Some luck

John Bird has changed the lives of countless people, but first of all he had to change his own.

Here he turns his attention to his own past and traces his life from the slums of Notting Hill, through crime, vagrancy and homelessness, to redemption when he launched "The Big Issue".

This is an evocation of a life which could so easily have gone the other way, and also a great testament to the human ability to overcome adversity, when energy meets that rarer quality, opportunity.