Lives Less Ordinary
BBC World Service
Lives Less Ordinary is a podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected.
Each episode a guest shares their most dramatic, moving, personal story. Listen for unbelievable twists, mysteries uncovered, and inspiring journeys - spanning the entire human experience.
Our guests come from every corner of the globe: from Burundi to Beverly Hills, New Zealand to North Korea, Rajasthan to Rio. And their stories can be about anything: tales of survival, humour, resilience and intrigue. From the mind-blowing account of the Japanese man trapped in his own reality TV show, to the Swedish women rescued from lions by a tin of spam. It’s life’s wild side, in stereo. Lives Less Ordinary is brought to you by the team behind Outlook, the home of true life storytelling on BBC World Service radio for nearly 60 years.
Got a story to tell? Send an email to liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or message us via WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
You can read our privacy notice here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5YD3hBqmw26B8WMHt6GkQxG/lives-less-ordinary-privacy-notice
Each episode a guest shares their most dramatic, moving, personal story. Listen for unbelievable twists, mysteries uncovered, and inspiring journeys - spanning the entire human experience.
Our guests come from every corner of the globe: from Burundi to Beverly Hills, New Zealand to North Korea, Rajasthan to Rio. And their stories can be about anything: tales of survival, humour, resilience and intrigue. From the mind-blowing account of the Japanese man trapped in his own reality TV show, to the Swedish women rescued from lions by a tin of spam. It’s life’s wild side, in stereo. Lives Less Ordinary is brought to you by the team behind Outlook, the home of true life storytelling on BBC World Service radio for nearly 60 years.
Got a story to tell? Send an email to liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or message us via WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
You can read our privacy notice here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5YD3hBqmw26B8WMHt6GkQxG/lives-less-ordinary-privacy-notice
Episodes
Mentioned books
Jun 2, 2024 • 33min
Kill or be killed: A climber’s dilemma, part 1
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 MorrisGet in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784Audio for this episode was updated on 6 June 2024.
May 26, 2024 • 60min
The Hiroshima survivor who's still shouting for peace
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 PathéPresenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: Jo Impey and Harry Graham
Editor: Laura ThomasGet in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
May 20, 2024 • 45min
Lost in lion country and saved by Spam
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 MaddicottGet in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
May 12, 2024 • 41min
Painting, prison and two decades in Guantanamo
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 HanifGet in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
Apr 28, 2024 • 50min
How I convinced police my dad was a murderer
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 FitzhenryGet in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
Apr 21, 2024 • 38min
Balochistan’s mystery benjo man, part 2
How Ustad Noor Bakhsh, a Pakistani shepherd in his 70s, became a folk music starAfter 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 BalochGet in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
Apr 14, 2024 • 41min
Balochistan’s mystery benjo man, part 1
The epic quest to find an elderly Pakistani musician and his unusual stringed instrumentDaniyal 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 MarufGet in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
Apr 7, 2024 • 50min
Exposing Silicon Valley's multimillion dollar fraud
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 KhanGet in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
Mar 31, 2024 • 40min
My grandmother walked the rabbit-proof fence
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
Mar 25, 2024 • 37min
How to talk to guerillas
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.phpPresenter: Asya Fouks
Producer: Harry Graham
Translation: Jorge Caraballo
Sound design: Joe Munday
Editor: Munazza Khan
