Helen Skelton on Challenges, Confidence and Comebacks
White Wine Question Time
Biscuit Jim
4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to White Wine Question Time - we're not far away from our 500th episode - and as ever we do want to say thank you for listening whether you're new to our show or whether you're one of the OG listeners.
As we prepare for the NEXT 500 shows we'd love to know who your favourite guests have been - drop us an email (about that or anything else!) to hello@whitewinepod.com.
Now this week we have a phenomenal woman on the podcast. Helen Skelton done it all - cycled to the South Pole, kayaked along the Amazon and run marathons through the desert. She continues to redefine her life and career - bending the traditions and so-called rules to fit her ambitions and her family.
Those who have worked with her (including our producer Geoff who worked with Helen at BBC Radio 5 Live) are quick to say she's one of the nicest people in the industry and deserves every opportunity she's fought for. In the past few years we've watched her grow in confidence after some setbacks - and we're all ready for her triumphant era.
As Helen would have said on Blue Peter... here's one we made earlier.
Cheers xx
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | coming up on this episode of white wine question time let's have a birthing plan let's get a pool |
| 0:08.1 | let's do the hypnobirthing that goes out the window for most of us like if you were that |
| 0:13.0 | place it's great but it's like when they say to you I had a pain's normal I don't know |
| 0:17.2 | don't normally shove watermelon through my nostrils so as that is this normal I don't know when it was too much V through my nostrils. So I was that, is this normal? I don't know. |
| 0:39.3 | When it was too much, Vicky Gill used to let me get under a desk. She said, just sit there, mate. We're about to ask you to put suspenders and hot pants on and go out on television and straddle a Spanish guy. So you just sit there and have some chicken for a minute. And then we'll get to it. My brother works in football. |
| 0:40.5 | He's six foot. |
| 0:39.3 | He's stocky. |
| 0:41.3 | He is as like alpha and stoic as you could ever get. |
| 0:45.3 | He never talks about anything that I ever do. |
| 0:47.3 | Couldn't even watch Mom Blue Peter because he was too nervous. |
| 0:49.3 | He watched his lost and found and he phoned me up and he went, |
| 0:53.3 | decent that. |
| 0:55.9 | And that's it. |
| 0:59.1 | Hello and welcome to White Wine Question Time. |
| 1:01.9 | The podcast had asked its guests three thought-provoking questions over three glasses of wine. |
| 1:06.5 | And my guest today is a broadcaster and author with a particular penchant for an almost, |
| 1:12.3 | well, unbelievable array of challenges. After starting out as one of the youngest breakfast |
| 1:17.8 | presenters on BBC radio, her career took her to Newsround. And in 2008, her blue Peter, her love |
| 1:23.6 | of the outdoors and her cumbrian upbringing have prepared her well for life on screen |
| 1:27.7 | and shines through on shows like Countryfile and the second series of her own show lost and found in the legs. |
| 1:34.5 | But it's her spirit for adventure that makes her a standout from the crowd. |
| 1:38.5 | She was the second woman to complete a 78-mile Namibia Ultramarathon. |
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