My way out of the woods

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A corporate high-flyer ended up living in a forest after a spiral of debt, shame and secrecy.

After avoiding a mounting debt to his landlord, Australian Mic Whitty’s life started to crumble. Instead of facing his responsibilities, he tried to gamble and steal money to better his fortunes. As his mental health deteriorated, wracked by guilt and shame, he was determined to pay everyone back. Then he disappeared from his old life and ended up homeless, living in a forest. Through a stroke of luck, a kind librarian, and a 100-year-old war diary with a bullet hole in it, Mic would emerge from the woods with a new purpose and a shot at redemption.

This programme contains references to suicide. If you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, you can find support at befrienders.org

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producers: Edgar Maddicott and Elena Angelides

Lives Less Ordinary is a podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. Each episode a guest shares their most dramatic, moving, personal story. Listen for unbelievable twists, mysteries uncovered, and inspiring journeys - spanning the entire human experience. Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected. Got a story to tell? Send an email to [email protected] or message us via WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784 You can read our privacy notice here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5YD3hBqmw26B8WMHt6GkQxG/lives-less-ordinary-privacy-notice

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Zing Singh. And I'm Simon Jack. And Good Bad Billionaire is back. It's the podcast
0:06.1	exploring the lives and livelihoods of some of the world's richest people. But this time there's a twist.
0:11.3	On Good Bad Dead billionaire, we are looking back on the lives of some titans of U.S. industry.
0:16.4	Like the first ever billionaire, John D. Rockefeller. The founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford.
0:21.8	And the First Lady of Wall Street, Hetty Green.
0:24.2	And Simon and I are asking you if they were good, bad or just another billionaire.
0:28.3	Good bad billionaire.
0:29.4	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:35.9	Instead of just owning up, I just basically stuck my head in the sand
0:39.7	and was effectively just waiting for the phone call.
0:42.9	I was waiting for them to ring me to tell me there was a problem.
0:48.6	You're building the funeral pyre so high and pouring petrol on it
0:52.3	that all it takes is just striking the match.
0:56.4	That sinking feeling are not in the pit of your stomach that can't be undone because things
1:03.1	just feel too far gone. We've all had those runaway moments seemingly beyond our control.
1:11.4	For my guest today, Mick Witty from Australia, his problems piled so high he felt
1:17.6	he was being crushed under their weight.
1:25.4	From the outside, Mick had everything. The high-flying job, the status and the money.
1:33.0	But he ended up on the edges of society, sleeping in the woods, having eroded the trust of so many people.
1:41.9	How exactly do you write the wrongs
1:44.6	and find a way out of what seems like a dead end?
1:48.1	Well, that's exactly what Mick eventually did.
	...

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