Mariella Frostrup is a renowned journalist and a voice familiar to Times Radio listeners. Today, the tables are turned. Mariella is on the other side of the mic, answering the questions rather than asking them.

She talks candidly to Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson about her chaotic childhood, constantly being moved from house to house, from country to country as her parents divorced. She talks about the devastating impact of her dad’s early death and her stepfather’s violence and links to the IRA.   Mariella also shares warm memories of her youth in the music industry, living in London’s Kings Road at the height of its punk glamour, jokes with Bono and dates with Iggy Pop.

Warning: Contains discussions of sensitive subjects including: alcoholism, bullying, death, drug use, domestic violence and coercive control, death.

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Links for additional support

Bereavement support

https://www.sueryder.org/

https://www.thegoodgrieftrust.org/

Domestic Violence

https://www.ncdv.org.uk/domestic-abuse-help/

Bullying

https://anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/

Alcoholism and Addiction

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://www.actiononaddiction.org.uk

Mental health

https://www.mind.org.uk/

young people’s mental health

https://www.youngminds.org.uk

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Candice Brathwaitei s a best-selling author, television presenter and social media star. Her honest and funny accounts of motherhood as a black woman have made her one of Britain’s most successful influencers. But her early life was far from picture perfect. She was raised by her grandfather due to her mother’s mental health issues. Her father died suddenly was she was 21. Then she was almost killed by an infection following the birth of her first child. This experience led her to explore the experiences of black mothers and baby in the UK health care system. A 2018 study showed that black women were more than 5 times more likely to die in childbirth. A shocking statistic, that inspired Candice to become a vocal campaigner for health care reform.

Warning: Contains frank discussion of illness, childbirth, abortion, suicide and racism.

Additional support

Pregnancy and Post-natal support

National Childbirth trust

https://www.nct.org.uk/

Mental health and suicide awareness

https://www.mind.org.uk/

www.samaritans.org  

The Samaritans Tel: 116 123

Abortion advice

(www.mariestopes.org.uk)

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Pauline Black has been called “the Queen of Ska”. She came to prominence in the 1970s as the lead singer of the renowned 2-Tone band The Selecter. Pauline has also been an actress with roles in film and television shows. She is a deputy lieutenant for the West Midlands and was recently awarded an OBE by the King. But throughout her childhood, growing up as an black child adopted by a white family in Essex Pauline says she felt like a “cuckoo, in somebody else nest”. Education and Music were her escapes. As she puts it: “Any band is like a surrogate family.”

Warning: Contains discussions of sensitive subjects including racism, and sexual abuse.

Additional support

www.adoptionuk.org

www.nspcc.org.uk

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Morpurgo is a best-selling author who has written more than 130 books and whose stories

have been turned into plays and films watched by everyone from the late Queen to schoolchildren.

His books include War Horse, Kensuke’s Kingdom and Private Peaceful.

He became Children’s Laureate in 2003. Michael was a teacher before turning to writing and still loves reading stories in classrooms around the country.

But his childhood was far from a fairy tale. He talks candidly to Rachel and Alice about being a War baby; living with a depressed mother and disciplinarian step father. He relates tales of visiting India with the Queen aged 16, dropping out of the Army; and the shock discovery of his real father’s identity whilst watching TV one Christmas.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sir Keir Starmer is a politician, who grew up in Surrey and worked as a barrister before becoming an MP. He specialised in human rights law and rose through the ranks to become Director of Public Prosecutions before being awarded a knighthood 2014.

His progress into the establishment was completed when he was elected to parliament the following year and in 2020 he became leader of the Labour Party. 

Now if the polls are to believed Keir Starmer may be prime minister after the next general election. 

But his childhood was far from easy. Keir talks candidly to Rachel and Alice about growing up in a small pebble dashed house with six humans and four dogs, where money was tight and the phone was cut off. He shares bittersweet memories of early years overshadowed by his mother’s degenerative, disabling illness and frequent critical stays in hospital high dependency units. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maggie O’Farrell is a novelist who has won multiple awards for her best selling books. 

In 2007 she was named as one of Waterstones 25 authors of the future and her recent book Hamnet won The Women's Prize for Fiction and National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Her new novel out in August 2022 called The Marriage Portrait is much anticipated by her many fans.

But despite her success as a writer, Maggie’s life has been littered with misfortunes and sliding door moments. Rachel and Alice sit down with Maggie to talk about the life threatening illness she suffered with as a child, a near miss of drowning as a teenager and her encounter with a stranger on a dark night who she later found out was a murderer. 

Marie Curie: www.mariecurie.org.uk

Mind: www.mind.org.uk

SAMM: www.samm.org.uk

This podcast has been produced in association with Speakers for Schools: www.speakersforschools.org

Producers: Anya Pearce and Lucy Dichmont

Series producer: Ben Mitchell

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Evanna Lynch played one of J K Rowling’s most loved characters, Luna Lovegrove, in the Harry Potter films.

Evanna always identified with Luna rather than Hermione or Harry or Ron when she grew up reading the books but never thought she would one day become pen pals with the author or end up acting her heroine.

But despite her successful career she’s been in constant conflict with herself throughout most of her life. At the age of 11 Evanna reveals that her eating disorder had fully consumed her and one of the only things that she found offered a form of escapism was reading the Harry Potter books.

Now she’s written a book: The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting: The Tragedy and Glory of Growing Up.

Beat Eating Disorders: www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk

Mind: www.mind.org.uk

The Performing Arts Children's Charity: www.pachildrenscharity.org.uk

This podcast has been produced in association with Speakers for Schools: www.speakersforschools.org

Producers: Anya Pearce and Lucy Dichmont

Series producer: Ben Mitchell

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richard Branson is one of Britain’s best-known entrepreneurs who is as much a brand as a businessman and a billionaire.

Sir Richard Branson has run everything from trains to planes, a record company and a bank. His Virgin Group now controls more than 400 companies, he has his own island and even a rocket.

But despite his life looking picture perfect from the outside, Richard has come up against challenges just like you and I. Rachel sits down with Richard to talk about living with severe dyslexia, leaving school at 15 years old to conquer the world of business and how he’s learnt to manage his ‘yes man’ personality.

BDA: www.bdadyslexia.org.uk

Virgin Unite: www.unite.virgin.com

Future First: www.futurefirst.org.uk

This podcast has been produced in association with Speakers for Schools: www.speakersforschools.org

Producers: Anya Pearce and Lucy Dichmont

Series producer: Ben Mitchell

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wes Streeting is a Labour politician who is already being tipped as a potential future leader of his party. He is a former president of the National Union of Students, who worked for the Blairite campaign group Progress before winning his Ilford North parliamentary seat from the Conservatives in 2015. He then served as shadow Secretary of State for child poverty before becoming shadow health secretary.

Wes Streeting is a centrist who supporters say could win back the party’s traditional working-class voters without alienating middle England. He is a gay Christian Cambridge graduate who is also tough on crime and patriotic.

But this rising star of the Labour Party hasn’t had an easy time climbing the ladder. Rachel and Alice sit down with Wes to talk about his childhood experiences growing up in poverty on a council estate in East London and how grandparents, who spent time in prison, impacted his life.  

CPAG: www.cpag.org.uk

UK Community Foundations: www.ukcommunityfoundations.org

Stonewall: www.stonewall.org.uk

This podcast has been produced in association with Speakers for Schools: www.speakersforschools.org

Producers: Anya Pearce and Lucy Dichmont

Series producer: Ben Mitchell

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richard Coles has been both a chart-topping pop star and a Church of England vicar. He had a number one hit single with The Communards in the 1980s and now Richard Coles is a successful broadcaster and author who has just published his debut novel Murder Before Evensong. He is as his beloved husband David, who died in 2019, used to say a  “borderline national trinket”.

But his life hasn’t always been so rosy. Rachel and Alice sit down with Richard to talk about his father’s business collapsing when he was 13, his “mental crisis” after coming out to his mother at the age of 16 and how he was never allowed to have a church wedding to the man he loved. 

Cruse: www.cruse.org.uk

NAT: www.nat.org.uk

Stonewall: www.stonewall.org.uk

This podcast has been produced in association with Speakers for Schools: www.speakersforschools.org

Producers: Anya Pearce and Lucy Dichmont

Series producer: Ben Mitchell

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.