What I Wish I'd Known

Baroness Aminka Helic, a former refugee describes fleeing the war in Bosnia, with only her black leather jacket and her extraordinary journey to the Foreign Office and the House of Lords. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The actor Brian Cox discusses growing up in poverty in Dundee after his father died when he was 8, and how witnessing his mother’s attempted suicide made him know he could survive anything. You can now listen to Past Imperfect and all the other podcasts from The Times, on the Times Radio app. To download the app just go to your app store and search 'Times Radio'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ruth Davidson, the former Scottish Conservative leader, discusses her two near-death experiences and the battles with depression and self-harm that gave her the resilience for politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his fifties, the Nobel Prize winning geneticist Sir Paul Nurse made a shocking discovery that revealed that his childhood was based on secrets and lies. No-one in his family was who he thought they were. Paul discusses his remarkable scientific achievements, his educational triumphs and the importance of failure, and how the unravelling of his own genetic certainties affected his life, his work and his views on nature versus nurture. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Times’ columnists, Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson visit home, craft and property guru Kirstie Allsopp, in Devon, to talk ironing napkins, being a young carer and DIY funerals. Kirstie reveals how her mother’s strong personality and long illness shaped the person her daughter became, and Kirstie's focus on creating the perfect home in both her own life and in her career. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Times’ columnists, Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson spend a morning with Tony Blair, talking TV, politics and parenting. “My father would have been a Brexiteer” he says. He reveals how his father's stroke and his mother’s death shaped the person he became, his own political approach, and the family he and Cherie created. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson talk to outstanding people about the traumatic events in their early life, and the effect it had on their drive to succeed. Guests in the first series include Tony Blair, Lemn Sissay and Kirstie Allsopp Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.