Tanni Grey-Thompson talks about disability: transcript
Baroness
Grey-Thompson, Britain's most decorated paralympian, talks to disability
campaigner Nicky Clark about growing up with spina bifida, her sporting
career and her new role in the House of Lords
Tanni Grey-Thompson
Literally when mum and dad were told I had spina bifida, mum went "right, OK, will she ever be able to have kids?" Why on earth she asked that question no one has any [idea] and the sort of went "yes, I suppose". And she went, "oh right, OK" and took me home.
Because when I was a baby there weren't any problems, I crawled and I walked, it was kind of much easier for them to deal with it and it was only as I grew up and got to the age of sort of five, six that I started to have problems walking and then by the time I got to the age of seven I was paralysed, it had sort of given them time to get used to the system and get used to the doctors and just understand how to play the game of that medical, because it was a very medical model back then. So mum and dad did not bring me up [any differently] I was the same as Sian [her sister]. I remember dad very clearly, he was an architect so he knew how inaccessible the world was because he had helped design it, and him saying "I don't care if you are in a wheelchair, you have just got to get on with it". And that was really positive at that point because it just gave me a lot of confidence. My parents were amazing because they just did not tolerate discrimination and way before we talked about medical model or inclusion or any of that, they did not know any of that stuff, but they just knew that the right thing to do was to educate and include me in society.
Nicky Clark
And to spread that message to other people so saying it might be acceptable, it might be routine, but it is wrong?
Tanni Grey-Thompson
I remember trying to go to the cinema with my friends, so I must have been nine or 10, and being told I could not go in because I did not have an adult with me and my mum sending me back with my friends, because we had left, and mum going "go back, go back, I am not taking you home, go and tell them that you have never spontaneously combusted". And me going OK, and we all went back and they tried to send me out again and me saying "no, you can't send me out because I am not a fire risk I have never spontaneously combusted".
Nicky Clark
That was the reason?
Tanni Grey-Thompson
Yes, fire risk: "We don't want people like you in because you are a fire risk". So mum and dad taught me in different ways to deal with it and I still use a lot of that stuff now, I still experience people who talk down to me, or discriminate, or want to try and discriminate, and it is quite good to have had all those years of practice because you just get better at it, because you have spent so long dealing with it.
Nicky Clark
When did your sporting ability first show itself? Was that primary school or later on?
Tanni Grey-Thompson
There were no, or very few, lifts, there were no drop kerbs, so you had to learn to jump up the kerb. There were no accessible toilets, there were very few public toilets, so if I wanted to go to the loo out, if I wanted to go out with my friends, you kind of had to learn to climb stairs and to drag my chair and did that. To do that I had to be fit and that came from doing sport and then just gradually over time I realised that actually I was quite a competitive person - a little bit, hugely competitive, I am just - that is part of my parents' encouragement to do sport. Because I just wanted to race over everything, I wanted to beat my sister at everything, and they thought it would calm me down ...
Nicky Clark
.. and channel it a little bit?
Tanni Grey-Thompson
... and just "let's tire her out" and now I have got a daughter I think I can see why they did that but also it was a natural thing to do.
Back then, I was 12 in 1982, the word paralympic had not been invented so there was very little disability sport. You did not see disabled people in society, they were very much excluded, but then I remember watching the London Marathon and in the early 80s they had a wheelchair race as part of the London Marathon and that kind of changed pretty much my life for me because I remember saying to mum "I'm going to do the London Marathon one day" and her saying to me "yeah, of course you are, don't embarrass me" you know parents are very low key about stuff. but I remember seeing that and thinking that is what I wanted to do that is the sport for me - wheelchair racing, nothing else, that is the only sport for me.
Nicky Clark
You are seen as being an icon as well, I think, to many disabled people. Does that give you an added pressure, is that a great responsibility? Do you feel that you have forged that path and that you have made that route easier, that young disabled people with a sporting interest can go "I want to be Tanni Grey-Thompson"?
Tanni Grey-Thompson
I hope I have made it easier but the reality is it is fairly difficult, if you are a disabled child who wants to do sport, because it is still hard to do inclusive sport in schools, it is still a challenge to find sports clubs that will willingly embrace you and yes there are lots who do but there is also a number who panic a bit and think what do we do but for me it was always about making it better and there was a responsibility it was not every day I woke up thinking "I feel responsibility for disabled sport" but there was a certain part of what I was doing I need to make it better for the kids coming through they should not have to fight for the same things I did. They should not have to fight for equitable kit or equitable funding or recognition or people telling [them] "you know, its so brave and marvellous what you do". Elite athletes should not be fighting for that and so I hope some of those things have changed and then 25 years of my life in athletics and then I have a bit of a gap and I come to the House of Lords and then I find that I am fighting for different things in a different way, but there are still that kind of responsibility that all the opportunities I had, and I had lots of opportunities and a bit of luck and lots of help, other people should try and have some of that as well.
Archive news report
Tanni Grey-Thompson knows all about winning, medal after medal at the paralympics. But she was taking on a different opponent - from the track to the House of Lords - challenging the government's plans to change disability benefits.
Nicky Clark
So in terms of your role as a people's peer, when it comes to something like the welfare reform bill, do you feel then a huge sense of responsibility?
Tanni Grey-Thompson
It is a responsibility because it is about that I don't want to disappoint people and I don't want to give people false hope that it is OK because I can just change the world, actually that is not how this place [the House of Lords] works so I was always interested in benefits and support and welfare. And they the bill came along at a really good time but I am still on a massive learning curve in terms of the politics of this place. What is great about being in sport was when you won, you got a gold medal and you knew you had won. In here, you can push the minister to make loads and loads of concessions or a little bit and sometimes you don't know if you have won or not and it is not just down to the vote, although that is quite a simplistic way of looking at it. Sometimes you can win and sometimes you don't realise you have won until two days later and you think "actually, that was kind of OK" and I learned a lot form what we went through with welfare reform because because I got involved because I was interested and I cared and I thought "it is a fantastic bill that I can follow through from beginning to end to understand how each stage works". it is very emotional because I know, personally know, lots and lots of disabled people who are just sitting there thinking that the lords is where we can make a difference. That's a massive responsibility, it is why I work so hard here and why I am here lots and lots of days a week and lots of hours every day is because to make it effective change you have got to be here and you have got to know people and you have got to understand how the game is played, you can't just come in, dither around a bit and hope that people are going to go with you and leave on the strength of one argument, it is much more complex than that. It is a bit like school, the food is a bit like school as well, but if you learn something every day you get better and better and then you can have a more effective chance of changing it.
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