Life Changing

BBC Radio 4
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Life Changing

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]

  1. 15 JAN

    A White Christmas for Annabelle

    For Lisa Hover and her husband Andy, life on the Hampshire Dorset border with their family of four children seemed idyllic. Even when a routine sight test on their daughter Annabelle as she started Primary school picked up an abnormality it all seemed manageable. But the abnormality turned out to be macular degeneration and early sight loss, which itself masked a more severe and life shortening genetic condition. The diagnosis of Batten disease changed everything. And yet, with no cure available, and physical and mental decline forecast, Annabelle lead the family in demanding everything from her limited life span. That included setting up a charity, Batten fighters forever or BFF ( battenfightersforever.com ), continuing her Girl Guiding and going skiing. Lisa talks to Sian about the challenges, the joys and the sadness - and particularly about Annabelle's desire to have a White Christmas will all the family. Producer; Tom Alban

    29 min
  2. Introducing Young Again

    14 JAN

    Introducing Young Again

    Doherty became famous in the 2000s with The Libertines, the band he formed and fronted alongside fellow singer and guitarist Carl Barât. He became notorious as his own drug addictions led to break ups with the band and numerous arrests. He reflects on a childhood spent moving around the world following his father's postings in the British Army, the beginnings of The Libertines, the lows of addiction, and the family life he now lives in France. Here's a short clip from the episode.

    11 min

  3. 8 JAN

    Volunteering for Freedom

    As a young man Mohammed, or MFA Zaman arrived in Britain from Bangladesh with a working visa, a patron and a job lined up as a chef. On arrival all the promises of a bright future turned to ashes. His patron confiscated his documents and put him to work. It was a punishing schedule. He then discovered that his boss had tried and failed to get him a Visa extension, meaning that he was working illegally. But at this lowest of low ebbs in his life, Mohammed decided that he needed to do something - and that something was to volunteer at an old people's community club in Lewisham, near where he was living. For three hours a week every Tuesday, he helped serve the elderly visitors. He talked to them, befriended many of them and they, in turn, started to show him that London wasn't all bad. It was a Life Changing decision and it would lead eventually to him being a volunteer at the London Olympics and a representative of London at the Paris Olympics. But clearing his name and proving to the authorities that he had done nothing wrong and was the victim of modern day slavery was a massive challenge. Producer: Tom Alban

    29 min

  4. 1 JAN

    Everything and nothing

    Dr Sian Williams talks to Paul Mason. Formerly a scientist with Ordnance Survey, he's now a teaching assistant, but the journey from one career to another was impossible to anticipate when he married his German wife Isabel. After a whirlwind romance the two were in no doubt that they wanted to start a family. It wasn't easy. But eventually that ordinary miracle happened. And yet it was a little more than ordinary, because they discovered they were to be parents to triplets. Paul tells Sian both the joyful and harrowing Life Changing events when the children were born, and how the family have since discovered the extraordinary generosity of strangers. Producer: Tom Alban

    29 min

  5. 25/12/2024

    Finding a Voice

    On the threshold of the first COVID lockdown when people were preparing for the unknown, a mother of two young children from Leeds was given a Life Changing diagnosis. Tanja Bage had always been a keen singer and performer and so was increasingly aware of her shortness of breath. There had been several attempts to deal with it, but nothing worked. Eventually she had an appointment with an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist. The diagnosis was cancer, which required almost immediate surgery to remove the tumour, and with it her vocal chords. She would be losing her voice, and she had just a week to prepare herself and her family. Tanja describes that pre-Covid frenzy, the support she received and the challenges of being a mother while having to re-learn how to speak using a Stoma in her neck. Her mix of passion and stoicism meant that not only did she recover after the massively intrusive operation, but she is now involved in artistic ventures with the Laryngectomy choir and the Sound Voice project as well as being a brilliant mother to her children. Producer: Tom Alban

    29 min

  6. 18/12/2024

    Missing the bus

    Dan Edozie was brought up by his mother in London, moving between council accommodation and so constantly shifting from one school to another. He didn't know his father. It was a disrupted childhood that would become even more stressful when they tried to settle with Nigerian relatives in the United States. After unsuccessful trips to New York and Boston, mother and son tried a third time to settle in Los Angeles. Dan had just turned 12. Life wasn't easy. They outstayed their Visa leading to a life on the fringes of society. Dan learned how to pan-handle, to beg for money to get extra food. They slept where they could, sometimes on public transport, sometimes in the refuges of the city's infamous Skid Row. Fearing deportation back to the UK they set off at one point for Florida to stay with another distant relative. The journey came to a halt in El Paso when a passport check exposed their illegal status. Before leaving for the UK they returned to LA, continuing their fragile life. Then one day, Dan had an argument with his mother. She had made plans to stay at another refuge a bus journey away. Dan was hungry and although his mother wouldn't stop for him he went ahead and got some food at a nearby refuge centre. When he caught up with her, she was on a bus. Bewildered, he watched as the bus pulled away from a nearby bus stop and headed out of town. Although he had a good idea where she was going, Dan decided to take things into his own hands. He started to look for a place for the night. He was twelve years old, with no ID, no money and only a large black bin-bag containing his clothes. After being turned down by two refuges, a lady at a third started asking all the right questions. How old was he? Why was he on his own? She knew something needed to be done. The next 24 hours saw Dan scooped up by the US authorities. Within days, a foster home was found, and although he and his mother were in contact, a custody hearing went against her and for the first time in his life Dan found the stability he craved. Life was never easy in his new home, but as he puts it 'he looked after business' at school and started to excel as a Basketball player. By the age of 16 he was in the top 50 players of his age group in California. Scholarships followed and eventually he was picked up by one of the top College teams - Iowa State. When he turned professional he decided to return to the UK and played for the Bristol Flyers for six years, before opening his own Basketball training Academy, where young people in the St Paul's area of Bristol get a chance to be inspired by a man who has worked his way up from nothing. The height of his Basketball career came when representing England in the Commonwealth Games. He's still in touch with his mother, and he holds no malice towards her. His focus is on the future and the many things he'd like to achieve. But he looks back on that moment in Los Angeles when a young boy took control of his destiny and in doing so, changed his life forever. Producer: Elaina Boateng

    29 min

  7. 11/12/2024

    Buried Trauma

    Sarah Fairbairns spent much of her life feeling she was a bit different. Growing up in the 1960's and 70's she had the reputation of a wild child. On a student exchange in the United States she got to dance on stage with the caste of the famous counter-culture musical Hair. In her early 20s she travelled to India with her boyfriend in search of hippy culture, tuning out, dropping out, taking drugs and becoming what was known at the time as a 'freak', a group at the extreme end of the hippy spectrum. And yet all the while she faced bouts of sadness and depression and a confusion as to why that should be. It lead eventually to an attempted suicide and psychiatric treatment. Things improved and stabilised. She married, had children and came to terms with her life, while never really feeling settled. She even trained and qualified as a Psychotherapist. And yet it was only towards the end of her training that she started to connect an event from her childhood with the unsettled life she'd lead and the fragility she felt. That trauma had happened when, at the age of eleven, she had been diagnosed with lateral idiopathic adolescent scoliosis, resulting in curvature of the spine. The result was a period in an orthopaedic hospital away from her family with dramatic surgery on her back and incarceration in a restrictive plaster caste. That long, isolated hospital stay and the process she went through to stabilise her spine was ultimately deemed a success, but the girl that emerged from hospital was more than just a medical success story. In her 70s, and with the threat of further surgery on her back, Sarah began to recognise that a failure to deal with the trauma of that childhood hospitalisation had been a key factor in her state of mind and behaviour throughout her life. She wrote in to Life Changing and told Dr Sian Williams about her slow recognition of her buried and Life Changing childhood trauma, and why confronting and understanding it had provided belated but extraordinary relief. Producer: Tom Alban

    29 min

  8. 04/12/2024

    Hostage Survival

    In 2013 Nick Hitch found himself at the heart of a violent attack on a Gas facility in Eastern Algeria. It was later revealed that the militiamen were affiliated to Al-Qaeda. As a senior project manager Nick was deliberately targeted, threatened with execution, forced along with his colleagues to sit for hours in fear of detonating explosives to which they had been attached, and ultimately packed into a vehicle alongside a man with a crude suicide bomb on his knee. Thirty-nine foreign workers died during the attack, several of them Nick's close colleagues. Talking to Dr Sian Williams, he describes how the attack unfolded, how the challenges affected and continue to affect him, and how he has sought to put his horrific experience at the service of others who have faced similar trauma. Producer: Tom Alban Anyone affected by any of the issues described in this programme can find help and support at www.hostageinternational.org

    29 min
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Hosts & Guests

About

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]

Information

  • Creator
    BBC Radio 4
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2025
  • Episodes
    62
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © (C) BBC 2025
  • Show Website
    Life Changing

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