Australian Story Season 18 Episode 25

There but for Fortune

This week's program is about a man who's made a big name in London but is little known back in Australia. Richard Farleigh amassed an early fortune as a young gun in the financial markets and went on to star on a top-rating British television program. But what's remarkable about Farleigh is his background. He was one of a family of eleven children born to an itinerant, violent and alcoholic sheep shearer. Farleigh and several of his older siblings were removed by Welfare authorities to an orphanage and he was subsequently fostered. Initially diagnosed as 'backward', his luck changed when a school teacher recognised his abilities and became 'the first person that I felt really cared about me'. He excelled at maths and tournament chess and by his mid-thirties was a multi-millionaire business entrepreneur, moving to the UK five years ago. Now in his fifties, he has been back in Australia, retracing a past that he says continues to haunt him in ways he 'can't control'.