My Story - Survival

Frank Gardner meets three more of the fifteen finalists in the BBC's My Story competition, each hoping to win the chance to see their true-life story become a published book. This programme, the last in the series, includes three very powerful personal testimonies of survival. Former soldier Paul Burns recalls how he survived an IRA bomb at Warren Point in Northern Ireland and went on to become the first disabled member of the elite Red Arrows parachute display team. Eighty-six year old Iby Knill tells how she survived the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, and why she kept her past a secret from her family for over 40 years. Finally, Frank meets Alex Ntung, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who was forced to work as a child spy and went on to set up an organization campaigning against the use of child soldiers. The winner, chosen by a panel of judges, will be revealed at the end of the programme. The book will be available in bookshops from Wednesday morning, or viewers can download it free from the BBC website.