Challenge!

National treasure and television pioneer Anneka Rice has had an action-packed career jumping out of helicopters, racing against the clock on Challenge Anneka and inspiring millions with her boundless energy and much-loved jumpsuits. But the daring spirit on screen was forged in a very different kind of challenge.

In this candid memoir, Anneka opens up for the first time about her unusual childhood, revealing how the crippling loneliness she felt as a child and the teenage years she spent running her household sparked the fierce resilience that would later define her.

With her trademark warmth and wit, she shares the vibrant, transformative possibilities that emerged from her arrival, aged twenty, in Hong Kong on a one-way ticket, knowing no one, and describes the epiphanic moment that made her realise she was part of something much bigger than herself – and that being useful was the key to her wellbeing.

Full of heart, humour and hard-won wisdom, this is an astonishing story of adventure and survival, of personal battles and public triumphs. It’s a manual on how to reinvent yourself, throw caution to the wind and take the path full of jeopardy. It’s mad, bad and dangerous and should come with a warning: don’t try this at home.

Anneka Rice is donating all her author royalties to Alzheimer’s Research UK

Anneka Rice is an award-winning broadcaster, adventurer and campaigner. She has just marked fifty years since she joined the BBC as a young trainee. Anneka went on to work as a journalist in Hong Kong before a career swerve that saw her join Channel 4’s Treasure Hunt, which broke the mould of television, with a woman centre stage and calling the shots. She then devised the award-winning Challenge Anneka for the BBC, which has impacted the lives of thousands of people. The format has been sold around the world and Anneka is still closely involved with many of the projects. It remains her life’s work.