John McCarthy talks to those who by accident or design, feel they live outside mainstream British society. Today he talks to Rafi, who fled to this country from Afghanistan in 2011, after working as an interpreter for the allied forces. Rafi explains how he took on the role in the hope of improving relations in his country but in fact it left him isolated from his home community and the people he worked for. Threats from the Taliban caused him to flee his homeland and to seek asylum here. After eighteen months of isolation in this country, he has now gained refugee status and can look for work but he explains the loneliness he feels living on the outside and away from his home, his friends and family.

John McCarthy talks to a young woman who was made to feel an outsider within her own community, for becoming the victim of her husband's physical and psychological abuse.

John McCarthy takes over the One to One chair to talk to people who feel themselves to be outside the mainstream; today he talks to hermit, Rachel Denton.

I want to explore the idea of being an outsider; having conversations with others who will have walked those same private/public paths either through choice or because of circumstances beyond their control."

So what is it like being on the 'outside'? How do you cope with loneliness and feelings of being excluded? What are the attractions of removing yourself from society? What are the practicalities of such a life? How do you keep strong and maintain your hopes of coming in from the cold; or of not giving in and renouncing your solitary way?

Producer: Lucy Lunt.

Martin Wainwright concludes his series of interviews, with those who persist and persevere with their views no matter what, by talking to creationist, Malcolm Bowden.

Martin Wainwright continues his exploration into what makes people become persistent campaigners. Last week he talked to peace activist, Lindis Percy, who consciously chose her cause but in this weeks programme he talks to Paul Lambert, who took up the fight for safety on bulk carriers when his youngest brother was lost at sea when MV Derbyshire sank off Japan in 1980. Not a man used to writing letters or locking horns with MPs or shipping magnates, Paul campaigned tirelessly at great cost to his own health and happiness, to discover the truth about the Derbyshire.

In this series, where journalists follow their personal passions by talking to the people whose stories interest them most, Martin Wainwright interviews persistent campaigners. Having been brought up in a household that was always at action stations as part of his father's long campaign to become a Liberal MP, perseverance has always fascinated Martin. What instils it? What nurtures it? Can it become an obsession at the cost of everything else , including family?

For these two programmes of the One to One interview series, Olivia O'Leary talks to people, who have reached the peak of their profession, about growing older.

This week she meets one of the greatest ever jump-jockeys, Mick Fitzgerald. He was forced to retire in 2008 after a very serious fall in the Grand National.

Producer: Karen Gregor.

For 'One to One' Olivia O'Leary is interviewing three people at the peak of their profession about growing older. This week she meets the Booker Prize winning author, John Banville, who also writes crime fiction under the pseudonym Benjamin Black.

Producer: Karen Gregor.

In a new series of One to One, Olivia O'Leary speaks to people who've reached the peak of their careers about how growing older affects their approach to work.

In this first programme, Olivia speaks to one of her heroes - the great Russian-Icelandic pianist, Vladimir Ashkenazy. He left the Soviet union in the sixties, and has played a vast repertoire of the greatest piano music on stages all over the world. Ashkenazy is now conductor laureate with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

At 75 he is still jetting around the world to engagements so we were lucky to catch up with him in a hotel at Heathrow as he was leaving after a brief visit to the UK.

In a candid discussion, Ashkenazy discussed the arthrosis (not arthritis as has been reported) in his hands which occasionally means his fingers cannot fit between the black keys; he talks about not wanting to become the kind of 'older' conductor, with failing physical capacity, that orchestras respond to purely out of respect.

He also talks more widely - about his decision to leave Russia in the 1960s; about the pianists he holds in great respect and about his decision to concentrate on conducting rather than live performance.

Producer: Karen Gregor.

In this One to One we explore how our experience at school can leave kids afraid to take risks as they fear failure. Kate Silverton desperately wanted to be a journalist from the age of 12. In her teens she travelled extensively - hitch-hiking across Israel and visiting the Palestinian territories in an attempt to better understand the conflict there, she stayed in a Bedouin in the desert and at nineteen went to Zimbabwe for four months armed with just a dictaphone to capture the stories of the people she met along the way. Despite her natural curiosity about the world and her desire to report stories of people living in conflict she didn't follow her heart because she feared she might fail. As the first in her family to go to university much depended on her and her career choice and she opted to enter the City as a Corporate Financier - a demanding job but one that diverted from her doing the one thing she wanted to do - because she feared she might not be good enough. It took the death of her best friend to convince her to change her mind. In this second and final series on 'failure' businesswoman Kate Hardcastle examines how her experience at school impacted on her life choices.