A traumatised veteran’s unlikely saviour
Life Changing
BBC
4.6 • 804 Ratings
🗓️ 19 November 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Like so many who serve, Falklands veteran Geoff Stear took trauma away with him - in his case a very particular reaction to the smell of meat. It was so powerful and debilitating that it made his life almost impossible, leading him to injure himself and endanger others as he tried to get away from the perceived danger. On several occasions it left him hospitalised – once with a broken neck - with no recollection of how he had got there. His life hit rock-bottom, until a chance meeting with a stranger changed everything. In this heartwarming episode, Geoff introduces Dr Sian Williams to his unlikely saviour Charlie, whose capacity to intervene when danger threatens has given Geoff back his freedom and sense of worth.
Producer: Tom Alban
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it. |
| 0:13.3 | But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go? |
| 0:19.2 | I remember having this very sharp thought |
| 0:21.7 | that what you do right now, this is it. |
| 0:24.3 | This defines your life. |
| 0:26.0 | I'm ready to talk and ready to listen. |
| 0:28.3 | I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this. |
| 0:33.9 | Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast. |
| 0:37.0 | Listen on BBC Sounds. You're about to listen |
| 0:40.4 | to life-changing. Episodes will be released weekly wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're in the UK, |
| 0:47.7 | you can listen to the latest episodes first on BBC Sounds. Hello and welcome to the show that hears from extraordinary people who've had a moment which |
| 0:58.4 | alters everything, the way they see themselves and the way they relate to the world. |
| 1:04.3 | For my guest today, it was an event more than 40 years ago that some of you might remember. |
| 1:10.1 | The Falklands War, |
| 1:11.6 | islands in the South Atlantic, which had been invaded by Argentina in 1982, |
| 1:17.0 | and then recaptured with the task force sent under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's orders. |
| 1:23.0 | Jeff Steer was a British soldier, one of those who arrived when the fighting had finished. But the |
| 1:28.9 | carnage continued, and some of that he witnessed. But Jeff's real life-changing moment came after |
| 1:35.9 | that in the way that he dealt with it all. He's here, along with his friend Charlie, who were |
| 1:41.5 | going to hear more about later. Hello, Jeff. Hello, Sean. |
| 1:44.8 | Thanks very much for coming in. I remember the Falklands War. I was a student about to go into |
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