What happens when a fresh-faced kid in a Depeche Mode t-shirt walks onto your track and quietly dismantles everything you believed about winning?

For Kriss Akabusi MBE — Olympian, world champion, and one of the most iconic figures in British athletics history — that moment arrived in 1985, when a teenager called Roger Black turned up to train with a group of seasoned internationals.

Roger was Racy Roger from Portsmouth Grammar. Kriss was a working-class boy raised in a children's home who'd joined the army at 16. They had almost nothing in common — except the track. And that track would change both of their lives.

In this episode, Kriss reflects on the brilliant human who shattered a quiet but suffocating mindset inside Team GB: that simply making the plane was enough. Roger didn't just compete — he won. And in doing so, he gave an entire generation of British athletes permission to believe they could too.

Kriss also speaks about Roger's devastating injury setbacks, the unshakeable tunnel vision that kept him going, and how their friendship forged in the hardest training sessions ultimately led to one of the greatest moments in British athletics — the 1991 World Championships Men's 4x400m relay in Tokyo, a race you can watch here: https://youtu.be/9a1r9NC_Po0?si=OT9NzC8G8znAYsJi.

This is a story about friendship, belief, and what it means to know yourself — and show yourself.

He grew up in a children's home in East London. Roger grew up as a grammar school boy on the South Coast, heading for a career in medicine. On paper, their worlds should never have touched. But geography — and a shared, relentless hunger to be the best — changed everything.

In this episode, two-time Olympic silver medallist Roger Black MBE celebrates the brilliant human at the centre of his story: Kriss Akabusi. The man the public knows as larger than life, infectious, joyful. The man Roger knows as the most committed, self-aware, and quietly methodical athlete he's ever encountered.

Together, they trained, sacrificed, and pushed each other toward heights neither might have reached alone. Their partnership culminated in one of British athletics' most iconic moments — the 1991 World Championships Men's 4x400m relay in Tokyo, a race you can watch here: https://youtu.be/9a1r9NC_Po0?si=OT9NzC8G8znAYsJi

But this conversation goes far deeper than gold medals. Roger reflects on what Kriss saw before Roger saw it in himself, why their differences were never obstacles, and how the most transformative people in our lives are sometimes delivered to us simply by geography — by the extraordinary accident of being in the same place at the same moment in time.

What kind of man puts money behind the bar of a local pub for strangers, quietly funds redundant journalists, and turns down a fortune just to keep his concert tickets under forty pounds? Paul Heaton — singer, songwriter, and one of Britain's most quietly extraordinary humans — has never made headlines for his generosity. And that's exactly the point.

Simon Cresswell first stumbled into Paul Heaton's world through a borrowed Best Of CD in the late nineties, and what started as a love of sharp, witty lyrics slowly became something deeper. Through the House Martins' protest folk, the Beautiful South's bittersweet duets, and solo albums that tackled stillbirth, alcoholism, and refugee crises with equal tenderness, Paul became the unofficial soundtrack to Simon's entire life — school, university, first jobs, Sunday drives with his grandparents.

But it wasn't just the music. When Simon discovered that Paul Heaton also collects vintage crisp packets, something clicked beyond admiration. Here was a millionaire who passed his driving test in his fifties just to take his daughters to school, who tried to nationalise his own back catalogue for the NHS, who toured the country by bike to support struggling British pubs.

In this episode, Simon — social worker, dedicated dad, and proud Beautiful South fan who fought that corner alone at secondary school — shares why Paul Heaton's quiet brilliance has shaped not just his taste, but his values.

What do you do when two years of pain, specialists, and dead ends leave you wondering if this is just your life now? For Anna Stewart — adventurer, singer-songwriter, and former English teacher in Nepal — that question became unbearably real after a snowboarding accident just before her 25th birthday sent her tumbling off a cliff, fracturing vertebrae across her lower back and landing her in an Andorran hospital for ten days with nothing but Catalan television for company.

The physical recovery stalled. The mental weight grew heavier. A girl who had backpacked solo across Australia, bungee jumped, and taught English in Nepal at eighteen now couldn't sit down for any length of time. She began to see herself as disabled.

Then her sister-in-law suggested she see a London osteopath named Naval Mair — a man who treats actors, sultans, and sick babies in hospitals for free with equal commitment. Naval looked at Anna and said four words that changed everything: I can get you better.

He treated her without charge. And when she asked how she could ever repay him, he offered her a phrase she'd carry for the rest of her life: don't pay me back — pay it forward.

This is the story of what it means to be truly seen in your most vulnerable moment, and how one person's confidence, humility, and open-handedness can quietly redirect the entire course of a life.

What does it look like when two people spend a lifetime quietly making everyone around them better? For Tom Barnes - sports media executive, endurance athlete, and one of a handful of people to have ever rowed an ocean - the answer is Paul and Linda. His parents.

Long before Tom and his rowing partner Rich pushed off from the Canary Islands into 72 days of open Atlantic, it was Paul who said six words that changed everything: "What can I do to help?" No hesitation. No doubt. Just a quiet, unconditional yes - and then years of relentless behind-the-scenes work to get two full-time working men to a start line that cost over £60,000 to reach.

And Linda? She was the energy in the room before Tom even knew what energy meant. A PE teacher who made her own school feel like home. A volunteer who never stopped - Brownies, Citizens Advice, furniture runs for strangers in need. A woman who, at 73, is still moving sofas for people she'll never meet again - and who has never once called her son to say she's having a bad day.

This episode is about what happens when you grow up surrounded by people who lead with generosity, faith, and an instinct to show up. And what it means to carry that forward - as a father, a friend, and someone trying to figure out what kind of person he wants to be.

Colonel Ray Rider flew F-16s, survived Vietnam, graduated top of his class at the Air Force's elite Fighter Weapons School — the real-life equivalent of Top Gun — and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, the United States' premier decoration for extraordinary achievement in aerial flight. He served his country for 30 years. Then Alzheimer's disease tried to take the rest.

In this episode, Kristen Rider honours her father — a man whose brilliance wasn't just found in a cockpit over Vietnam, but in the way he returned a shopping trolley, anticipated what the person next to him needed, and held everyone around him to a standard rooted in love, not fear.

Kristen shares what it was like growing up as a military child across three continents, the quiet devastation of watching a high-performing man fight a disease that robbed him of himself, and how losing her parents within years of each other led her to spend 12 years working alongside the Alzheimer's Association.

This is a story about service in its fullest sense — the kind that shows up in war, in marriage, in parenthood, and in a car park where everyone else has walked away.

Alzheimer's resources: 🇺🇸 USA: alz.org 🇬🇧 UK: alzheimers.org.uk

What happens when a brilliant coach sees potential in the kid everyone else wants to kick out?

Coach Ed Harris didn't just teach Steve Price how to play American football — he saw something in a hyperactive 11-year-old British kid who didn't know the rules, didn't respect authority, and was more interested in causing chaos than playing the game. While teachers suspended Steve, Coach Ed did something radical: he stayed.

Through relentless discipline, fourth-quarter punishment runs, and an unexpected moment of recognition, Coach Ed transformed Steve from the team's biggest liability into one of its captains. He channelled Steve's energy, backed his progress, and showed him what it means to be someone worth following.

This episode explores how one coach's refusal to give up on a difficult kid didn't just change Steve's relationship with sport — it changed the entire trajectory of his life. From Portsmouth school fights to American football stardom, this is a story about discipline, belief, and the power of seeing people for who they could become.

Content Warning: This episode contains references to drug use and the death of a teenager. Please listen with care.

Angela Mabbs never thought of herself as brilliant. But when her daughter Fiona's world shattered with the loss of her 16-year-old son Dan, Angela became the quiet force that held everything together — moving in for six weeks, shielding her family from the media storm, and playing the 'glad game' even in grief.

This is a story about a mother who taught resilience not through grand gestures, but through kindness, presence, and an unshakeable belief that there's always something to be grateful for — even when life is unimaginably hard. Fiona Spargo-Mabbs, founder of the Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation and OBE recipient, shares how her mum Angela's quiet strength shaped her into someone who could turn tragedy into a mission to protect young lives through drug education.

From childhood lessons in Pollyanna's 'glad game' to five major surgeries faced with grace, Angela embodies what it means to choose light — not by denying darkness, but by refusing to let it have the final word. This episode is a love letter to the unsung brilliant humans who show up, hold space, and remind us what we're capable of becoming.

You can learn more about the amazing work Fiona and the Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation are doing by visiting https://www.dsmfoundation.org.uk/