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A Life Less Ordinary

Lisa Potts

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, A Life Less Ordinary, Lisa Potts

How Lisa Potts became a media hero following an attack by a stranger with a machete.

Geoff Bird meets ex-nursery nurse Lisa Potts, who after being attacked by a stranger in 1996, became a national hero. From October 2012.

In July 1996, Horrett Campbell attacked children and staff at St Lukes School in Wolverhampton with a machete. Lisa Potts was a nursery nurse helping to run a teddy bears picnic for the under-fives, and in the course of the attack she suffered major wounds while protecting children who might otherwise well have been killed. 

Over the next few days she became a national hero, championed in the press as the so-called angel whose courage led to numerous awards including the George Medal. What the press rarely mentioned, however, was the pressure that not only the attack but also the massive media attention put on Lisa, and the dark periods during which she longed for an end to the press coverage and a return to normal life. 

In the final part of this series of 'A Life Less Ordinary' Geoff Bird takes her back over the TV, newspaper and radio coverage of her story to find out what it's like to declared a hero and how difficult that can make returning to a normal life away from the media spotlight.

Produced by Geoff Bird.

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