In this series Dr Sian Williams talks to people who have lived through extraordinary events that have set their lives on an entirely different course.This podcast is all about the human experience, how people deal with obstacles that turn their lives upside down. The journeys are not always straightforward and there are often some remarkable discoveries along the way.Would you like to appear on the podcast? Do you have an extraordinary story to tell? We'd love to hear from you: [email protected]
Latest episodes
-
28 min ↗
The courage to ask for help
When Trevor Yellon’s partner Drew was diagnosed with cancer they fought the illness together. After all, Trevor was a doctor. He was uniquely equipped to deal it. But the strain on…
-
29 min ↗
Triumph for a medical guinea pig
Laurie Peake loved the outdoors, provided it involved speed. She had discovered a passion for skiing in Canada, and back home in England she loved water-skiing, dancing and motorbi…
-
28 min ↗
From gym workout to world champion
Anna Bailey had lived a busy life. An IT professional, cat breeder and national cat show judge, she was also prone to bouts of depression. But approaching her 50th birthday, she ru…
-
29 min ↗
I fell 900ft to the ground - and survived
Growing up in a military family, it was no surprise when Rob Bugden decided to join the RAF. Despite professing that he had no head for heights, he trained to become a parachute in…
-
29 min ↗
40 years to find my birth father
Growing up, Karine Burns always knew she was adopted, and that her mother had been sent over to the UK from Ireland. Karine had a joyous childhood, loved dearly by her Scottish par…
-
29 min ↗
I fled for my life at 16 to escape the Iranian regime
In an interview recorded before the recent conflict between Israel, the USA and Iran, but after the reprisals following the public protests against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Dr…
-
29 min ↗
The agony of losing my son in Nottingham attack
In the first programme of a new series of Life Changing, Emma Webber, whose son Barnaby was killed in the 2023 Nottingham attack, talks with openness and candour about the very per…
-
29 min ↗
Turning trauma into award-winning art
As a young man, engineer Michael Ashcroft was plagued by excruciating headaches, along with neck pain and a rushing sound in his ear. Eventually scans were made revealing a tumour…
-
29 min ↗
A long wait for justice
When Jess Martinez was just thirteen, she was sexually abused by her sister's much older boyfriend. No charges were brought at the time, but the impact it had on Jess's life was dr…
-
29 min ↗
Two Days Underground
When highly experienced caver George Linanne fell during an expedition in the massive Ogof Ffynnon Ddu cave system in Wales , he wondered whether he would ever reach the surface. W…
-
28 min ↗
Camel Tours and Sliding Doors
Jacqui Furneaux had enjoyed a happy marriage, bringing up two daughters and working as a nurse. Sadly, the marriage broke down, and feeling guilty, Jacqui decided to get out of peo…
-
29 min ↗
I shook hands with the man who nearly killed me
It was a summer evening in 2014, when four men barged into Paul Kohler’s family home and began a savage assault on him. They believed erroneously that he had a large amount of mone…
-
29 min ↗
Lost at sea
In 1975, Richard Dailey was the victim of a freak wave that swept him overboard from the vessel he was working on in the North Sea. His daughter Angie was just five years old - and…
-
29 min ↗
A traumatised veteran’s unlikely saviour
Like so many who serve, Falklands veteran Geoff Stear took trauma away with him - in his case a very particular reaction to the smell of meat. It was so powerful and debilitating t…
-
14 min ↗
Introducing Half-Life from The History Podcast
Reading his great-grandfather's memoir, Joe Dunthorne discovers a disturbing confession
-
29 min ↗
The Vicar of Bray's Daughter
In her early twenties Carol Cairns, the daughter of a priest in Ireland, had a passionate affair with a young bohemian poet called Benedict Ryan. In the Dublin of the 1960s, their…
-
29 min ↗
The Singing Bus Driver
Phillip Browne was born into a large and loving Windrush generation family in Birmingham. Church and singing were an important part of his upbringing, and when he struggled at scho…
-
29 min ↗
The Yachtsman Survivor
Robin Elsey Webb is a young and already very successful yachtsman with a dream of tackling the famous Vendee Globe, the single-handed round the world yacht race. But his plans were…
-
29 min ↗
The Great Escape
As a bright adventurous 16 year-old, Angela Tilley was thrilled to get a job in a busy London office. But after a year's unwanted attention from one of her co-workers, attention th…
-
29 min ↗
The Reluctant Hero
Husband and father, Larry O’Brien, loved the freedom his job as a long-distance lorry driver gave him. But on March 6th 1987, that freedom was almost lost in the horror of the Zeeb…