All entries in this category: Extraordinary Stories
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Army Wife
You鈥檙e a mother of three young kids, eight years married and your husband鈥檚 away a lot on business. It can be taxing at the best of times. But what if your husband鈥檚 business is being in the Armed Forces? And his 鈥渂eing away a lot鈥 amounts to months in a war zone, with limited contact and the ever-present threat to life?
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Childhood in Rhodesia
Lauren St John grew up in 1970鈥檚 civil war torn Rhodesia. Her childhood reality was one where she wiped her classmate鈥檚 blood from the floor of her bedroom, slept with a knife under her pillow and watched for landmines as she rode her horse.
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Anorexia
Mandy Allison is 33 years old. She has a six year old son and she is a trained therapist and counsellor. But her life has been dominated by her anorexia. She has been sectioned several times, has spent long periods in hospital - often against her wishes 鈥 and her condition has brought her close to death.
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Party Crashers
Monica Fuller thought she would hold a party for her daughter Morven鈥檚 15th birthday.
Monica wasn鈥檛 taking any chances: she hired security, kids were only admitted if they were wearing issued wristbands, no glass was allowed past the front door and everyone was required to leave their valuables in a room at the front of the house, guarded by a couple of Monica鈥檚 friends.
But they made the mistake of having too much lead-up time to the party 鈥 three weeks. During that time, word spread like wildfire on the internet. It became such a hot ticket that some invites to the party were sold.
Monica didn鈥檛 go into the house until about 11:30pm but by then her house had been well and truly trashed.
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Ray Kluun
Ray Kluun lives in Holland. His wife Judith was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer in her 30鈥檚 and that is when Ray says that he became hooked on the process of chasing women, attracted to them because they were, in his words, 鈥榳hole鈥 and 鈥榟ealthy鈥. It became his respite from seeing his wife鈥檚 deterioration.
But he maintains that his is a story of true love that goes beyond the fairytale of happy ever afters and in sickness and in health, til death do us part.
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Crop Circler
For a while, in the 1980s, crop circles were a staple of the 鈥楢nd Finally鈥 section on any self respecting news station. Young, agile reporters were sent out into the middle of fields to look for alien life 鈥 or the imprints of someone鈥檚 size 8 wellies. No one could really explain crop circles, no one ever owned up to them, no one knew what to say to the irate farmers.
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Blind Parents
Julie Reid had an extraordinary childhood. Both her parents were blind and they managed to hold down successful careers and raise three children with hardly any outside help.
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Frozen Embryos
Claire Burrell's life was changed irrevocably by advances in fertility treatment that meant even though cancer robbed her of the chance to conceive naturally she was still able to become the very proud mother of twin boys 鈥 who are now coming up to 2 and a half years old.
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Dexy's cover star
If you ever bought Dexy鈥檚 Midnight Runners first album then you have looked many a time at a photograph which captures the fear caused by the British government鈥檚 announcement in 1971 that suspects in Northern Ireland could be held without trial. It resulted in many people fleeing their homes in Belfast 鈥 one of those was Anthony O鈥橲haughnessy and the photograph of him and his brothers running from their home was used on the cover of Dexy鈥檚 debut album.
The pictures below show the album cover, the original photograph as it appeared in a newspaper at the time, and a recent photo of Anthony.
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Gareth Lewis
More than 1,700 people have died as a consequence of receiving infected blood in transfusions during the 1970鈥檚 and 1980鈥檚 and an independent public inquiry this week has begun to hear evidence from the families of those affected 鈥 and from those who are terminally ill now.
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Selling Your Story
Whatever you think about the motivation behind anyone's decision to talk to the papers it鈥檚 hard not to notice just how powerful the press can be and how little an individual can control a story once it is out there. As knows all too well.
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Living In The Woods
Hugh Sawyer wanted to draw attention to what we are all doing to the planet through our centrally heated indoor lifestyles, and raise some money for green causes 鈥 so he decided to go and live in the woods for a year and a half.
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Jamie Andrew
had been passionate about rock climbing ever since he was 16 years old. But in 1999 while climbing in the French Alps, Jamie and a friend got caught in bad weather and were trapped on the mountainside for five days and nights. His friend died of hypothermia, and Jamie survived but had to have both his hands and feet amputated after he developed septicaemia. In spite of this Jamie was determined to climb again, and in 2000 became the first quadruple amputee to climb Ben Nevis, Britain's highest mountain, using artificial legs and sticks.
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DNA testing
Halle is a young woman with a complicated family background who thought that DNA testing would clear things up. She grew up believing that her mother was her sister, and her grandmother was her mother - before her brother let slip the truth after a row.
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Illiterate Tycoon
Kevin Linfoot is an extremely successful man. He is only 48 years old but has built up, from scratch, a property empire worth millions of pounds. He has a partner and a son. He lives in a beautiful house. It would seem that he has a very bright mind and has made the most of what life has offered him. But Kevin is completely and utterly illiterate.
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Miscarriage of Justice
Paul Blackburn spent 25 years in jail for the assault and attempted murder of a nine-year-old boy. He was 14 when he was arrested. He was released on licence in 2003 and in May 2005 the Court of Appeal accepted that Paul didn鈥檛 receive a fair trial and quashed his conviction.
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Light Sensitivity
We may all be whooping with joy at the prospect of the clocks changing and a little more sunshine coming in to our lives but spare a moment's thought for Brenda and John Ryder this weekend.
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Pedalling Across The Atlantic
Stevie Smith decided to use a pedalo to cross the Atlantic in a journey that took him over a hundred days and nearly cost him his sanity.
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Police Diver
Feeling your way in freezing, dark waters for dead bodies is not everyone鈥檚 idea of job fulfillment. If you are Ross Atkinson, a police diver for the Northumbria Police force, then this could be your average day at work. Ross is part of the diving team that is called on to retrieve evidence, or sometimes dead people, from anywhere watery in the North East of England.
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Babs to Brisbane
Barbara Haddrill faced a dilemma. She had been invited to be a bridesmaid at her good friend's wedding in Brisbane, Australia, but flying over there long-haul went against all her green beliefs. The answer? Planes, trains and automobiles (and a few boats too). We caught up with her in Singapore on her return journey.
You can read more about Bab's adventures on her
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Rocket Man
ambition was always to be a rocket scientist. With a combination of passion and determination over the years he has now become Britain鈥檚 top rocket scientist.
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Lord Redesdale
is a Lib Dem Lord in the House of Lords and is their spokesman on overseas development.
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Sammy Gitau
Sammy Gitau was born and brought up in Mathare - Nairobi's oldest slum district. About 300 thousand people live in the slums and for Sammy the chances of escaping that life were slim. The chances of him ending up on a course at Manchester University studying International Development were even slimmer. But in 2001 whilst working on community projects in the slums Sammy found a university prospectus for Manchester University in a huge mountain of garbage. After years of battling bureaucracy he achieved his goal and made it to Manchester, much to his own amazement.
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John Killick
John Killick has spent the last ten years talking and listening to people with dementia and writing poetry and prose based on their conversations 鈥 he believes that what these people have to say can be highly illuminating and insightful. He has published two poetry books with people with dementia: 'You Are Words' and 'Openings', which are available at
Find out more about John's work on his
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Adoption
Nicky Turner decided she wanted to adopt a child about five years ago. She was in her late 30s, single but wanted to be a mum and adoption seemed to be the solution.
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