Lives Less Ordinary

Bestselling writer Lesley Pearse's own story is wilder than any romance.

An agent once told Lesley Pearse to "write what you know", but her own story is more extraordinary than any of her bestselling novels. In this, the first episode of two, we follow her from playground storyteller to lost teenage girl in 1960s London, to brave single mum determined to go it alone.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Laura Thomas & Edgar Maddicott

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Dominic and Justin Hardy were young boys when their father, the director Robin Hardy, began a gruelling and obsessive quest to make The Wicker Man. Now the film is regarded as a masterpiece and beloved by fans across the world, but when it was first released in 1973, it was a major flop. The fallout for the Hardy family was painful, tearing them apart. It would take many decades, a bundle of lost letters and another burning effigy for Dominic and Justin to finally come to terms with the past – and this iconic movie.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Maryam Maruf

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed – former owner of one of the most famous shops in the world – is accused of rape and attempted rape by women who worked for him. For the full investigation, search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

This is a story of power and control at the very top of British society. At the time of many of the alleged attacks, Mohamed Al Fayed was the owner of London’s luxury department store Harrods, and also the iconic Ritz Paris hotel and English football club Fulham FC.

The BBC heard testimony of over 20 women.

Harrods has condemned Al Fayed’s actions “in the strongest terms” and has told the BBC that “as a business we failed our employees who were his victims and for this we sincerely apologise.” Harrods says the organisation is different today to the one owned by Al Fayed, and it “seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do.”

Kieran Quinlan was on his way to a party when a man with a knife attacked him.

Kieran Quinlan was an aspiring boxer living in his hometown of Birmingham in the UK. When he was 17 he was on the bus heading to a party when a man confronted him. The man counted down: 3, 2, 1 – before stabbing Kieran through his lung and into his heart. Kieran should have died that night. But instead he survived, spending the next decade rebuilding his life, transforming his body and his mind in the process.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: May Cameron Editor: Munazza Khan

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

In May 2024, 90-year-old Ed Dwight Jr. from Kansas City, Missouri travelled to the edge of space – he was an honoured guest in the Blue Origin rocket. His trip was 60 years overdue. Ed had been chosen by President John F Kennedy to be the first African-American astronaut at a time when racism was rife and segregation a reality. But JFK’s plans for Ed were scuppered – and Ed had to pick himself up and build a whole new career.

Please be aware that this episode contains outdated racial language that may offend.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Joshua created an AI simulation of his deceased fiancée to help him deal with his loss.

When gaming enthusiast Joshua Barbeau met Jessica, he knew he had found his soulmate. But his happiness didn't last. Jessica died from a rare health condition aged just 23, leaving Joshua struggling to cope with his grief, and his life. Eight years later, in 2020, while playing around with a website that used AI to create bespoke chatbots, Joshua had an audacious idea. He decided to create a chatbot based on his beloved Jessica. It's an experience that he says helped him finally to find closure.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Rebecca Vincent

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Nemonte Nenquimo’s passion for her rainforest home, and her love for an unlikely man, propelled her to achieve an historic victory for indigenous people in Ecuador. She took the national government to court to protect 500,000 acres of rainforest from destruction by the oil industry.

Nemonte and her husband Mitch Anderson have written a book together called We Will Not Be Saved: A Memoir of Hope and Resistance in the Amazon Rainforest.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: May Cameron Voiceover: Cecilia Cruz

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Maxwell Smart survived the Holocaust by living in a makeshift bunker on the forest floor.

Maxwell Smart was just 11 years old in 1941 when the Nazis took over his town in eastern Poland. One by one his Jewish family were disappeared or killed, but his mother implored him to run for his life just as she and his sister were being loaded onto a German truck. Using his extraordinary ingenuity he managed to survive in remote woodland for the rest of the war, mostly alone, sleeping in improvised shelters and foraging for food. He eventually met another orphaned Jewish boy in the woods, Janek, whose friendship would come to have a profound impact on Maxwell’s life.

In this second episode, Maxwell describes how his life changed again after the war was brought to an end and decades later is part of a shocking reunion.

A feature film based on Maxwell’s life has been released, it’s called The Boy in the Woods.

Presenter: Emily Webb Producers: Edgar Maddicott and Rebecca Vincent Editor: Munazza Khan

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Maxwell Smart survived the Holocaust by living in a makeshift bunker on the forest floor.

Maxwell Smart was just 11 years old in 1941 when the Nazis took over his town in eastern Poland. One by one his Jewish family were disappeared or killed, but his mother implored him to run for his life just as she and his sister were being loaded onto a German truck. Using his extraordinary ingenuity he managed to survive in remote woodland for the rest of the war, mostly alone, sleeping in improvised shelters and foraging for food. He eventually met another orphaned Jewish boy in the woods, Janek, whose friendship would come to have a profound impact on Maxwell’s life.

A feature film based on Maxwell’s life has been released, it’s called The Boy in the Woods.

Presenter: Emily Webb Producers: Edgar Maddicott and Rebecca Vincent Editor: Munazza Khan

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

American endurance swimmer Diana Nyad faced down box jellyfish, cold and extreme fatigue to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage for protection, in 2013. She was 64 and had always been drawn by intense, seemingly unachievable feats of marathon swimming. It was after shooting to fame for swimming round the island of Manhattan in the 1970s that Diana first seized on an idea that had been planted in her head in childhood: she would swim the 112 miles from Cuba to Florida's Key West. Five attempts and more than thirty years later, she finally succeeded, wobbling unsteadily up the beach after nearly 53 hours in the water to tell a cheering crowd, "never, ever give up... you are never too old to chase your dreams."

Archive from Diana's swimming and broadcasting careers appears courtesy of: Florida Keys TV; The Wolfson Archives, Miami Dade College; PBS; FOX Sports; ABC; Courage to Succeed (1977).

This programme has been re-edited and corrected since first published.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Laura Thomas and Saskia Edwards

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Gilbert Alaskadi grew up in the African country of Chad. His family was poor, and he spent much of his childhood hungry, with people frequently making fun of his small stature. Then, when he was a teenager, he encountered a bodybuilding pamphlet, promising quick muscle growth in a handful of weeks. He wanted the physique, but first he'd need money and calories. At the first oppurtunity he ran away from home, left the country, and jumped head-first into the world of bodybuilding.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Harry Graham Editor: Munazza Khan

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Osel Hita Torres was a Spanish toddler when he was recognised by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of a well-known Tibetan Buddhist monk and teacher called Lama Yeshe. As a child he was sent to a monastery in India to prepare for life as a monk and scholar. Many expected him to carry on Lama Yeshe’s work of teaching Buddhism around the world when he grew up. But Osel had other ideas.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Zoe Gelber

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

(Photo: The Little Lama Osel with Geshe Gendun Choephel (left) and Lama Zopa Rinpoche (right): Credit: Jacie Keeley)

At the age of 11 in 1985, Salva Dut was separated from his family by the Sudanese civil war. After a decade moving between different refugee camps, and presumed an orphan, Salva was recommended for resettlement in the United States as part of a UN-backed programme to support some 4,000 so-called 'lost boys' who'd been displaced by conflict. Salva settled with a host family in Rochester, New York. But when he was in his late 20s, he found out that his father was in fact still alive. Salva travelled back to Sudan to find him. His father was in a clinic and sick with a waterborne disease. Salva decided to try to bring clean water to his home village. A few years later, he established an NGO, Water for South Sudan, and he returned to his birthplace to drill his first well.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Jo Impey

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

(Photo: Salva Dut drilling for water; Credit: Water for South Sudan, Inc)

Salva Dut is one of Sudan's so-called 'Lost Boys.' Separated from his family at the age of 11 when the civil war reached his village in 1985, Salva walked for weeks to reach safety in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. There, he lived out most of his teenage years, amongst thousands of other orphans. Like most of them, Salva had no idea what had happened to his family. With little adult supervision, the boys developed their own systems of organisation. That was to prove vital when in 1991 they were driven from the camp by a new conflict. Salva was 17 by this point, and he'd become a leader amongst the boys. In total there were 17,000 of them. They set off in groups, first back towards Sudan, then south, towards Kenya. When they emerged from the wilderness after many months, aid workers were astonished to find them still alive. They shared their story with the world. The United Nations recommended almost 4,000 of the Lost Boys for resettlement in the US, and Salva's name was among them. By this point, in his early 20s, Salva had been separated from his family for a decade. A reunion seemed impossible. He would be boarding a flight and leaving the continent of his birth behind.

The second part of Salva's story will be broadcast on the next edition of Lives Less Ordinary

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Jo Impey

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

In the early 1980s Jason Evans' father was given a blood product called Factor 8 to treat his haemophilia, which infected him with HIV. He was one of thousands of people in the UK who were unwittingly infected with blood-borne viruses from blood products and infusions, despite the dangers being already known. Jason's father died when he was just four, and he spent most of his life campaigning for the truth about what happened.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Julian Siddle

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Nick Stride said too much about his former boss, one of Putin’s closest allies.

Nick Stride, a builder from the UK, feared for his family’s safety after discovering alleged financial corruption while building First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov’s 140-million-dollar mansion in Moscow. Worried that his every movement was being watched, he hatched a plan to get out and put as much distance as possible between his loved ones and his former boss. They chose Australia. Nick then passed the secret accounting documents he’d taken to an investigative reporter, but by the time it came to publish, Nick and his family’s claim for political asylum in Australia was rejected. Seeing no way out, the family went on the run, hiding out amongst the snakes and crocodiles of the country’s unforgiving Dampier peninsula, every morning expecting a truck to pull up and tear his family apart.

The book about his odyssey is called Run For Your Life, by Sue Williams.

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Edgar Maddicott

Anoosheh Ashoori was visiting Iran when he was snatched off the street by security forces. He was falsely accused of espionage, and spent years in one of the country's toughest prisons.

For a long time, he didn't know why he'd been targeted. Anoosheh was a British-Iranian dual national, but he'd worked a career as an engineer, and had no links to intelligence services. Gradually, as his incarceration wore on, he realised he'd become a pawn in a game of global politics.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Harry Graham Editor: Andrea Kennedy

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

When Sister Helen Prejean agreed to write to a convicted murderer on Louisiana’s death row in 1982, she had no idea what was coming. She would end up becoming his spiritual advisor, eventually accompanying him to his execution two years later. The experience changed her profoundly. She wrote a book about what she'd witnessed on death row, Dead Man Walking, which was turned into a major Hollywood movie in 1995. Forty years later, she has witnessed six more state executions - and is still tirelessly fighting to end them.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Zoe Gelber

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Salima Hashmi is a pioneer of political satire on Pakistani TV. But after the dictator General Zia took power in the 1977 military coup, she faced new and dangerous challenges when her show was banned. It was a troubling time for Salima’s family but from exile, her father Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote his most famous poem, Hum Dekhenge, a battle cry for liberation. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Maryam Maruf Archive from the Faiz Foundation Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Salima Hashmi grew up in Lahore witnessing the radical poetry of her celebrated father, Faiz Ahmed Faiz. It inspired her own path into art and performance, creating Pakistani TV’s first ever political satire show, Such Gup.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Maryam Maruf

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Alain Gachet quit a lucrative career in oil to search for water underground. Colleagues told him he was a 'crazy donkey', but he eventually developed an algorithm that allowed him to 'peel the earth like an onion' and detect water beneath the surface. Soon, he was asked to train his talents to help pinpoint areas of life-saving reserves of water for desperate refugees escaping the conflict in Darfur.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Anna Lacey and Hetal Bapodra Editor: Munazza Khan

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Beth Rodden escaped her kidnappers, and pushed her body to its limit, following the climber code of whatever hurts makes you stronger. She married her boyfriend Tommy Caldwell, who had saved them by pushing their captor off a cliff in the Kyrgyz mountains. They became the first couple to free climb the Nose in Yosemite National Park. To the world she was a record-breaking athlete, but inside she was crumbling, haunted by that moment in the mountains. It would take her 15 years to face it head on, and in doing so she redefined what it meant to be a climber.

Beth's book A Light Through the Cracks: A Climber's Story is out now.

Clips are from NPR and the Associated Press.

Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Louise Morris

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Beth Rodden was on a dream climbing expedition in Kyrgyzstan when she was kidnapped by Islamist militants. She and her friends spent days moving between hiding places in the mountains, fearing for their lives as food supplies dwindled. Then, six days in, the group found themselves at the edge of a cliff with a single young guard. They had a chance to escape, but it came with a huge ethical dilemma.

Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Louise Morris

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Audio for this episode was updated on 6 June 2024.

Setsuko Thurlow knows what nuclear war looks like.

She was a 13-year-old schoolgirl when an atomic bomb was dropped on her home city of Hiroshima, Japan. Most of the places she knew were destroyed in an instant. Narrowly escaping death herself, Setsuko became a witness to the aftermath of atomic warfare, and the things she saw that day would compel her to spend her life fighting for nuclear disarmament.

Archive was from British Pathé

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Jo Impey and Harry Graham Editor: Laura Thomas

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

In 2016, when Jenny Söderqvist and Helene Åberg’s car exploded in the middle of the vast Kalahari desert, their supplies and only lifeline to the outside world went up in flames. No rescue would come. The two friends from Sweden would spend the next five harrowing days lost in the wilderness and stalked by lions, until their salvation appeared to them in the most unlikely of forms: a tin of Spam.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Edgar Maddicott

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Mistaken for a terrorist, and detained without trial. Art became his refuge.

Pakistani taxi driver Ahmed Rabbani was arrested in 2002, labelled a terrorist and spent 21 years in US detention, including time in a CIA secret prison. Incarcerated without trial or charge, Ahmed was subject to enhanced interrogation, or what he describes as 62 different types of torture. When he was transferred to a cell in Guantanamo Bay, Ahmed would pick up paint and pastels and find solace through art – creating vistas he could only imagine.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Maryam Maruf Voiceover: Mohammed Hanif

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

On the day his mother disappeared in December 1989, 11-year-old Collier Landry started looking for evidence.

He suspected his father, a rich and well-respected town doctor, had something to do with it. This is the story of Collier's fight to get justice for his mother, and the detective who believed him.

Collier's film is called A Murder in Mansfield.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Helen Fitzhenry

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

How Ustad Noor Bakhsh, a Pakistani shepherd in his 70s, became a folk music star

After hunting for four years, Pakistani ethnomusicologist Daniyal Ahmed finally finds Ustad Noor Bakhsh, an elderly shepherd and master of the electric benjo – an obscure stringed instrument with typewriter keys. With Daniyal’s help, Ustad Noor would go from serenading his goats in the jungles of Balochistan to performing for revellers on the European festival circuit.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Maryam Maruf Translation: Wajid Baloch

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

The epic quest to find an elderly Pakistani musician and his unusual stringed instrument

Daniyal Ahmed is a flute player and anthropologist who spends his time searching out and documenting folk music across Pakistan. In 2018, he was mesmerised by a video clip of an elderly man – described as a “poor fisherman” – expertly playing a benjo, an obscure stringed instrument that looks like a cross between a guitar and a typewriter. So began Daniyal’s hunt for this mystery master musician.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Maryam Maruf

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Erika Cheung went from a trailer park to a top tech company job, but something was off.

She knew how to work hard, growing up in a one-bedroom trailer, she dreamed of pursuing her passion for science and helping others. So Erika was thrilled to land her first job out of university at a booming tech company promising a revolution in healthcare. Fronted by the glamorous and wealthy Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos claimed to have the technology to be able to tell from a few drops of blood whether someone had a range of diseases. That was not true. And it took Erika, one of their most junior employees, to blow the whistle – at great personal risk.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Mary Goodhart Editor: Munazza Khan

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Maria's grandmother was forcibly taken by Australian officials, but made a daring escape.

As children Maria Pilkington's mother and grandmother were both among the Stolen Generation, removed from their homes to be trained as domestic servants for white families. It was part of an Australian policy dating back to the 1930s to remove mixed-race children from any Aboriginal influence. But Maria's 14-year-old grandmother escaped, with her sister and cousin, by following a pest-control barrier that went right through Western Australia back to their home. The girls' extraordinary three-month, 1400km walk home became the Hollywood film Rabbit-Proof Fence, based on a book written by Maria's mother.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Sarah Kendal Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp 0044 330 678 2784

Leyner Palacios grew up around volatile armed groups, so he learned to negotiate with them.

He comes from a remote forested area called Bojaya, where clusters of small villages are spread along isolated waterways. Leyner's community had to share the rivers and forests with outsiders, armed groups like the Farc and the paramilitaries, who were locked into a decades-old conflict. As a child, Leyner learned to constantly navigate checkpoints manned by volatile armed people, and he showed a talent for negotation and mediation. As the conflict heated up, and with his community under siege, these skills would become more useful than ever.

Music from the 'Cantadoras de Pogue' was recorded by the Centro de Estudios Afrodiaspóricos - https://www.icesi.edu.co/vocesderesistencia/e/vol-1-cantadoras-de-pogue.php

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Harry Graham Translation: Jorge Caraballo Sound design: Joe Munday Editor: Munazza Khan

The Austrian house where a doctor experimented on children.

Evy Mages grew up in and out of foster care in 1970s and 80s Austria. But even when she started a new life in the US, she was haunted by traumatic memories of a strange yellow house high up in the Alps, where she had been placed as an eight-year-old. It took an idle internet search in her 50s to reveal that this was actually an institution called a 'Kinderbeobachtungsstation', or 'child-observation station', where vulnerable children were experimented on by a psychologist using shocking methods. She decided to step back into her past to uncover the full, disturbing truth of what happened there.

Evy’s story first appeared in a New Yorker article in September 2023.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Edgar Maddicott Editor: Rebecca Vincent

A handwritten map is all Mamadou Barry had to guide him from Guinea to Egypt.

At the age of 24 he had reached a crossroads in his life. Having failed his final year secondary school exams five times in a row, he set his sights on a different type of education. Mamadou had heard about the prestigious Al Azhar University in Egypt, but could not afford a plane ticket. So he decided to set off on an epic adventure, travelling by bike, and leaving his home in Guinea with only $55, a small bag of clothes and tools, and a map he had drawn himself.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Rob Wilson Translator and interpreter: Olivier Weber Voiceover artist: Gaïus Kowene

Archive was from the official YouTube channel for Will Smith

A life shaped by addiction.

Australian Holly Deane-Johns had a complicated childhood. Her parents ran an escort agency from their home, and heroin addiction later took over the whole family. She was first given heroin by her mother, aged just 15. Holly ended up dealing to feed her habit, and in her early 30s was sentenced to 31 years in a notorious Thai prison, convicted of drug smuggling.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Mary Goodhart Editor: Rebecca Vincent

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Ruth Shaw spent years on ships and islands, trying to outrun her past.

She left her home in New Zealand as a young woman, driven away by a traumatic attack that would shape her life for years to come. Ruth tried to find escape on sailing ships, in Tahitian gambling dens and in the bars and kitchens of Papua New Guinea. But ultimately she had to head home, to face up to deep adolescent scars, and to find the child she’d been forced to give up years before.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: May Cameron Editor: Munazza Khan

Photo: ‘The Bookseller at the End of the World’

The extraordinary coach who started a football team but built something much bigger.

One day when Luma Mufleh was driving home to Atlanta, Georgia, she came across a group of barefoot boys playing football in the street, using a raggedy old ball and rocks for goalposts. They reminded her of how she played at home in Jordan and she asked to join their game. The Fugees Family football team was born. Luma Mufleh has written a book about her extraordinary story, Believe in Them: One Woman's Fight for Justice for Refugee Children.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Helen Fitzhenry

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or Whatsapp: 0044 330 678 2784

Without realising it, Nick Reynolds had been living his childhood on the run.

Early one morning in 1968 he answered his front door, completely oblivious to the whirlwind about to be unleashed on his family. Most of Nick's early years had been spent carefree and happy on the shores of Mexico with his British parents. But all the while he had been growing up in the shadow of one of the most notorious crimes of the 20th century.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Eric Mugaju and Anna Lacey

Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

(Photo: Nick & Bruce Reynolds. Credit: Ronnie Biggs)

After crashing high in the Andes, Nando Parrado had to go to the extreme to get out.

In 1972, when the plane carrying 22 year old Uruguayan Nando Parrado and his rugby team came down deep in the Andes mountain range in South America, they were left for dead. Rescue teams called off their search after 10 days. Nando and the other survivors would spend an incredible 72 days trapped, frozen and forsaken in this icy wilderness. And in order to come out alive, they would have to do the unthinkable.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Edgar Maddicott Editor: Laura Thomas

Lucy Sexton was making a TV series about hostages when her father Joe was abducted

Lucy and her father Joe Sexton are American journalists. In 2021 Lucy was working on the TV series ‘Hostages’ when her personal and professional life collided. Joe had been abducted while on a reporting trip in Libya. What followed was a surreal week of parallels as they both tried to make sense of what was happening – Joe from a cell in Libya and Lucy from a production set in Washington. Later, they turned their experience into a joint writing project that brought them closer than ever before.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: May Cameron Editor: Harry Graham Sound design: Joel Cox

A chance email led Hannah Ha to uncover her mother Tam’s forgotten musical legacy.

Hannah knew her mother could sing. When she took the stage at karaoke, she always stole the show. But when a chance email revealed she had once been a recording artist called Phuong Tam in 1960s Saigon, she was stunned. Hannah embarked on a two-year hunt to track down her mother’s long-lost recordings – and her rock 'n' roll legacy.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Zoe Gelber

Jair Candor tracks down remote Amazonian tribes in order to protect them from outsiders.

One tribe, the Piripkura has just one member left who’s living nomadically, deep in the rainforest. It’s Jair’s mission to find him, to establish he’s alive, and to protect his land rights from those who want the forest for themselves. Jair has monitored numerous indigenous groups in Brazil over the years, and he’s faced frequent malaria, armed logging groups, and the occasional arrow fired in his direction.

Presenter: Andrea Kennedy Producer: Harry Graham and Graciela Damiano Editor: Munazza Khan Voice actor: Thomas Pappon Sound design: Joe Munday

Tasoula Hadjitofi tricked a notorious art smuggler to recover Cyprus' holiest relics

When war split Tasoula's home country of Cyprus in two in 1974 she had to leave home, never to return. Years later, while living in the Netherlands she was approached by a shady art dealer with news that shook her to the core: artefacts sacred to her Greek Orthodox faith had been stolen, hammered out from church walls and were now being sold on the black market. Tasoula then poured everything into righting this wrong and vowed to bring them back. She would have to plumb the depths of the criminal underworld and hatch an elaborate sting operation to catch the mastermind behind it all.

Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Edgar Maddicott Sound Design: Joe Munday Editor: Harry Graham

Tasoula Hadjitofi uncovered a shady network looting her country's most sacred relics

In 1974 Tasoula's country, Cyprus, was torn in two by war. Distraught and unable to return home she ended up in the Netherlands where some years later a shadowy art dealer approached her with some astonishing news. Religious artefacts sacred to her faith that had adorned the churches she prayed in as a girl had been chiselled away, and were now being sold on the black market. And so began Tasoula's decade-long search for the stolen relics. But she would first have to learn from the criminals in order to catch them.

Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Edgar Maddicott Sound Design: Joe Munday Editor: Harry Graham

Pepe and Lucía: the bonfire of young love, a long separation, and rise to presidency.

The guerrilla lovers finally meet and fall for each other, but their joy is shortlived, they’re soon arrested again – and this time there won’t be any escape. Uruguay’s military coup means that the couple are separated by 13 years of brutal detention. When they’re granted amnesty, they find their way back to each other, and enter the political fray, all the way up to the presidency.

Presenter: Andrea Kennedy Producer: Louise Morris Dubbing by Fede di Lorenzo and Elizabeth Rhodes

Clips courtesy of Euro News, RDTV, France 24 and SBS.

Pepe and Lucía: the guerrilla lovers who became the leaders of Uruguay

When they were younger, José Pepe Mujica and Lucía Topolansky separately joined a left-wing insurgency set on overthrowing the country's government. They wouldn't meet for years but they were on the same mission. Each went underground, cutting ties to friends and family while their group, the Tupamaros, carried out bank heists to fund the uprising. The law soon caught up with them both, but neither were prepared to stay behind bars for long.    Presenter: Andrea Kennedy Producer: Louise Morris

Dubbers were Elizabeth Rhodes and Fede di Lorenzo

When award-winning author Alex Wheatle was sentenced to nine months in prison at the age of 18, he thought his life was over.

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 to write a new and hopeful future.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Hetal Bapodra and Anna Lacey

Eric Ngalle is now a poet and academic in the Welsh capital of Cardiff, but it's his experiences as a people-trafficked teenager that inspire much of his work. When he was 17, he found himself broke and alone in Moscow, freezing cold and unable to speak a word of Russian. To survive, he relied on charity, girlfriends, and a brief stripping career. None of this was enough to buy him a ticket home to Cameroon, so he got involved in a high-risk scam, which targeted some very dangerous people.

If you’ve been affected by anything you heard in this interview, support is available through the BBC Action Line website or via Befrienders Worldwide.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Harry Graham

Get in touch: WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707

Sport but not as you know it. A brand new sports storytelling podcast.

Imagine being stranded in the “death zone” on one of the world’s highest mountains. How about running 200 miles in a dark tunnel? We’ve been searching the world for the most amazing sport stories. Other podcasts bring you the scores and team news. This one tells the stories you’ll wish you’d known about and now probably won’t forget. You don’t need to be obsessed with sport to find yourself immersed in our mini-seasons and short stories. Search for Amazing Sport Stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Or find it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xtvs1/episodes/downloads

Reality TV producer Johnathan Walton found himself in a plot he couldn't have dreamt up.

It all started when a woman helped him when he was locked out of his building's swimming pool. She was magnetic and full of fun and soon they became inseparable. But things weren't quite as rosy as they seemed. Four years into their friendship Johnathan started pulling at the edges of her story, it all began to unravel and he'd have to start playing detective in a bid to bring her down.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Edgar Maddicott Editor: Munazza Khan

Gamal Turawa has lived many lives - but never fitted in.

First as a black British boy adopted into a white family, then hoodwinked by his father and eventually begging on the streets of Lagos - he was always on the margins. As an adult he joined London's Metropolitan Police, but instead of finding a home there, his differences were used to tear him down and humilate him. When Gamal finally hit rock bottom he decided to stop hiding and stand out.

Details of organisations offering information and support on a wide range of issues are available at www.bbc.co.uk/actionline

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producers: Charlie Towler and Harry Graham Editor: Laura Thomas

Gamal Turawa has lived many lives - but never fitted in

As the first openly gay black officer in London's Metropolitan Police, he struggled to find his way while reckoning with his past. Adopted into a white family as a baby, Gamal was hoodwinked by his father as a boy and ended up living as a teenage beggar on the streets of Lagos, until a chance encounter saw him find work as a magician's assistant, hyping up crowds across West Africa.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producers: Charlie Towler and Harry Graham Editor: Laura Thomas

Joar Hesten's mission to save a whale rumoured to have escaped from the Russian navy.

Norwegian Joar Hesten was fishing for cod in the Arctic when he came across a beluga whale wearing a harness. He helped to free the animal, but when he took a closer look at the harness he saw that it was labelled ‘Equipment of St Petersburg’. Theories started swirling that this whale had once belonged to the Russian military, and it was nicknamed Hvaldimir, the 'Russian spy whale'. As Hvaldimir's fame grew, Joar became determined to protect him from human contact.

Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Saskia Edwards

Photo: Joar with Hvaldimir Credit: Aleksander Nordahl, DN/D2

Tiago Rech went viral when he was the only supporter in the stands at his club's game.

In 2012 Tiago Rech was the only fan at a big away match for his beloved football team Santa Cruz FC. When they scored, his timid, lone celebration was caught by TV cameras and went viral. All this attention earned him a role with the club, where full of ideas and enthusiasm, he made his way to the very top, to his dream job of club President. But there would be a sting in this fairytale.

Produced and presented by Andrea Kennedy Editor: Munazza Khan

Clips courtesy of Federação Gaúcha de Futebol and Canal Duda Garbi.

Fleur Pierets and Julian Boom wanted to wed in every country that allowed gay marriage.

After falling in love at first sight, the artist couple planned to make a statement to the world. So in 2017, they embarked on ‘Project 22’ - a performance art piece in which they would marry in all 22 countries where same-sex marriage was legal at the time. But four weddings later, their trip would be tragically cut short.

Fleur has written a memoir about her experience, called Julian.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producers: Olivia Lynch-Kelly and Zoe Gelber Editor: Munazza Khan

The Robertsons' boat was attacked by killer whales and started to sink fast

Douglas was 16 years old when his parents sold the family farm in England and took him and his three siblings on a sailing trip around the world. It was the adventure of a lifetime. But in 1972 while en route to New Zealand, their yacht was hit by a pod of orcas and they started to sink fast. Weeks from safety and with no way to send for help, Douglas and his family would have to try and find a way to survive.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: May Cameron Editor: Andrea Kennedy Sound design: Joel Cox

Tahir Izgil is one of the most highly respected living Uyghur poets. Tahir was born near Kashgar, in Xinjiang province, and from an early age he was immersed in the poetry of his culture. When the Chinese state clamped down on the Uyghur community, he lived under constant threat of arrest, and says he couldn’t even perform his poems. So he decided to try and escape his homeland.

Tahir has a memoir out about his experiences called Waiting to Be Arrested at Night, translated by Joshua Freeman.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Harry Graham Editor: Andrea Kennedy

Juliana Lumumba had to fight to reclaim the remains of her father, Patrice Lumumba.

He'd been the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo and an anti-colonial hero. He was assassinated in 1961 when Juliana was five years old, and no trace of his body was found. So when it emerged 60 years later that one of his gold teeth was in Belgium, Juliana yearned to bring it home.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Rob Wilson Editor: Munazza Khan

Under the boot of the Syrian army, Nicole Moudaber brought raves to Lebanon.

After sampling the delights of dance music whilst studying abroad in the nineties, Nicole made it her goal to bring this new sound to a divided and conservative society. She faced opposition from her family and the regime, but when scandal hit she decided to turn the tables...herself.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Edgar Maddicott and Harry Graham Editor: Munazza Khan

(Photo: Nicole Moudaber. Credit: Stuart Tracte)

A mother, a son, and the discovery of a shared dream.

Latifa Khamessi and her son Mohamed Toukabri from Tunisia were inseparable until aged 15 when he left for Europe to study dance. It was gut-wrenching to be apart, but an opportunity he couldn't turn down. It wasn't until years later that Mohamed discovered his mother had had the same dream as a girl, but had been forbidden from pursuing it. Separated by a sea and oceans of time Mohamed then hatched a plan to reunite with his mother, now in her sixties, and unite their dreams.

The Power (of) the Fragile was performed at The Shubbak Festival in London.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Helen Fitzhenry Editor: Rebecca Vincent Voice over by Mounira Chaieb

From the page to the stage: William turns childhood fantasies into reality.

In London, William Lee Adams is feeling disillusioned with his job, when a Romanian singer on a horse appears on his computer screen and he's inspired to start writing about the Eurovision Song Contest. Wiwibloggs is born, and grows to be the world's most-followed independent blog and video channel about Eurovision. In the process, he gets to visit some of the far-flung places he escaped to as a child in the US reading encyclopaedias.

William has written a memoir called Wild Dances: My Queer and Curious Journey to Eurovision.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Rob Wilson

A bond between brothers, a coming-out story, and an international song contest.

William Lee Adams is one of the leading voices covering the Eurovision Song Contest, criss-crossing the continent to interview stars and live-stream shows. But as a child growing up in small-town America, he was made to feel invisible; encouraged to suppress his Vietnamese heritage and questions about his sexuality. He found solace in caring for his brother, John, who had severe physical disabilities due to a brain condition. Even so, he needed an escape route.

William has written a memoir called Wild Dances: My Queer and Curious Journey to Eurovision.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Rob Wilson

Harrison Okene spent three days trapped in an air pocket in a sunken ship.

Harrison was the ship's cook, and he'd been in the bathroom when the tugboat he worked on had suddenly capsized in bad weather. The vessel sank 30 metres to the seabed, upside down, and Harrison was trapped inside.

Days passed, and up on the surface a mission was launched to recover the bodies of the tugboat's crew. Divers descended, but they never expected to find anyone alive.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Eric Mugaju and Harry Graham Editor: Munazza Khan Sound design: Joel Cox

Archive was courtesy of DNC Diving

In 1982, two Mississippi boys recreated a $22m film, shot-for-shot, on their pocket money.

Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala were aged 10 and 11. Their mission would take them seven years to complete, and it would push their friendship to the edge. There’d be amateur stunts, fires, visits to the emergency ward, production shut down by angry parents and many fallouts. It would swallow them whole.

But decades later a lost tape would be unearthed, bringing Eric and Chris back together for their final scene and face-to-face with one of their heroes.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Edgar Maddicott Editor: Munazza Khan

How a jump changed daring parachutist Tony Osornio's life forever.

Tony was Mexico's best precision skydiver and the first woman to join her country's army. She says she "belonged to the skies", and became a member of an elite team of performance skydivers called the Crazy Birds. She was prepared to sacrifice everything for her love of parachuting - until a jump went badly wrong.

If you need support relating to any of the issues we've covered in this interview, you can find more information on the BBC Action line website or at Befrienders.org

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Louise Morris

Tony Osornio would go to dangerous extremes to keep skydiving.

She was born into a conservative family, and decided to marry the first man who asked in order to escape the restrictions of home.

Her husband was a Mexican military officer with access to the planes used by elite paratroopers. With his help, Tony would sneak on board too, parachute strapped to her back. In love with jumping, she decided she needed to join the Mexican army herself, something no woman had done before.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Louise Morris

The audio has been updated since first published for technical reasons

By 1981, Pakistani-born immigrant Tariq Mehmood had endured years of violent racism in Britain. When he heard that gangs of white skinheads – with a history of attacking Asians – were coming to his home in Bradford, Tariq and his neighbours took desperate measures to defend their community. Underpinning their actions was the principle, “self-defence is no offence.” Tariq would end up being arrested, charged with conspiracy to make explosives, and facing life imprisonment. What followed was the landmark legal case of the Bradford 12.

Hand on the Sun, the novel that Tariq wrote in prison over 40 years ago, has been re-released with a new update.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producers: Maryam Maruf and Lina Chang Editor: Munazza Khan

As a Pakistani immigrant teenager in 1970s Britain, Tariq Mehmood endured homelessness and years of violent racism. He found shelter and wisdom in a library, and the strength to stand up to the racists. He co-founded the Asian Youth Movement, and their slogan “self-defence is no offence,” would galvanise an entire generation. But it’s a rationale that would see Tariq in court – facing life in prison – in the groundbreaking case of the Bradford 12.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producers: Maryam Maruf and Lina Chang Editor: Munazza Khan

Stany Nyandwi's rescued chimpanzees helped him through war and loneliness.

As a young boy Stany made money selling sugarcane and worked as a 'houseboy' for families in Burundi's capital city Bujumbura. But later, a job with rescued chimpanzees became about more than just money. When ethnic conflict in Burundi escalated into civil war, Stany fled to safety with the chimps who, with histories of their own, gave him companionship and a ticket to a future without war.

Stany is a chimp specialist and his behaviour should not be copied or emulated in any way.

He has co-written a book called The Chimpanzee Whisperer: A Life of Love and Loss, Compassion and Conservation.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: May Cameron Editor: Andrea Kennedy

My search for the truth about my father and Martin Luther King’s assassination.

Leta McCollough Seletzky grew up knowing that her father was the ‘kneeling man’, photographed tending to the head wound of Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr just moments after he was shot in April 1968. As a teenager she stumbled across an alarming detail about why her father was there on that infamous day; it plunged her into the world of conspiracy theories and family secrets. It would take her many years to dig out his true story.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Rebecca Vincent

Marine engineer Chirag Bahri was trapped for eight gruelling months on a chemical tanker.

Chirag loved his job working in the engine rooms of huge commercial ships. But in May 2010, while sailing through the Gulf of Aden, a group of pirates boarded the ship and held the crew to ransom off the coast of Somalia. Over the next eight months the pirates became increasingly violent, torturing the crew when their demands were not met. Despite the desperate conditions, Chirag still had his work to do. The ship was running out of fuel, and starting to malfunction.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Rebecca Vincent Editor: Munazza Khan

Mariam and Mohammed are Yemeni filmmakers who turned the lens on their own relationship.

Mariam Al-Dhubhani and Mohammed Al-Jaberi's love story started in friendship, and it didn't take long before they fell for each other. Not even living in different continents – or a civil war – could get in their way. But when a heartbreaking loss shook the foundation of their relationship for the first time, it was a video camera that helped them find their way back to one another.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Gaia Caramazza Editor: Munazza Khan

Aaron Stark now works to raise awareness around why mass attacks happen.

Aaron had a chaotic and violent childhood, and by the time he was a teenager he was homeless, angry and traumatised. At his lowest point, he began to plan an appaling act of violence in a bid to punish the world around him. He wanted to get hold of a gun, but before he could, his best friend Mike changed the course of his life with a small, simple act of kindness.

This episode includes themes of suicide, self harm and drug use.

If you need support relating to any of the issues we've covered in this interview, you can find more information on the BBC Action line website or at Befrienders.org

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Harry Graham and Emily Naylor Editor: Munazza Khan

At the age of 13 Laura Dekker fought for her right to sail solo around the world.

Laura comes from a family of sailing enthusiasts, and her father taught her the ropes early. By 11 years old she was sailing unaided for weeks at a time, and at 13 she felt ready to tackle her biggest challenge yet. Her parents supported her decision, but the Dutch authorities had concerns; was it responsible to allow a child to circumnavigate the world alone?

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: May Cameron

Rowena Chiu was kept silent for 20 years by former film boss Harvey Weinstein. Rowena thought that speaking up about her alleged sexual assault by Weinstein would end up with him in court. But instead she was pressured into signing an NDA so severe that she could tell no one, at times even fearing for her safety. Keeping this secret sent Rowena to a very dark place. But decades later the #MeToo movement set her free.

This episode contains references to suicide.

The news archive is from NBC and ABC

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Rebecca Vincent

Rowena Chiu on surviving the Hollywood sexual predator Harvey Weinstein.

Rowena was just 24 when she became an assistant to Weinstein at his film company. She knew he was a difficult boss, but nothing prepared her for what happened one night in Venice in 1998. She says he told her he ‘liked Chinese girls’, and sexually assaulted her in his hotel room. It was the start of a story she never wanted to be part of.

The news archive is from CBS.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Rebecca Vincent

Raised by addicts, Dr Katriona O'Sullivan defied the odds to become a university lecturer.

Her parents were addicted to heroin, she was neglected and not fed. But for the care she received from two influential teachers and the occasional stroke of luck, life may have gone in a very different direction.

Katriona's written a book about her life called Poor.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Edgar Maddicott

Martial arts kept him out of jail, but drag artistry made him whole.

Diego Garijo was bullied for his femininity as a child, so as he grew up he toughened up his image. He was in trouble with the law, until he found his focus as a professional Mixed Martial Arts fighter. But when Diego’s career came to a brutal halt, creating a drag persona, Lola, gave him a new lease of life.

Presenter: Andrea Kennedy Producer: Louise Morris Sound design: Joel Cox Editor: Munazza Khan

Wheeler Parker is Emmett Till's cousin and the last surviving witness to his abduction.

Emmett's brutal murder in Mississippi in 1955 sparked a wave of protest in America. The 14-year-old African American was lynched for whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, who recently died aged 88. Reverend Wheeler Parker was Emmett's cousin and was in the next room to him when he was kidnapped. The horrific events of that night have shaped Wheeler's life. We spoke to him before the news of Donham's death.

Wheeler has written a book alongside lawyer and journalist Christopher Benson called: A Few Days Full of Trouble. We spoke to them before the death of Carolyn Bryant Donham.

This programme contains some distressing scenes.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Deiniol Buxton and Troy Holmes Editor: Munazza Khan

Joseph Mbilinyi pioneered Swahili rap and then turned to politics, but ended up in jail.

In the 1990s he'd become one of Tanzania's biggest stars under the stage name Sugu. He'd released albums, toured the country and abroad, and helped create a new genre called Bongo Flava. He's known for hard-hitting, often political, lyrics. In 2010 he took that message to parliament when he was elected as an opposition MP. But he ended up being jailed after speaking out against the president of the time.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Rob Wilson Editor: Munazza Khan

Brothers Manni and Reuben Coe, and the text that prompted a lockdown rescue mission.

Manni was living in Spain when he received this troubling text from his younger brother Reuben. Reuben has Down's syndrome, and had become isolated and non-verbal while living in a care home in the UK during the Covid pandemic. Manni decided to stage a rescue — a 'bro-nap' — and together they embarked on a loving journey of brotherhood and recovery. Manni and Reuben have written a book called Brother. Do. You. Love. Me.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: May Cameron

Tricks from a hit TV show held the key to Jaivet Ealom’s audacious dash for freedom.

As a student in his native Myanmar, Jaivet Ealom became obsessed with the hit US TV show Prison Break. He watched it on a loop, but never in his wildest dreams did he think he’d be in a similar position to its main character. When he found himself locked up in Australia's notorious Manus Regional Processing Centre with no end in sight, could he outdo fiction and find a way out?

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Edgar Maddicott

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 after her, and she was a long way from safety.

Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Harry Graham Editor: Deiniol Buxton Sound design: Joel Cox

Sue Dobson was a white South African who risked her life as an ANC secret agent

Sue 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 Producer: Harry Graham Editor: Deiniol Buxton Sound design: Joel Cox

Natasha Lance Rogoff’s daunting task of making Sesame Street in post-Soviet Russia.

In the early 90s, American journalist Natasha Lance Rogoff was covering the collapse of the Soviet Union – until the Muppets came calling, and she was tasked with bringing Sesame Street to Moscow. After decades of communism a new Russia was emerging, but could it embrace a US TV show?

Creating Ulitsa Sezam was a daunting challenge for Natasha. She would have to overcome a huge culture clash and, along the way, face mobsters with shark tanks, bankruptcy, and the kidnapping of Elmo. Natasha has written a book called Muppets in Moscow: The unexpected crazy true story of making Sesame Street in Russia.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Maryam Maruf Editor: Munazza Khan

Amjed Tantesh is determined to teach kids in Gaza to swim no matter how many pools he has to build.

Finding freedom in the water as a child, Amjed wanted to train the next generation of Gazans for Olympic swimming glory – not easy when he had to keep abandoning his pools. Yet through relentlessly rebuilding and restarting, over decades of war, Amjed’s swimming initiative found its true purpose.

This episode contains upsetting moments involving children.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Louise Morris Interpreter: Youssef Taha

Sergiy Ivanchuk dreamed of stardom, before he was shot in the chest by Russian soldiers.

He was a volunteer helping refugees escape Eastern Ukraine during the early days of the 2022 invasion, when his car was attacked. He was hit in the legs, hand and back, and he was lucky to survive a punctured lung. When Sergiy woke up in hospital, he could barely talk, let alone sing, but he refused to give up his ambitions of being a world famous baritone.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Harry Graham Editor: Andrea Kennedy Sound design: Joel Cox

When Greenlander Helene Thiesen was just seven, two Danish men came to take her away.

In 1951, Greenland native Helene Thiesen was just seven years old when two Danish men knocked at the family home. That moment would shape the rest of her life. These men, acting at the invitation of the Danish colonial government were rounding up the brightest Inuit children and sending them to live in Denmark to be re-educated as model Danish citizens or ‘little Danes’. Helene suffered terribly from being separated from her mother and siblings and it would take her many decades to discover the horrible truth behind it all: she was part of an experiment. Of the 22 children that were taken, Helene is now one of the few survivors.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Edgar Maddicott Translator: Alette Rye Scales Voice: Julia Holden

Rejected by family and society, trans actor Alina Khan was forced to spend time on the streets of her native Lahore as a child. Through dance, she found an escape and a living, but also encountered prejudice. Facing down loneliness, poverty and danger, she carved her own principled path to big screen fame. Now she’s won praise for her performance as Biba, a fiery and ambitious trans woman, in international award-winning new film Joyland.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Laura Thomas

In the ring, Blair finds calm amidst the chaos of his life. Back in the US Blair Cobbs falls again on hard times; homeless in Philadelphia his boxing dream seems out of reach. But a string of lucky breaks may just tip the balance. Blair’s brazen alter-ego who’s kept him alive thus far now has a name – Blair ‘the Flair’ – and some recognition in the ring. But could ‘the Flair’ take him all the way to the top of the boxing world?

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Louise Morris

From Beverly Hills to hiding from the law with his dad, Blair’s seen it all. To help him get through the tough times – and there’d be quite a few of those – Blair created a separate persona. This was the fearless alter ego he could rely on to swoop in and save the day. The Peter Pan to his Lost Boy. And Blair was certainly lost now - would he make it back out of Mexico alive?

Clips: Clueless/ Amy Heckerling/ Paramount Pictures

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Louise Morris

A baby left in a car, another in a telephone box. It would take decades to find out why.

When he was just a baby, David McBride made headline news in Northern Ireland. He had been discovered in the front seat of a stranger’s car, with no trace of who had left him there or why. David was a foundling, and as he grew up he started to want answers. Then, a chance encounter led him to Helen Ward. She was also a foundling, and she was on a very similar mission.

Presenter: Andrea Kennedy Producer: Maryam Maruf Editor: Munazza Khan

Fergal Keane's work as a war correspondent was destroying him, but he couldn't stop.

It was his job as a BBC journalist to help the audience make sense of the madness of war, but he knew there was another more troubling reason he was drawn to these violent situations. They gave him something he couldn't get anywhere else in the same way. A massive rush of adrenaline and a huge dose of validation. Fergal knew this compulsive tendency wasn't healthy, but he couldn't stay away from the frontlines.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producers: May Cameron and Harry Graham Sound Design: Joel Cox Editor: Munazza Khan

From convent to marriage to factory floor, Thivya Rakini will stand up for herself, and you. From an early age she's fought for what's right. As a child living in Tamil Nadu, she stopped eating so her parents would send her to the school of her choice. She left behind life in a convent, then a marriage, and went on to defy expectations as a working single mother. She’s now the leader of a union advocating for seamstresses making fast fashion for international chain stores and has negotiated an historic deal.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: June Christie

Debra Lampshire started hearing voices aged five. Comforting at first, they soon took control.The voices became so visceral and intense that Debra had to spend 18 years in a psychiatric hospital. Then, a chance friendship with a car mechanic gave her the tools to restore her life, but she’d have to learn to coexist with the voices that once tormented her.

If you need support relating to any of the issues we've covered in this interview, you can find more information on the BBC Action line website or at Befrienders.org

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Louise Morris

Pilot Firoz Khimji witnessed his country's wars from above. Then conflict came for him.

For most of his life, Uganda had been unstable, but he'd been able to train as a commercial pilot despite the violence. When qualified, Firoz took a job with Ugandan Airlines. This was the 1980s, and he had to routinely fly between territories controlled by different armed groups. War was ever-present, but Firoz would always emerge unscathed, until a routine flight went badly wrong.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Eric Mugaju and Harry Graham Editor: Munazza Khan

Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil risked everything when he faced his parents and society

He was next in line to a centuries-old royal dynasty in the Indian state of Gujarat - and grew up in the 1970s in a gilded cage. His family's desire to keep his blue blood away from what they called ‘commoners’ meant that, growing up, he missed out on formative experiences like making friends. After a failed marriage to a princess, Manvendra finally shed his royal cocoon and was determined to break out and explore the world, and his sexuality. With the help of his new friend Ashok, a gay rights activist, the prince began a process of self-acceptance that would be put to the ultimate test.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Edgar Maddicott Editor: Munazza Khan

Journalist Ben Raines went in search of a sunken ship with a dark history.

A phone call out of the blue had set him on his hunt for the Clotilda, an American vessel that had illegally transported enslaved West African people to the US. On arrival it had been burnt, and hidden deep in the Alabama swamp. The story of the ship and its passengers had been kept alive by generations of people descended from those who had been enslaved. But these inherited histories were shrouded in secrecy, fear, and silence - seldom spoken of outside that community. So, when Ben dived into the swamp to find the Clotilda, it was more than a shipwreck that bubbled to the surface. Emily Webb speaks to Ben Raines and descendant Garry Lumbers about their intertwining stories.

Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Emily Webb and Olivia Lynch-Kelly Editor: Munazza Khan

Nakuset blocked out painful memories of being removed from her indigenous Canadian family

Nakuset only goes by one name and it means "The Sun" in her indigenous Canadian culture. Born into an abusive household, her early days were difficult and it wasn't long before she and her sister Sonya were taken into care by social services. This was the 1970s, and there was a widespread policy of taking indigenous children and putting them up for adoption with white families, removing them from their culture in the process. Nakuset was adopted, her sister wasn't. It was a painful process for Nakuset, but her eventual reunion with Sonya as an adult helped her get in touch with her heritage. The two sisters became close, but sadly their respective childhood experiences had left them scarred, and the reunion didn't have a fairy-tale ending.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Harry Graham Editor Munazza Khan

If you've been affected by any of the issues relating to mental health in this programme, help is available at Befrienders.org or at bbc.co.uk/actionline.