too attached to stuff – but this little brooch was so significant; it meant so much to me and I was just heartbroken.
Then, about seven years later, I was packing that same bag to take with me to university, opening up all the side pockets to put things in, and there it was! The brooch had always been sitting there. I couldn’t believe it – it was a miracle that I found it again. And I still have it to this day. It’s my oldest possession other than my birth certificate.
It’s a talisman for me now. Even though I don’t wear it very much, whenever I go into my jewellery box, I look at the brooch. It gives me this sense that things that you think you have lost will be found again. Things will come back to you if they’re meant to.
