x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC World Service

Have you ever locked eyes with a stranger and wondered, "What’s their story?" Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected. Extraordinary stories from around the world.

society & culture personal journals

All Episodes

39:21

I was taken as a baby…I didn’t know who I was, part 1

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/04/13

A black girl in a white town, Jackie’s made to grow up silenced and alone. This episode contains outdated racial language that some might find offensive. Jackie McCarthy O’Brien was just a baby when police officers flanked by a nun and a priest came to her unmarried mother’s door in Limerick, Ireland and took her. She would grow up in an industrial school where silence is expected, questions are discouraged, and even the simplest routines come with cruelty. As a mixed-race child, she is singled out,

en

21:56

Skepta’s Mum: How I raised a rap legend

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/04/06

Ify Adenuga grew up with strict parents. As a mum, she rewrote the rulebook and encouraged creativity in her children, with her son Skepta becoming an award-winning music artist.Ify Adenuga is parent to a musical powerhouse. Her son Skepta is a seminal figure in British culture, helping to propel grime into the mainstream. Ify has always been supportive of her son’s music career, nurturing a creative environment for all her children to thrive – a direct contrast to her own challenging childhood in

en

38:49

Me, dad and the zombie chickens

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/03/30

Filmmaker Lloyd Kaufman railed against Hollywood his whole career as the founder of cult B-movie production house, Troma, while his daughter Lily-Hayes dreamt only of fitting in. Lloyd Kaufman has been the father of anti-establishment filmmaking for over 50 years. His production company Troma Entertainment is known for its gory, controversial and politically-charged movies. His daughter Lily-Hayes grew up on the sets of these bizarre and often quite gruesome Troma films, such as Poultrygeist: Night

en

38:59

Growing up black in a white family – the truth behind...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/03/23

M People star Andrew Lovell’s home life hid a terrible – yet beautiful – secret. It would take him decades to find out the truth.At the height of his fame, drummer Andrew ‘Shovell’ Lovell had everything he’d dreamed of: sex, drugs and regular appearances at the top of the charts with the dance music band M People. But sell-out shows, first-class travel and five-star hotels couldn’t stop the questions gnawing away at him. As a mixed-race kid growing up in a white family in south London he wanted to

en

39:22

Music was my salvation: the homeless man and the piano

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/03/16

While Francois Pierron was homeless in London he taught himself to play a public piano at St Pancras train station – from scratch. His mastery of music helped change his future.Francois had a difficult start in life. He was abandoned as a newborn on the streets of Dakar, Senegal, shortly after his birth in 1994, but was found by police and taken to an orphanage. He was soon adopted by a French couple and grew up in a rural area near Calais in northern France. It was a happy childhood, but Francois

en

40:11

Hercules: the grizzly bear who became family

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/03/09

Maggie Robin raised a bear cub who grew into an extraordinary companion.When Maggie Robin and her wrestler husband Andy brought home a bear cub in 1970s Scotland, their friends thought they were mad. But the couple raised him as one of the family. Named Hercules, the tiny cub grew into a towering but gentle bear who slept by the fire, played in the garden and travelled everywhere with them. Attitudes towards keeping wild animals have changed since then, but at the time, Hercules was something of a

en

42:36

Sects, lies and videotape: a Syrian story, part 2

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/03/02

While filming in rebel-held Syria, Loubna Mrie is falsely accused of being a spy – an accusation that spirals into a life-threatening ordeal, triggering the deepest loss of her life.In 2011, Loubna Mrie broke from her loyalist family to join Syria’s underground network of activists. She used her Alawite identity – the same minority sect as the ruling Assads – to move through checkpoints and secretly film anti-government protests, even as it put her in conflict with her powerful father and the regime

en

43:01

Sects, lies and videotape: a Syrian story, part 1

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/02/23

From a powerful Alawite family in Syria, Loubna Mrie trusted the Assad regime – until witnessing its violent crackdown led her to defy loyalty and secretly film the uprising.In 2011, 20‑year‑old Loubna Mrie was an English literature student from a high-profile Alawite family, the same minority sect as the Assads who had ruled Syria for decades. For most of her life, loyalty felt like survival. Loubna had grown up believing the Assad regime protected her community, and that dissent was unthinkable

en

38:59

The couple who foiled New Zealand’s biggest drugs plot

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/02/16

An ordinary couple foiled the country's biggest drugs deal, all by doing a good deed. It involves a boat, a fake funeral at sea and the criminal underworld's least able seamen.That ordinary couple of 35 years, Ed and Heather we're calling them to protect their identities, lived a quiet life in the far north of New Zealand. Ed is Māori and a well-respected mechanic and fisherman; Heather's the sort of person who offers help without thinking twice. So when a group of men turned up close by at 90 Mile

en

42:12

I bought Macclesfield FC while drunk and it saved my...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/02/09

Rob Smethurst bought a bankrupt football club while his life was unravelling – then they went on to make football history and save him in the process.Entrepreneur Rob Smethurst never planned to become the owner of a football club. In the grip of alcohol addiction, and on a four-day drinking binge, he bought Macclesfield FC – a bankrupt small-town club, way down in the rankings with a crumbling football stadium.When Rob arrived at the grounds he was given an enormous bunch of keys, it took him an

en

41:17

Colm Tóibín: How an Irish boy with a stammer found...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/02/02

Colm Tóibín is a celebrated Irish writer, but as a child words didn't come easily. Navigating grief as a boy when his father died, he developed a stammer. Instead of talking, Colm watched and listened, collecting stories that wove their way into his novels. He's won a string of awards and been nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize three times. His novel Brooklyn was made into a movie starring Saoirse Ronan and was up for several Oscars. He finds it hilarious that although he was invited to the

en

36:33

The gay Kenyan boyband star who refused to be defeated

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/01/26

Willis Chimano is one of Kenya’s biggest pop stars. With the boyband Sauti Sol, he’s won a string of awards and even danced with President Barack Obama. But behind the success, Chimano had a secret: being gay in a country where gay sex is criminalised and people who identify as LGBT+ can experience violence and harassment. Since his childhood, Chimano had been hiding his sexuality but then in 2018 he was outed. Suddenly his career stood its toughest test as he was caught in a media frenzy and

en

41:22

Laughter saved me: the comedian turning tragedy into...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/01/19

When she was 14, Krystal Evans survived a lethal house fire. Years later, to come to terms with what she’d experienced, she turned it into a stand-up show. The women in Krystal's family have always been funny, she says; her mother was no exception. But as well as being hilarious she also struggled with mental illness, and life in Krystal’s childhood was chaotic. With very little money, the family would move from place to place, Krystal would miss months of school and often be left to take care of

en

44:20

Living a lie: discovering my dad faked who he was

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/01/12

Joanne Briggs had always thought of her dad as a bit of a superhero. But he was hiding a dark secret.She only saw him a couple of times a year during her childhood in the UK, but that was because Professor Michael Briggs was off travelling the world being a very important scientist. Or at least that was the story she grew up to believe. It was only in 1986, when Joanne was 23, that she first got a glimpse of who he really was. The Sunday Times newspaper exposed him as a scientific fraud, leaving his

en

40:35

Fatima Whitbread: from abandoned baby to world champion

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2026/01/05

Fatima Whitbread grew up in a UK children’s home. She found both a mother and a coach in one person – going on to break the javelin world record and become an Olympic medallist.Fatima spent her first 14 years in a series of institutions after being abandoned as a baby. She longed for stability and love, and found both in an unexpected place – on the sports field. Coach Margaret Whitbread spotted her talent early, and when she discovered that the young Fatima was growing up without a family, invited

en

40:30

One suitcase, three kids: a broke scientist pursues a...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/12/29

When Ijeoma Uchegbu arrived back in the UK as a single mum of three young children she soon found herself living in a homeless shelter; now she is a pioneer in the field of nanoparticles in medicine.Ijeoma Uchegbu has dedicated her career to studying pharmaceutical nanoscience, seeking out ways to carry medicines to parts of the body that are notoriously hard to reach. But as a schoolgirl in the UK her aspirations were to work in a shop and earn enough to go dancing at weekends. It was when her

en

41:06

I broke the most important rule: don't get attached

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/12/22

Swedish youth worker Nicolas Lunabba had one strict rule: never get attached to the kids you help. Then 13-year-old Elijah moved in — and turned his mentor’s flat into a home.In Malmö, Sweden, where poverty and violence shaped young lives, detachment was Nicolas' survival strategy. Then he met Elijah, an eight year old with a mohawk, a basketball under his arm, and a fearless, sometimes dangerous streak. They bonded over basketball and five years later, Elijah arrived at Nicolas’ flat and made a

en

39:10

Tulisa: I wanted fame, but it almost destroyed me

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/12/15

N-Dubz singer Tulisa Contostavlos survived betrayal and a tabloid sting.Tulisa was born into a family of musicians in Camden, London, and says music was part of her everyday life. But her childhood was impacted by her mother's severe mental health episodes that would often end up with her being held in psychiatric institutions. After her parents divorced, Tulisa would frequently have to care for her mother by herself. Tulisa escaped into music, and although she was initially determined to become a

en

40:52

The ragtag boy who was taken in by a football icon

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/12/08

The incredible story of the football icon who changed a boy's life. Craig Bromfield's start in life was difficult: there was often no electricity in his childhood home, and he didn’t even own a coat. He was in and out of the social care system, and would ask for money on the street. This is what 11-year-old Craig was doing with his brother Aaron, one fateful day in 1984, on a windswept seafront in the North East of England when he crossed paths with the era’s most famous football manager, Brian

en

41:20

My private trauma was leaked to the press – so I...

Lives Less Ordinary ·

2025/12/01

When Jenny Evans was sexually assaulted and confidential details appeared in a national newspaper, she decided to investigate – uncovering police corruption, tabloid spying, and phone-hacking. Jenny got a role in her first feature film when she was just 19 years old. At a film party in London she became separated from her friends and was sexually assaulted by a public figure she'd just met. At first she was too traumatised to report what had happened. But later, when other women came forward with

en

219 results

Similar Podcasts

Voices of Life

APG Mannheim

Promo Estereo Podcast

Promo Estereo

Talking Timelines Podcast

Talkingtimelines

גיקונומי

ראם שרמן ודורון ניר

Drømmefanger

Drømmefanger