ABC’s Chief International Correspondent James Longman talks to BBC Security correspondent Frank Gardiner about the challenges of being a foreign correspondent, and about his book ‘The Inherited Mind’.

James started his career as a ‘stringer’ in Syria. He was in Damascus studying Arabic when the war broke out. The British and American networks couldn’t get their journalists into the country, but he was right there, and already plugged into the activist networks, so the BBC quickly offered him a job.

That was the start of a career as a foreign correspondent that has seen him all over the world, reporting on conflicts such as the war in Ukraine. His ‘patch’ for ABC news, where he has worked for the past eight years, covers “everything outside America.”

James was at boarding school when his dad, who was diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia, died by suicide. In ‘The Inherited Mind’, James looks at the science of mental health, how much is inherited and how much is environmental, using stories from his own life experience.

Frank Gardiner is the BBC’s Security Correspondent. Also an Arabist, he was Middle East correspondent when he was seriously injured in an attack by al-Qaida gunmen. He is also the author of several books, both fiction and non-fiction.

Frank Gardiner talks to James Longman for The Chiswick Calendar's Media Club on Wednesday 12 February at 7pm in the Boston Room of George IV pub in Chiswick.