Lives Less Ordinary

Alexandra Morton-Hayward unlocks the secrets of the human brain but her own betrays her.

Every night Ally Morton-Hayward has a headache so painful it wakes her up. She says it makes her feel like a w…

Remembering the former president of Uruguay: José 'Pepe' Mujica. He started life as a flower farmer on the outskirts of Montevideo. As a young man he became politically active, part of the left-wing …

Marcelo Rubens Paiva was 11 when armed men came and took his father away. Brazil was under a military dictatorship at the time. Marcelo's father was an opponent and was killed for it. His mother Euni…

Lothar Hermann found out his neighbour was ‘architect of the Holocaust’ Adolf Eichmann.

Lothar Hermann’s German-Jewish family perished in the Holocaust, but when he escaped to Argentina, little did he…

Kwesia X grew up in south-east London, surrounded by busy roads and tower blocks. As a teenager her mental health spiralled after a member of her family was killed, and she also lost a close friend …

Juano Diaz was taken in to care aged six, his mother was battling alcoholism and he wasn't being cared for. But Juano missed his mum and with no photos of her, he became obsessed by drawing her face …

Former Harvard athlete Chris Nowinski turned World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) star after a reality TV show catapulted him into the world of professional wrestling. Performing as the obnoxious and …

From Paralympic pools to the English Channel, Melanie Barratt took on the toughest swim of her life — laying to rest her demons, and honouring her beloved mum.

Melanie Barratt was born with congenital…

After a terrible motorbike accident 18-year-old Alex Lewis was left with no memory of his previous life. The only person he could remember was Marcus, his identical twin brother. He became the person…

A bonus episode from Dear Daughter - the award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. You can find more episodes by searching for 'Dear Daughter' wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Bridgerton ac…

How a book-loving prisoner showed a young Alex Wheatle the path to self-belief.

Alex had been born in London to Jamaican parents, but grew up in care in the notorious Shirley Oaks children’s home. As …

Michael Visontay thought he knew everything about his family’s past, but there was one shadowy character he was aching to know more about: his grandfather’s second wife, Olga. As Michael went through…

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 intelli…

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 198…

Edith Blais was kidnapped by armed militants and held captive in the Sahara for 450 days.

As a young French-Canadian who had overcome her teenage agoraphobia, Edith took several years to work up the c…

As a boy, Ishmael Beah was forced to kill. How do you turn a soldier back into a child?

Ishmael Beah was just 13 when war reached his village in Sierra Leone and he was made to flee. In the chaos, he…

In 1942, several years into the Second World War, the British government sent out a series of bulletins requesting any personal photos the public might have of the French coastline. Odette Hallowes, …

Reggie Nelson grew up on an East London council estate in a British-Ghanaian family that struggled with alcoholism, domestic violence and money worries. After a brush with the law at a young age, he …

In April 2010, Cathy Terkanian received a letter that turned her world upside down. It revealed that her daughter, Alexis, whom she’d had to place for adoption in 1974, had gone missing. Then she was…

In 2020, Ellidy Pullin’s life was turned upside down when her partner, Olympic snowboarder Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin, died in a tragic accident. The couple had been trying for a baby, so in the deeply dis…