AMANDA KELLER : "I'm okay with being 60"

She's hit the big 6-0, seen the last of her children leave home and is settling into life as an empty-nester alongside her husband of 31 years. But while she once thought this would signify the beginning of the end, for Amanda Keller it is actually the beginning of an exciting third act.

- TIFFANY DUNK

Harley Oliver vividly remembers the day, in 1987, when he first set eyes on his future wife. The tenacious blonde had cut her television teeth as a researcher on children’s magazine show Simon Townsend’s Wonder World!, defying the rule of never working with animals and children. Yet a small submarine was something she hadn’t counted on.

Auditioning for a reporting role on Beyond 2000, Amanda Keller was wedged into a tiny two-man submarine, readying to make the ascent from the choppy waters. Harley, a producer on the show, was one of several gathering to see how she fared. “The lid was lifting up and there was Amanda desperately trying to remember what her piece to camera was going to be,” he laughs of what would prove to be his introduction to the woman he would wed in 1989. “And all she could do was vomit over the side as the thing bounced around the harbour. It attracted quite a crowd in the viewing room! But she was pushing through it. She was being a brave soldier – and that’s what she is like.”

Certainly, as Amanda sits down to chat with The Weekly, it seems like a fitting description. It’s just gone 9.30 on a Wednesday morning, and Lismore has just been hit with the start of the devastating floods that will decimate homes and towns, taking lives along the way. She’s clutching a strong cup of tea – one of many that have fuelled her through three hours of live breakfast radio, sharing updates while listeners have called in to describe the escalating horror. As we enter, she somehow pushes that to the side, determined to give her all for this interview, despite a difficult morning.