Lives Less Ordinary

39:32

Forget Cool Runnings: Inside the real Jamaican...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/10/05

Ex army officer Devon Harris was part of the historic Olympic bobsleigh team that inspired the film Cool Runnings, but Hollywood only got half the story. Devon grew up in a tough area of Kingston, Jamaica, called Olympic Gardens. He dreamed of taking part in the Olympics, but living on a tropical island meant winter sports were never on his radar. For him, school was his haven away from the violence he witnessed in his neighbourhood and he worked hard in the classroom and on the sports field so

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40:56

My mother made me ill for years until a doctor...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/09/28

Nina Blom's early years were plagued by mysterious, serious illnesses. Growing up in the Netherlands in the 1970s and 80s, Nina seemed at first to be a typical child, playing with dolls and enjoying singing and dancing. But soon, her mother became convinced that Nina was gravely ill. She kept sending Nina to hospitals for tests and treatments again and again - 16 times in just a few years. And she seemed to enjoy Nina's sickness and pain. Eventually, Nina was made to use a wheelchair and was told by

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32:24

America’s most wanted: my family on the run, part 2

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/09/21

When Zayd Ayers Dohrn was born his parents were fugitives. They were the leaders of the Weather Underground – a violent revolutionary group opposed to the Vietnam war. Most members were white, but they worked closely with radical black organisations opposing racism in the US, drawing attention to their cause through bombing campaigns, bank robberies, and jailbreaks.When Zayd’s younger brother came along his mother, Bernardine, decided it was time to hand herself in. They managed to do a deal and

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36:29

America’s most wanted: my family on the run, part 1

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/09/14

In some ways Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s childhood was normal; his parents went to work and played with him in the park. Though in other ways it was anything but: moving between safe houses, fleeing in the night as the FBI moved in. His parents were the leaders of a violent revolutionary group called the Weathermen and then the Weather Underground, which the US government classed as a domestic terror group. They opposed the Vietnam war and racism in American society. They drew attention to their cause

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50:07

Love Stories: Told by you

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/09/07

Now it’s your turn to share. A bonus episode to end our Love Stories series where you tell the world how your true love grew. Fiona Smiley Wright got in touch about an extraordinary romance that was hiding right under her nose for most of her life, growing up in Northern Ireland. It wasn’t until her parents passed away that Fiona and her three brothers discovered years of love letters between them, while separated by war. Fiona tells Asya the tale of a silver cigarette box that her mother Elizabeth

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38:56

Love Stories: The matchmaker

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/08/31

At 83, Gina Ceccarelli thought the romantic chapter of her life was over. Then she met Dwight Moberg, a 91-year-old widower from California. There was just one complication, Gina speaks Italian and Dwight speaks English, so most of their conversations happen through hand gestures and a translation app.The person who brought them together is Menbere "Menbe" Akiklu. Forty years earlier, Menbe was a young Ethiopian mother living in a shelter in Rome, trying to rebuild her life after escaping an abusive

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40:27

Love Stories: Our own romcom

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/08/24

Karan and Roshan’s real-life romance inspired their film A Nice Indian Boy, and the success of the Hollywood/Bollywood romcom has healed many family rifts on the way.Karan Soni is an Indian actor famous for playing supporting roles in films like Deadpool & Wolverine. He had moved to the US for college before becoming an actor, but, despite coming out in his teens, felt he had to keep his sexuality a secret to make it in Hollywood. Roshan Sethi is a Canadian oncologist and scriptwriter from an

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45:46

Love Stories: My two husbands

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/08/17

Kris Armstrong and Brandon Smith took their marriage vows seriously. But after Brandon suffered a major brain injury, Kris made a decision that led to their unique blended family. Texans Kris and Brandon were high school sweethearts, but just a few years into their marriage, in 2008, Kris received a call to say that Brandon had been in a serious car crash and was in a coma. When he finally woke up, months later, it was clear he’d changed irrevocably. After experiencing a severe traumatic brain

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42:28

Love Stories: Do you remember me?

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/08/10

A secret tore apart their teenage love. Four decades later, they got a second chance.In 1970s Nottingham, two teenagers fell head-over-heels in love when Mark Bethel arrived from the Bahamas to study. For Penny Umbers, it felt like the beginning of everything: young, certain, full of promise - until, without warning, Mark broke things off and disappeared from her life. Devastated and searching for answers, Penny spent decades believing she was to blame, carrying that loss into the rest of her life

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44:38

Love Stories: Finding you in a warzone

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/08/03

In 2016 Janay was a journalist in London and needed footage of the conflict in Syria, so contacted camera operator Habak in Aleppo. What followed was a love story neither saw coming. When Lebanese journalist Janay Boulos first started messaging Abd Al-Kader Habak in the besieged city of Aleppo, one of her first questions was “are you okay?”. Janay needed images and footage for her reporting and Habak would film what he could, often in extremely dangerous situations. Janay, from the comfort of her

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2:12

Introducing: Love Stories

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/07/30

Introducing a new season of five remarkable true stories in which love rises above prejudice, waits decades, crosses oceans and survives war. From India to Italy, Syria to the Bahamas, and the UK to the US, these are unforgettable stories that reveal how love can survive against the odds, heal old wounds and transform lives forever.Lives Less Ordinary is a podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. Each episode a guest shares their most

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40:45

I crash-landed inside an active volcano

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/07/27

Chris Duddy survived 28 hours in Hawaii's Kīlauea volcano after his helicopter crashed.Cinematographer Chris Duddy has worked on some of Hollywood’s biggest movies like Titanic and Terminator 2. Filming in extreme conditions is part of his job, and he loves it, but nothing could prepare him for the day the helicopter he was in crashed inside the crater of an active volcano. It was November 1992 and he was flying over the Big Island of Hawaii shooting footage for the end of the Hollywood thriller

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41:53

Why I don't hate the person who tried to kill me

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/07/20

In July 2011 Bjorn Ihler was a 20-year-old performing arts student and a member of the youth division of the Norwegian Labour Party. He participated in the Party's summer camp on Utøya island, about 35km from Norway's capital Oslo, when Norway suffered its worst terror attacks in recent history. Anders Breivik was a far-right extremist who launched a bomb attack on government offices in Oslo. Two hours later he attacked the summer camp that Bjorn was attending. 77 people were killed that day – the

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39:06

The prisoner who was forced to celebrate a World Cup...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/07/13

Miriam Lewin was never much interested in football. Growing up in Buenos Aires, she cared far more about politics than the team her family supported. But in 1978, when Argentina won the World Cup, she found herself among the celebrating fans, hidden in plain sight as a political prisoner.A year earlier, aged 19, Miriam had been abducted by Argentina's military dictatorship and became one of the country's desaparecidos – the "disappeared." Detained in secret and tortured because of her political

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40:23

My father and the curse of the golden egg

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/07/06

Serena Kutchinsky was 10 years old when her jeweller father Paul unveiled his masterpiece to the world: a giant, golden, diamond-encrusted egg. Paul had recently taken over the family business, the celebrated London jewellers House of Kutchinsky, and wanted to make his mark, commissioning the production of a spectacular jewelled object like no other. The egg was crafted from 15kg of solid gold, decorated with over 20,000 rare pink diamonds, and put on sale for £7m – today’s equivalent of around

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39:11

I had a baby – then lost my memory, part 2

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/06/29

After an undiagnosed case of pre-eclampsia caused catastrophic brain damage and amnesia, Samina Ali returned home from hospital to begin a long recovery.At 29, she found herself relearning the basics of daily life – how to walk, speak and make sense of the world around her. She could still communicate in Urdu, the language of her childhood partly spent in India, but much of her recent life in California felt unreachable. Her husband was a stranger, and her newborn son Ishmael someone she struggled

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41:19

I had a baby – then lost my memory, part 1

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/06/22

When Samina Ali gave birth to her first child in California in 1999, what should have been a joyful moment quickly turned into a medical emergency.An undiagnosed case of the pregnancy disorder pre-eclampsia led to multiple organ failure, strokes, a brain haemorrhage and grand mal seizure. Within hours of delivering her son, Samina fell into a coma. When she woke five days later, she had no memory of what had happened – or of large parts of her life.She didn’t recognise her husband, and she had no

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39:36

Could a sitcom save a man from death row?

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/06/15

Juan Catalan was facing the death penalty for a murder he didn’t commit. There was one man he thought could save him: US comedian Larry David. On 12 May 2003, Juan attended a baseball game that he would later say saved his life. It was his local team, the LA Dodgers, versus the Atlanta Braves. The game was exciting, but unremarkable for Juan – apart from a television crew that was filming in his section.Three months later, Juan arrived at work only to be surrounded by undercover police and arrested

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33:26

I was kidnapped by North Korea

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/06/08

In the 1970s and 80s, a spate of mysterious disappearances were reported along Japan’s coast. One of those was 19-year-old nurse Hitomi Soga, who was walking with her mother when they were kidnapped. She was blindfolded and dragged to a boat destined to the world's most secretive state, North Korea. But why was she taken? Hitomi's stay in North Korea would last 24 years and include a forced marriage to America's most well-known defector, Charles Jenkins. The world watched when eventually she

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23:52

I was forced to rob my own bank, part 2

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/06/01

Many years after he’d held a gun to her daughter’s head, Michelle wrote to Robert Ortiz seeking closure. It took him years to write back – and then they met.In 2000, Michelle Renee was at home with her seven-year-old daughter Breea when armed men burst through the door. They held Breea hostage while they took Michelle to the bank where she worked. She was told to remove all the money from the vault or her daughter would die. The gang were later caught and imprisoned but the fallout from that day and

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