Rewind: An author, his cellmate, and a new beginning

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 30 March 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How a book-loving prisoner showed a young Alex Wheatle the path to self-belief.

Alex had been born in London to Jamaican parents, but grew up in care in the notorious Shirley Oaks children’s home. As a teenager, he was convicted of assaulting a police officer during the Brixton Riots. He felt totally alone and without hope. But as the door slammed on Alex’s prison cell, he met a book-loving man called Simeon who opened his eyes to the importance of his own history – and encouraged him to use his past to write a new and hopeful future. This was originally broadcast in December 2023.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Hetal Bapodra and Anna Lacey

Get in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Transcript

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0:00.0	What do Selena Gomez, LeBron James and Martha Stewart all have in common?
0:06.1	Their lives and fortunes are all being discussed in season three of Good Bad Billionaire.
0:10.8	Yes, the podcast exploring the minds, the motives and the money of some of the world's wealthiest individuals is back.
0:16.8	I'm Zing Singh and I'm Simon Jack.
0:18.5	Each week we take a closer look at some of the world's mega rich.
0:21.8	And try to decide together whether we think they're good, bad or just another billionaire.
0:26.4	Good bad billionaire.
0:27.4	Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:30.3	Hello, it's Joe here.
0:31.8	One of the things that made Londoner Alex Wheatle special was his brilliant ability to bring stories to life.
0:39.3	He was nicknamed the Brixton Bard.
0:42.3	Tributes have been pouring in since his death at the age of 62.
0:46.8	To celebrate his life, we wanted to bring you another chance to hear his life story
0:51.3	in an episode from December 2023.
0:56.6	So here it is. Enjoy.
1:02.8	When I looked into that public gallery, there was no one I could point to who was a relative of mind and that crushed me. That made me feel so much worse than whatever sentence
1:09.3	was handed down to me. And this is why I entered prison
1:12.5	with the feeling that my life has no value.
1:22.6	Alex Wheatel had always felt worthless. He didn't have a family. He'd grown up in a really terrible children's home without anyone to love him. A black boy in a white part of England. It was a lonely existence. And as he stood in the dock of a magistrate's court, just 18, waiting to be sentenced for assaulting a police officer, he had never felt so alone.
1:47.2	What he didn't know was that he was about to meet the man who would turn his life around,
1:52.6	his cellmate.
1:58.4	I'm Joe Fidgen, and this is Lives Less Ordinary from the BBC World Service, connecting you to people all around the globe through personal stories.
	...

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