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Award-winning football coach Jordan Stringer joins me for a walk around Upminster to talk about resilience, grassroots football, dyspraxia, and overcoming testicular cancer at a young age.

Jordan grew up in Upminster with a deep love for football. A game that didn’t come easily to him. Living with dyspraxia meant coordination was a constant challenge, but instead of stepping away, he found another way in. A teacher’s suggestion to help coach changed everything, setting him on a path that would shape his life.

We walk through the streets where it all began, talking about school, identity, and how setbacks can quietly redirect you towards something greater.

At 21, Jordan was diagnosed with testicular cancer — something he had been aware of since childhood. He speaks openly about that period, the mental battle alongside the physical one, and how he kept moving forward.

What runs through this conversation is football as community — not just a game, but a space where people find belonging, purpose, and connection.

This is a walk about resilience, perspective, and choosing to see something steady even when life throws everything off balance.

You can find more about Jordan here:
🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-stringer-4aa94812a/

🔗 https://www.instagram.com/jordy200897/

🔗 https://www.gofundme.com/f/jordan-stringer-private-procedure

Season Two of the story pilgrim walks with people — their challenges, their turning points, and the paths they build from them.

buen camino, and keep listening.

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Actor, life coach, and creative entrepreneur Sascha Cooper joins me for a walk through the Seven Sisters Nature Reserve at Cuckmere Haven to talk about acting, intuition, personal growth, and the winding path of a creative life.

Raised in Devon and later studying in Plymouth before training at The Courtyard Theatre Training Company, London, Sascha has spent more than two decades building a creative life in Brighton — balancing performance, coaching, and spiritual exploration.

Along the walk, we talk about her acting journey, the moments that shaped her confidence, and the people who helped her along the way. Sascha reflects on the women who influenced her life, the value of mentorship, and the quiet strength that comes from community.

Sascha also shares her long relationship with fortune-telling — something that began as playful entertainment and gradually deepened into a deeper exploration of intuition, insight, and guidance.

The conversation moves candidly through identity and self-image, too. Sascha speaks openly about being a plus-size woman in the performing arts industry, how that has shaped her career, and the ways she has learned to own her presence rather than shrink it.

This is a walk about creative courage, intuition, and the many routes that lead us back to ourselves.

You can find Sascha’s work here:

🔗 https://www.saschacooper.co.uk/

🔗 https://www.facebook.com/sascha.cooper/

🔗 https://www.instagram.com/saschacooperentrepreneur/

Season Two of the story pilgrim walks with people — their histories, their work, and the paths that shaped who they are.

buen camino, and keep listening.

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Intimacy Coach for women and embodiment practitioner Daria Lebedeva walks with me along the River Thames to talk about spirituality, healing, embodiment, and finding meaning through nature, ritual, and self-trust.

Born in Russia and raised partly in the UK from the age of ten, Daria grew up close to rivers, forests, and open ground. A childhood shaped by movement, mud, and curiosity. That early closeness to nature still informs how she lives, works, and walks today.

This route along the Thames is one she walks every Sunday with her mum, and it becomes the setting for a wide-ranging conversation about magic, not as fantasy, but as attentiveness. We talk about Bali, shamanic drumming, spirit guides, and how different spiritual paths speak to different people. There is no single method here, only what resonates.

Daria also shares her time working in a prison with people facing addiction, describing the strain of holding space in systems under pressure, and how constant emotional labour can quietly wear you down.

We talk candidly about her health journey with hypothyroidism, resisting a medication-only approach, and rebuilding strength through nutrition, awareness, and listening to the body, drawing on ideas from The Body Keeps the Score and embodiment practice.

This is a grounded, open conversation about healing, belief, and learning to hear parts of yourself that were once hidden.

You can find Daria’s work at:
🔗 https://enlightenedsoultribe.com/

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/darialebedeva1996/

Season Two of the story pilgrim walks with people — their histories, rituals, and inner landscapes.

buen camino, and keep listening.

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Actor and funeral director Abi Pattenden joins me for a walk to Old Hamsey Church, where her grandparents are buried, and where memory refuses to stay still.

We walk just north of Lewes, tracing the path her grandparents took when they moved from Wales after her grandfather found work nearby as a signalman. We pass the house Abi remembers from childhood, before arriving at the churchyard that still holds her family story in the ground.

Along the way, we talk about her work as a funeral director, how death is handled and avoided in modern life, and what happens when grief becomes part of your working day rather than something whispered about behind closed doors.

This is a walk about work, ancestry, and the strange calm that arrives when death is no longer treated as a stranger.

Season Two of the story pilgrim walks with people — their histories, their callings, and the places that shaped them.

buen camino, and keep listening.

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James Harkin, co-host of the hit podcast No Such Thing As A Fish and Head Researcher on BBC’s QI, joins me for a walking, and golfing, conversation about curiosity, childhood, and how a life quietly takes shape.

We met at Deane Golf Club, the course where James learned the game as a boy, and played a round while talking through his early years in Bolton, school days, falling sideways into research, and ending up at the sharp end of British comedy and television.

Between missed putts and gentle rivalry, James reflects on how curiosity becomes a craft, how knowledge and passion turns into a career. The power of saying no, and taking a risk can be a good thing.

This is not a studio interview. It’s a walk, a game, a life in motion.

Season Two of the story pilgrim turns towards people, walking with those who shape how I think, work, and notice the world.

buen camino, and keep listening.

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Lagos: Between Things is a quiet walking reflection recorded on the edges of a hotel, between flights, between seasons, between certainty and whatever comes next.

There’s nothing performative about this walk. No attempt to decode Lagos or turn the city into a backdrop for insight. Instead, this episode sits in the in-between: raising the bar for the story pilgrim, wondering why connection is harder to cultivate than ideas, and asking what it really takes to invite people to walk and talk without hiding behind roles, status, or polish.

This is a conversation about momentum, hesitation, and the strange vulnerability of asking others to join you when the path isn’t clearly marked. It’s also a gentle invitation — to listeners, to future walkers, to anyone who’s been circling a question rather than answering it.

If you’re standing between what was and what might be, this one walks beside you rather than ahead.

buen camino, and keep listening.

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There are moments in life when something you’ve quietly hoped for arrives, and then disappears before you can even hold it. In this intimate spoken reflection, I sit still for once, without footsteps or ambient sound, to explore what happens in that fragile space between joy and loss.

This filler episode isn't about walking, but about being. I am here. It's about the strange in-between, when you think you want something, prepare for it, tell yourself not to get attached, and then find yourself utterly changed by its arrival… only to watch it vanish. What follows isn’t grief, exactly. It’s something quieter. A pause. A numbness. A moment when language fails, but awareness doesn’t.

Hopefully with warmth, a little bit of wit and most certainly honesty, I reflect on how these private moments ripple through love, friendship, and creative life, how they shape the stories we tell and the people we become. There’s mention of awards and recognition, but only as backdrop; the real story lies in learning to stand still, to accept uncertainty, and to whisper, despite everything: I am here.

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

the story pilgrim — sharing sacred stories on the pilgrimage through life.

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Broadcaster, columnist and podcast pioneer Olly Mann joins me for a heartfelt walk through Letchworth Garden City — the town that shaped his voice, his worldview, and, eventually, his marriage.

As we stroll through tree-lined streets and past Edwardian ideals, Olly reflects on growing up in Letchworth, attending St Christopher School, and his early rise as “the voice of the voice” on the school newspaper. We talk about the strange fate of childhood friendships, how meeting Helen Zaltzman at Oxford changed everything, and how he found his footing at the dawn of podcasting.

Along the way, I ask him when he’s felt heard, what’s still ahead, and whether the goldfish rumour is true.

It’s a delightful episode full of warmth, wit, and memory — and the perfect way to close Season One.