Bristol2Beijing

"When the ideal is not available the available becomes ideal"

Until recently there were only two centres in Ghana that could treat children with cancer. This meant that children from the Central and Western regions of Ghana had to make a journey of up to ten hours to receive treatment;

In November 2019, Ella was able to use her expertise to set up a childhood cancer satellite unit at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital, as part of World Child Cancer’s shared care programme.

Yet Ella is still training as a paediatric oncologist. What difficulties did she encounter in creating a new treatment centre with minimal resources and staffing?

To find out more about World Child Cancer, click here

When in Moldova I visited Taproom 27 - a craft beer bar - and the Smokehouse in the centre of Chișinău and talked with David Smith about his innovative way of challenging corruption through business.

We discussed how corruption manifests itself in Moldova, how his bar and restaurant have defended themselves and what kept Dave going through the darkest moments.

See below for Dave's favourite:

Place: The Moldovan countryside

Piece of music: Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together) by Queen

Book: East of Eden by John Steinbeck

‘The hardest thing I’ve ever done.’ 

Lucy Palmer describes with honesty the moment she climbed the stairs to be with her husband at the time of his death, the physical pain of his loss, navigating her way through a death-denying culture with three small children, the array of emotions she felt and the courage it takes to stand in that space of pain.

‘It is very easy to numb out and avoid the things that we don’t want to think about, the things we don’t want to face… When I was brave enough to face those things and to digest and understand those experiences, they were truly the most exhilarating experiences of my life’.

See below for Lucy's favourite:

Place: Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea

Piece of music: Afternoon in Paris by Stephane Grappelli

Book: Middlemarch by George Eliot

“It was about the person I wanted to be, not so much about the person I actually was”

Lucy tells the story of how she escaped from a difficult childhood in the UK to work in Papua New Guinea, how she fell in love and married her unexpected sweetheart and then faced the challenge of becoming stepmother to four teenage boys themselves grieving the death of their mother. She speaks candidly about the difficulties of forming relationships with her stepsons only to then face a double tragedy in the family.

Arctic explorer & ocean conservationist, Pen Hadow, reveals what it took to become the first person to trek solo from Canada to the North Pole, on his third attempt.

“This is what the whole challenge is about, it’s not about the easy stuff, it’s about how you deal with the really hard stuff … We are all different … Have confidence in who you are and what you can do and bring to the table, and resist the herd mentality and the need to be like everyone else”

See below for Pen's favourite:

Place: Pentire Cove, north of Polzeath, Cornwall

Music: Brahms Piano concerto no. 2 in B flat major

or Loaded by Primal Scream

Book: Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh