麻豆社

An agent once told Lesley Pearse to "write what you know", but her own story is more extraordinary than any of her bestselling novels. From lost teenage girl in 1960s London, to wildly popular romance novelist, Lesley spent 58 years searching for the son she'd given up for adoption when she was a teenager.

Following the death of her filmmaker mother, Kathleen, Nina Collins kept her largely-forgotten work locked in a trunk for years, but opening it eventually helped Nina deal with her grief.

Growing up in Queens, New York, Bob Beamon had a tough start in life. Orphaned before he was one, he got mixed up in gangs but then, when he was a teenager, his extraordinary athletic talent was discovered. Sport offered him a way out from the streets. At the men鈥檚 long jump final in the 1968 Olympics he made a leap so jaw-dropping that a new word was invented to describe what he鈥檇 done: 'beamonesque'.

Monica McWilliams is one of the most prominent peacemakers in her very divided country. Monica came of age at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland: the decades-long violent struggle over who should run the country. In 1996 it was announced there would be peace talks. At the time, Monica was a university lecturer, and mother to two young sons. She felt strongly that women should be included in discussions about what peace might look like. Within just a few weeks, she and a group of women from across the religious and political divides had established a political party from scratch, the Northern Ireland Women鈥檚 Coalition.

Presenter: India Rakusen

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707

(Photo: Cassette tape. Credit: Getty Images)