Episode 162: Jo-Ann D’Costa-Manuel
Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Kat Rulach
4.8 • 527 Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2025
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jo-Ann D’Costa-Manuel is a charity pioneer. She received an OBE for her years of voluntary work raising the profile of hidden disabilities. She persuaded airlines to recognise green lanyards with sunflowers, as a symbol of a family member flying with a hidden disability. She was also behind the ‘quiet hour’ in supermarkets to help children like her own son, who is autistic, and needs a quiet environment to be able to do a food shop.
Jo-Ann now works for philanthropist John Caudwell to help raise money for children and youth projects, and she has just started her own podcast speaking to women over 40, called ‘It’s Your Time.’
Jo-Ann’s son is now 16, and her daughter is 19. And to Jo-Ann’s delight - and her daughter’s horror - they are often mistaken for sisters!
Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Sophia Lusbexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to |
| 0:09.6 | to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. |
| 0:14.1 | I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 |
| 0:19.6 | years, so I spin a few plates myself. |
| 0:22.3 | Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, |
| 0:24.9 | but can also be hard to find time for yourself |
| 0:26.8 | and your own ambitions. |
| 0:28.3 | I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. |
| 0:32.0 | Welcome to spinning plates. |
| 0:35.7 | Morning, it's Sunday morning,ay the 21st of september um i'm actually a bit tense because my brother |
| 0:46.3 | who um i'm starting a tour with tomorrow um he's running the ber Marathon right now. |
| 0:57.5 | He's running so fast and there's this really clever app. |
| 0:59.3 | And I'm watching his number. |
| 1:05.8 | And it's honestly making me really nervous because he's on target to finish. |
| 1:08.0 | This is his second marathon. |
| 1:09.4 | He did the Copenhagen one before. |
| 1:11.4 | He ran it in three. I think it was either three hours, six minutes or eight minutes. |
| 1:14.7 | No, it was six. Three hours six. I'm going to say that. |
| 1:19.2 | He's now on target to finish Berlin at three hours and two minutes if he keeps up his pace. |
| 1:24.9 | But he's still got like another hour and a bit to go. Anyway, it's just making me |
| 1:30.8 | really tense, but also excited because he's doing really, really well. I hope you're well. |
| 1:38.3 | Thank you so much to all of you who I've met, sung for, signed things for, done anything for, |
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