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Post divorce, a single parent in middle age….way of coping was to take on a series of extreme challenges. Since then she has sailed around the world (the wrong way), come into close and unwanted contact with a Canadian cougar, and made an 11-day ‘impossible’ Arctic trek on a dog sled.

Rona’s book is called Snow, Sleds and Silence: The Story of the Nordkapp Expedition and is published by Libri.

Losing a child must be one of the most tragic events in any parent’s life. We meet two women who have been through that shattering experience. Jo Yirrell’s son, Harry, died of malaria 8 years ago after a trip to work as a volunteer in Ghana. She now works as a special ambassador for . Della Phillips’ daughter, Kelly, killed in a car accident when she was 17. Della now campaigns for Surrey and.

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Fran Brown was a lighting engineer in London’s West End. Then she had a fall at work. She’s now an incomplete tetraplegic, Britain’s first paraclimbing world champion and a member of the

At a first glance Judy Fairbairns would seem, for many, to have the perfect life. Falling head over heels in love with a wild adventurer at 19, whisked away to a remote Scottish island, where she raises a gaggle of five children and runs a farm and a hotel business.Ìý However, Judy soon finds herself drowning in the daily tasks of being a mother, wife and hard-working professional. She joins Jane to tell her how when things fall apart, she goes about putting them back together.

: Island Wife – Living on the Edge of the Wild is published by Two Roads Publications.

Wendy Rowley spent 4 years in prison for drugs offences; she now works for trying to help resettle prisoners. Kelly Edmonds was jailed for 18 months and now has a job as an outreach worker at , a charity working with young people.