A Life Less Ordinary with Sophie Elwes

For this epsiode Sophie is interviewed by her good friend Sarah Orr (who appeared in series two of A Life Less Ordinary with Sophie Elwes). Sophie tells her story from when she sustained her spinal cord injury back in 2011 after falling from a roof terrace. They discuss the aftermath, from spending nearly six weeks in an induced coma with 40% chance of survival, to going to Stoke Mandeville spinal...

Jambo Truong is a practitioner of integrative medicine with a specialism in complimentary medicine and therapies who has impressive credentials and a vast knowledge and repertoire of different practices. Growing up in South Wales and feeling like an outsider as being from an ethnic minority, as well as being queer, he faced a lot of bullying and had to learn to defend himself. Witnessing his siste...

Sophie Dear is a yoga teacher and self-worth coach who struggled with insomnia and undiagnosed anxiety since the age of 15.  She appeared to have a thriving career in the TV industry but it wasn't until reaching a point of burnout that she had a conversation with a doctor who encouraged her to question her self-critic by interacting with her 'inner child' that led her on a path of h...

Raquel Siganporia is the Director of Business Development and Senior Solicitor at Aspire Law and she sustained a spinal cord injury following surgery to correct the curvature of her spine, or scoliosis,  which went wrong when she was aged 11. She tells me about the immediate aftermath of such a life-changing event and about what it was like starting secondary school in the '90s as a person wi...

Adam is the founder of Togetherness which is a social enterprise whose purpose is to make meaningful connection more accessible in our culture. Having been a people pleaser and studied it in depth, Adam has a great understanding of his own behaviour patterns and we unpick what it means and why awareness is key to working through feeling the need to please others and putting their needs before one&...

Whilst in her last year of law school, in her early twenties, Lauren Murrell was diagnosed with an aggressive form of blood cancer (myeloid leukaemia) with only 20% chance of survival.  Whilst she was in hospital her sister Sarah developed some natural skincare formulations to restore and repair her sister's sensitive fragile skin. After a life-saving stem cell transplant from Sarah, the sist...

Melanie Woods is a former PE teacher and GB Paralympic athlete who sustained a spinal cord injury after being hit by a car whilst riding her bike. She tells me about her experience of rehabilitation, learning how to become independent and managing to  walk with crutches whilst in rehab. She shares how she found ways to cope with her new situation and her journey into wheelchair racing. She talks a...

This was such a special conversation with Carlos Cervantes who talks about his experiences in his late teens and early 20s of suffering from severe depression, 'overdoing it' on drink and drugs, dropping out of university having had a mental breakdown, feeling suicidal and receiving a diagnosis of Bipolar Type One Disorder. He came across a teacher of meditation and started on his journe...

Working in the NHS for 27 years, Dr Clair Pollard is a Clinical Psychologist and Acting Director for a large psychology mental health trust in South London and a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist. She also sustained a spinal cord injury during her training at the age of 25 which left her paraplegic and a wheelchair user. Undeterred by this, it was her determination and focus on her training that ena...

Rosie Wilby is an award-winning comedian, author and podcaster who has appeared a number of times on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Woman's Hour, Saturday Live and Four Thought. Her first book Is Monogamy Dead? was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize and followed a trilogy of solo shows investigating the psychology of love and relationships. Her new book The Breakup Monologues is bas...

Alexandra Adams was the first guest on this podcast, and the inspiration behind starting A Life Less Ordinary. She's  also a medical student who is deaf-blind. In 2020 she went into hospital with symptoms of an undiagnosed chronic illness and was there for 17 months during which time she massively deteriorated and experienced some shocking mistreatment at the hands of medical staff and some h...

Grace Spence Green is a junior doctor and a wheelchair user. Growing up, she had her heart set on becoming a doctor from the age of eight and was a keen competitive climber. In an extraordinary incident in 2018, while she studying at medical school, a man jumped from a height and fell on her, causing her to break her back and sustain a spinal cord injury, becoming a wheelchair user. Choosing not t...

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Berry who is my friend and personal trainer. We’ve known each other for years and every time I have a session with him, we end up deep in conversation and he is a real fountain of wisdom and life advice, as well as a great trainer. Growing up on a council estate in Wandsworth, Mark has always been committed to helping others (alongside his love of...

Gail Muller is an adventurer, educator and author. Growing up in Cornwall, she was sporty and outdoorsy, but at 14 was told she’d need to use a wheelchair by the age of 40 due to muscular-skeletal issues. She has an extraordinary story of her journey of experiencing chronic pain for 15 years, and dedicating much of that time to finding a solution, which she later did, for the most part. At 41 she...

Based partly in Carlsbad, CA and in Keauhou, Hawaii, Kalim Smith and I met a few years back at a ski race in New Hampshire, after which we discovered we had a mutual friend/relative and since then we’ve enjoyed some great times in both London and California, with some wonderful conversations. After becoming paralysed in 2011 he recognised the healing power of plants and now spends much of his time...

Head of Wellbeing at leading employee wellbeing platform, Better Space, James Dashwood is a father, a husband, and a recovering alcoholic.  Sober for seven years he has been on a journey of introspection where he’s learned so much about himself, about addiction and about what it means to be content. He shares his story about growing up and how he recognises that he used external things to soothe i...

Andrew Cotton is a big wave surfer and Red Bull athlete. Growing up in North Devon, he started at 7 and it became his life. He left school and worked in a local surfboard factory until the age of 25 to fund his surf trips. At this point he figured it wasn’t going to sustain him financially so he re-trained as a plumber but this made it clear to him that his real passion lay in big wave surfing. So...

Cathy Reay is a writer, editor, disability consultant and influencer. She is also a single mother of two and her Instagram account provides a great insight into life as a mum with dwarfism, disability justice, sex and dating, as well as some great skincare tips. Cathy tells me about what it was like for her growing up in north Norfolk and how moving to London helped her find out who she was. We ta...

Gregory David Roberts is the author of best selling novel, Shantaram and sequel, Mountain Shadow. Selling over 6 million copies, it is partly based on Gregory's own life experience of escaping prison in Australia and being on the run, during which time he lived in a slum in India. After ten years as a fugitive, Gregory was re-captured in Germany and spent time in both solitary confinement and...

Mo Gawdat is the former Chief Business Officer at Google X (aka the Moonshoot Factory) and before that had a successful career as a stock-trader and tech executive in Dubai. Despite having professional, personal and material success he was miserable, and no amount of new Rolls Royces could make him happy in a sustained way. He decided to use his engineer's mind and research skills to come up...

After breaking her neck at the age of 16 in a car crash whilst on holiday in the Highlands, Sarah’s life took a course that was far from ordinary.   We speak about her rehab in the spinal unit, where, thanks to some ‘tough love’ from her physio she learned to become completely independent, despite being tetraplegic. She tells me about the early days of adjustment following her injury, how difficul...

Marsha de Cordova is the Labour MP for Battersea since 2017 and is currently the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities.  She was born with nystagmus and is registered blind. We speak about her upbringing, with five siblings, where her mum fought for her to remain in mainstream education, she says if she hadn't, she wouldn't be where she is today.  Marsha entered politics bec...

Jonny Benjamin MBE is an awarding winning mental health campaigner, writer, film producer, public speaker and vlogger. At the age of 20 he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which is a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar. Having been affected by mental illness from a young age, Jonny is passionate about improving mental health for young people, and has started up a charity Beyond. T...

Millie Gooch is the founder of Sober Girl Society, an online community which destigmatises sobriety, and brings women together who want to connect and have fun, without the booze. Millie quit drinking  in 2018 after experiencing one too many blackouts and the terrible accompanying ‘hanxiety’, leading her to  read Catherine Gray’s The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober, which kick-started her sober jour...

Megan Hine is a survival consultant, producer, adventurer and television presenter. She is also the author of Mind of a Survivor. During her career she has survived a snakebite, Lyme disease, being shot at and hunted by a lion, amongst many other things. An Ambassador for Scouting UK, Megan is passionate about enabling children and young people to experience the wealth of benefits that being in th...