Life Changing Radio 4
The strange but true stories of people’s lives is an addictive listen and I find myself turning back to Life Changing presented by Dr Sian Williams who, in herself, has a tale to tell.
She was a journalist who swapped a top news presenting job to offer psychological support to people by becoming a counsellor and psychologist.
This series is a window on other people’s lives and the pivotal moments within them.
Take Rachel Watkyn. She was raised as an aristocrat – a young baroness – even though the family were improverished. They lived in a big house that was falling down – icy cold... you could skate in one of the rooms in winter.
At home she was taught etiquette – walking with a book on your head; never calling the toilet the toilet – whilst in school, when she was very little, it was a whole different story.
The other children called her “fleabag” because she was dirty. As a very small child, she remembered hoking through piles of dirty clothes to find the least dirty to wear to school.
Her sister wet the bed and the children smelled of urine, she said. Add to that, the fact that they were forbidden from mixing with local children – they were aristocracy after all – and the result was an extremely difficult upbringing.
She remembers her father telling her to wear something good as they were going to meet royalty in London and she had to squeeze her size 8 feet into her sister’s size 6 shoes because she had no others and go on the bus across the city.
She remembers travelling to Germany to meet their aristocrat relations. She remembers the mortification of forgetting to curtsey when meeting Monaco royalty and the misery of boarding school where the other pupils were told that she was a baroness prior and didn’t want to know her.
Rachel was raised as an aristocrat even though the family were improverished. The other children called her ‘fleabag’ because she was dirty
But perhaps the fruit of a very difficult and impoverished childhood is resilience in the face of the world – and she has that. She made a good life for herself.
It was years later, when her father was on his deathbed and she was in her 50s, that he told her about a box of secrets at home. She and her siblings gathered around, opened the box and the contents changed everything utterly.
Life Changing is a radio series that demands attention – people’s lives are so strange, varied and utterly fascinating.