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PODCAST

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC World Service

Lives Less Ordinary is a podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected. Each episode a guest shares their most dramatic, moving, personal story. Listen for unbelievable twists, mysteries uncovered, and inspiring journeys - spanning the entire human experience. Our guests come from every corner of the globe: from Burundi to Beverly Hills, New Zealand to North Korea, Rajasthan to

society & culture personal journals

All Episodes

42:23

The mortician, the "werewolf" and the keeper of brains

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/06/01

Alexandra Morton-Hayward unlocks the secrets of the human brain but her own betrays her. Every night Ally Morton-Hayward has a headache so painful it wakes her up. She says it makes her feel like a werewolf. But by day she's unlocking the secrets of other human brains. Ally was at university when she started feeling a shocking and extraordinary pain in her head - 'cluster headaches' - which became so debilitating she had to drop out. While the rest of her friends were finishing their degrees,

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37:11

José Mujica: Guerilla, president and occasional romantic

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/05/25

Remembering the former president of Uruguay: José 'Pepe' Mujica. He started life as a flower farmer on the outskirts of Montevideo. As a young man he became politically active, part of the left-wing guerilla group the Tupamaros, who were bent on revolution through armed struggle that involved bank heists and kidnappings. With the authorities on his tail Pepe was eventually captured, he was shot six times and later staged what became a record-breaking prison escape. When he was captured and

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33:27

The true story behind Brazil’s Oscar winner, I’m...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/05/18

Marcelo Rubens Paiva was 11 when armed men came and took his father away. Brazil was under a military dictatorship at the time. Marcelo's father was an opponent and was killed for it. His mother Eunice Paiva was now alone, raising five children. For decades she fought for answers from the state. She became a prominent lawyer and human rights defender and helped to set up Brazil's Truth Commission. But when Eunice started to develop Alzheimer's disease it fell to Marcelo, by now a successful author,

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38:55

The blind Holocaust survivor who caught a fugitive Nazi

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/05/11

Lothar Hermann found out his neighbour was ‘architect of the Holocaust’ Adolf Eichmann.Lothar Hermann’s German-Jewish family perished in the Holocaust, but when he escaped to Argentina, little did he know that within a few years a Nazi fugitive would wind up living at the end of his street. Lilianna Hermann spent two decades uncovering the story of a hidden family hero - her great uncle Lothar - only to find a shocking truth: it was Lothar who had played a vital role in capturing the notorious SS

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41:41

Searching for green in a concrete world

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/05/04

Kwesia X grew up in south-east London, surrounded by busy roads and tower blocks. As a teenager her mental health spiralled after a member of her family was killed, and she also lost a close friend to knife crime. Faced with a period of homelessness, Kwesia eventually turned to nature to find peace. Now she's working hard to bring the experience of the natural world to young people in the city, and they're often amazed by the plants and creatures living in the concrete jungle. You can find her

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39:12

Painting faces in search of myself and my mum

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/04/27

Juano Diaz was taken in to care aged six, his mother was battling alcoholism and he wasn't being cared for. But Juano missed his mum and with no photos of her, he became obsessed by drawing her face so he wouldn't forget her. He was later adopted by a strict Catholic and Romany Gypsy family but when he came out as gay he was asked to leave. Now down-and-out on the streets of Glasgow, with his life spiralling, he started to search for his mother again. He would scan faces in the crowds, draw his own

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36:21

The former wrestler who wants your brain

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/04/21

Former Harvard athlete Chris Nowinski turned World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) star after a reality TV show catapulted him into the world of professional wrestling. Performing as the obnoxious and slick-talking villain Chris Harvard, he worked alongside superstars like Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, John Cena, and Hulk Hogan. Chris lived the dream, until one fateful match left him suffering from post-concussion syndrome. With his career seemingly at its end, Chris began researching into sports-related

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38:45

Swimming blind: my journey to self-acceptance

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/04/13

From Paralympic pools to the English Channel, Melanie Barratt took on the toughest swim of her life — laying to rest her demons, and honouring her beloved mum.Melanie Barratt was born with congenital toxoplasmosis that left her severely visually-impaired. As a teenager she excelled academically but found it hard to keep friends. She found solace in the swimming pool where again she shone, earning a chance to represent Team GB at the 1996 and 2000 Paralympic Games. Despite winning gold medals at

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31:26

The painful secret I hid from my twin

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/04/06

After a terrible motorbike accident 18-year-old Alex Lewis was left with no memory of his previous life. The only person he could remember was Marcus, his identical twin brother. He became the person Alex most relied upon to rebuild his entire life and memories. But then Marcus made an extraordinary decision - to shield his brother from their traumatic past by re-writing history and creating a new reality. For over a decade, Marcus carried the weight of his secret. But when fragments of the past

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26:44

Introducing Dear Daughter

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/04/02

A bonus episode from Dear Daughter - the award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. You can find more episodes by searching for 'Dear Daughter' wherever you get your BBC podcasts.Bridgerton actor Adjoa Andoh joins Namulanta in the studio to share the letter she's written to her three children. She tells them the importance of trusting their bodies and following their instincts - a life philosophy which has sometimes led her into some unexpected situations, especially while pregnant...Dear

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41:14

Rewind: An author, his cellmate, and a new beginning

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/03/30

How a book-loving prisoner showed a young Alex Wheatle the path to self-belief.Alex had been born in London to Jamaican parents, but grew up in care in the notorious Shirley Oaks children’s home. As a teenager, he was convicted of assaulting a police officer during the Brixton Riots. He felt totally alone and without hope. But as the door slammed on Alex’s prison cell, he met a book-loving man called Simeon who opened his eyes to the importance of his own history – and encouraged him to use his past

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40:11

My hunt for the Gutenberg – the rare book that solved...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/03/24

Michael Visontay thought he knew everything about his family’s past, but there was one shadowy character he was aching to know more about: his grandfather’s second wife, Olga. As Michael went through old papers, he uncovered a trail to the world’s most coveted book, the Gutenberg Bible – a rare antique printed in the 1450s – and the scandalous scheme to break it up.Presenter: Asya FouksProducer: Maryam MarufGet in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

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41:46

Rewind: The spy who wanted to bring down apartheid...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/03/17

ANC spy Sue Dobson infiltrated the South African government. Then her cover was blown. After training, Sue had got a job within the government's propaganda unit, and she was feeding back good intelligence to her ANC handlers. Then she got a phone call. The security services were on to her, and she was a long way from safety. Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Harry Graham Editor: Deiniol Buxton Sound design: Joel Cox

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40:47

Rewind: The spy who wanted to bring down apartheid...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/03/10

Sue Dobson was a white South African who risked her life as an ANC secret agentSue was a student when she was first recruited as a spy for the African National Congress liberation movement in the 1980s, and she knew that if she was caught she'd face prison, torture or death. Sue's mission would require her to infiltrate the pro-apartheid media establishment, but first she needed to learn spycraft and weapons handling. Her training would take place in Soviet Russia. Presenter: India Rakusen

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62:51

Held hostage by al-Qaeda: my desert odyssey

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/03/03

Edith Blais was kidnapped by armed militants and held captive in the Sahara for 450 days.As a young French-Canadian who had overcome her teenage agoraphobia, Edith took several years to work up the courage to go travelling – but once she did it, she got the bug. In 2018 she backpacked to West Africa with her good friend Luca Tacchetto. When they got to Benin they were kidnapped by armed militants and taken to the desert in a lawless area of Mali, where groups linked to al-Qaeda were known to

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40:22

The unmaking of a child soldier

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/02/24

As a boy, Ishmael Beah was forced to kill. How do you turn a soldier back into a child? Ishmael Beah was just 13 when war reached his village in Sierra Leone and he was made to flee. In the chaos, he was separated from his family. He ended up with a group of other children at what they thought was the safety of an army base. But instead, he was taught to become a hardened killer and sent out to fight. Nearly three years went by before he was finally rescued by child protection specialists from

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40:20

The WW2 spy and the little leaf that saved her

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/02/17

In 1942, several years into the Second World War, the British government sent out a series of bulletins requesting any personal photos the public might have of the French coastline. Odette Hallowes, a French woman living in the UK with her three young children, answered the call and was invited to London where she was offered a role in the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The SOE, formed under the direct orders of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, aimed to create a top-secret underground

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39:24

How’d you get so rich? A dream to change my family’s...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/02/10

Reggie Nelson grew up on an East London council estate in a British-Ghanaian family that struggled with alcoholism, domestic violence and money worries. After a brush with the law at a young age, he found direction through his Christian faith and then, as a teenager, being signed to play professionally for Woking Football Club.Following his dad's sudden death on Father's day in 2013, Reggie had to quit playing football and look for a more stable career to support his family. Inspired by words from

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37:37

The DNA request that revealed my child had gone missing

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/02/03

In April 2010, Cathy Terkanian received a letter that turned her world upside down. It revealed that her daughter, Alexis, whom she’d had to place for adoption in 1974, had gone missing. Then she was given more shocking news—the police had a new lead, could the unidentified body of a young woman found in Wisconsin be Alexis? They needed Cathy’s DNA to confirm it. As Cathy began to process this, her own painful past surfaced. She had run away from home as a teenager, joining a circus before getting

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41:32

My 'miracle baby', born 15 months after I lost my love

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/01/27

In 2020, Ellidy Pullin’s life was turned upside down when her partner, Olympic snowboarder Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin, died in a tragic accident. The couple had been trying for a baby, so in the deeply disorientating hours after his sudden death, when a friend suggested the possibility of a posthumous sperm retrieval – a complicated, and sometimes controversial procedure whereby sperm samples are taken within 36 hours of a person's death – Ellidy knew instantly that this was something she wanted to

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207 results

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