Feral at 74: Avril Millar on Starting Over at 50, Adoption & a Ferocious Life | It’s Bizzy Ep. 682Feral at 74: Avril Millar on Starting Over at 50, Adoption & a Ferocious Life | It’s Bizzy Ep. 682
Busy Living Sober with Host Elizabeth Chance
Elizabeth "Bizzy" Chance talks with Avril Millar about being feral at 74, from breaking into engineering in the 1960s to rebuilding life from nothing at 50. Their conversation touches on adoption, work, money, faith and how women can stop living as the object of someone else’s sentence.
38:34•15 Oct 2026
Feral at 74: Avril Millar on Work, Ageing and Rewriting Your Story
Episode Overview
- Stop treating yourself as a permanent victim or flawless goddess; accept being human and capable of change.
- Shift focus from chasing a job to creating work that allows you to support yourself and stay autonomous.
- Recognise comparison as "the thief of joy" and avoid measuring your life against curated images and success stories.
- View depression and difficult periods as experiences that pass, rather than fixed identities, and slow down instead of giving up.
- Remember that money earned independently is central to a woman’s safety, freedom and ability to leave harmful situations.
“You are living proof that the story you're handed isn't the one you have to keep.”
What drives someone to seek a ferocious, unapologetic life, even after losing everything at 40 and starting again at 50? Busy Living Sober brings together host Elizabeth "Bizzy" Chance and guest Avril Millar for a lively, straight-talking conversation that’s ideal if you’re rethinking your story, your work, or your relationship with ageing.
Avril shares how she went from being the only woman among 174 engineering students in 1960s Glasgow, to a maths and physics teacher, then a wealth management CEO for twenty years, and later an adviser to boards and CEOs. Her life hasn’t been smooth: adopted as a toddler, losing everything in midlife, rebuilding from scratch at 50, and later learning she had a brother and four sisters she’d never known.
Yet her stance is clear: “You are living proof that the story you're handed isn't the one you have to keep.” The chat swings between sharp humour and serious truth. Avril rails against comparison culture and social media pressure, calling comparison “the thief of joy” and urging women to stop treating themselves as permanent victims or perfect goddesses.
She pushes the idea of creating "work, not a job" and argues that money, earned on your own terms, is core to safety and independence. Faith and meaning also come up: Avril talks about her steady commitment to church and how a sense of something bigger helps her ride out depression and tough seasons.
She prefers to say she’s “experiencing depression” rather than “I’m depressed”, trusting that “everything passes – the good and the bad.” If you’re in recovery, midlife, or simply fed up with feeling like the object of someone else’s sentence, you’ll hear plenty that challenges, comforts and makes you laugh. What chapter of your story are you ready to rewrite next?
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