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]

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Episodes

The near-death experience that made me a musician

Tony Kofi is the fifth of seven brothers and was raised by his Ghanaian parents in Nottingham in the late 1960s. At secondary school Tony was turned down for the music course he wanted to do, told he wasn’t focused enough, and directed to do woodwork instead. He stuck with woodwork as he was really good at it, and left school at the age of 16 to become a carpentry apprentice. A few months in, working on a house construction, he fell from the roof arch to the ground floor where he landed on his h...

May 18, 2021•29 min

Vitiligo turned all of my brown skin white

Sheetal Surti was born in to a British South Asian family in a small town in the East Midlands. Aged seven Sheetal noticed a white patch behind her ear. She didn’t think much of it but soon more patches appeared and started to spread. She was diagnosed with vitiligo – a skin condition where unpigmented patches appear on different parts of the body. And so the treatments began. Some were medically advised, some were recommended by friends. Most of them were unpleasant, one in particular was horri...

May 12, 2021•29 min

The coalman who could have been a prince

Keith Williams aka Keith ‘y Glo’ or ‘Keith the coal’ was born in 1952 and brought up as the son of a coal merchant in South Wales. At the age of 13 he found out he had been adopted but it was only when he was in his forties and expecting a grandchild that he started looking into his family history. He eventually tracked down his birth mother and arranged an emotional reunion. It was at this first meeting that Keith asked her about his birth father and was presented with a bundle of documents and...

May 05, 2021•29 min

The day I lost a lifetime of memories

Charlie Wilson is a married father of two from Aberdeen, not that he had any recollection of that when he woke up in a hospital bed in June 2008. Before that day he had lived a very comfortable, sometimes lavish lifestyle. A self-confessed workaholic, he often worked 16-hour days as a self-employed finance director in charge of multi-million-pound deals. That all came to a sudden halt when Charlie, then 44, suffered a massive stroke and woke up with no memory of who he was. He didn’t recognise h...

Apr 28, 2021•29 min

I witnessed the plane crash that killed my sisters

Harriet Ware-Austin grew up between the UK and Ethiopia where her father worked. It was a unique and wonderful upbringing but that all changed suddenly in April 1972 when East African Airways Flight 720 departed from Addis Ababa airport en route to England. On board were Harriet’s two older sisters who were travelling back to the UK for school. Harriet and her parents waved them goodbye from a viewing platform and watched the aeroplane taxi down the runway and briefly lift off. Tragedy struck wh...

Apr 21, 2021•29 min

I stole €1.75 million from work to feed my gambling habit.

Jane Garvey talks to Tony O’Reilly about the time he was forced to confront his spiralling addiction. Tony O’Reilly is from County Carlow in the Republic of Ireland. He placed his first bet at the age of 24. It was 1998 and like many, he was watching the World Cup. He and a mate put a pound on Kluivert to score the first goal in the Netherlands - Argentina quarter final and a final result of 2-1. He won. And so began his relationship with gambling. It started as a bit of fun at the weekend but y...

Apr 14, 2021•29 min

A falling man left me paralysed

Jane Garvey talks to Grace Spence Green, a 25-year-old trainee doctor, about an extraordinary turning point in her life. Grace was walking through the atrium of the Stratford Westfield shopping centre when a man fell from several storeys up and landed directly on top of her. She woke up hearing screams and slowly realised they were her own. She was urgently telling those around her that she couldn't feel her legs. Grace was left seriously injured. She spent weeks in recovery in hospital, many of...

Apr 07, 2021•28 min

Discover extraordinary real-life stories

Jane Garvey meets incredible people who have lived through unimaginable events. Discover these inspiring stories of hope, resilience, bravery and opportunity, sharing in the shocks and surprises life throws at us all.

Apr 01, 2021•3 min

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