Bob Carr on grief and 'the left-over life' after his wife's death

Bob Carr has done hard jobs before. He was premier of NSW for 10 years, and later served as foreign minister under Julia Gillard's government. But when his beloved wife, Helena, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm in 2023, he faced the hardest job of his life – learning how to live without her. Carr worked through his deep shock and sadness by obsessively walking the Sydney streets he once presided over as premier, often weeping as he did so. He knows he made his friends uncomfortable by talking too much about Helena's death at dinner parties. The silence of their shared Maroubra home was unbearable. Carr joins us to discuss his grief memoir, Bring Back Yesterday , about the loss of Helena and scrounging his way forward into what he calls "the left-over life" – a life still full of pleasures like reading, opera and the foam of a wave on your face as you enter the ocean. Today's episode is hosted by Sydney Morning Herald senior writer and columnist Jacqueline Maley .

You can listen to Bob Carr on grief and 'the left-over life' after his wife's death online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Bob Carr on grief and 'the left-over life' after his wife's death is an episode from Good Weekend Talks by Good Weekend.

This episode is 39:04 long.

This episode was published on Mar 13, 2026.

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