Elizabeth Oldfield speaks to Tanni Grey Thompson. 15/02/2023
Elizabeth
Hello, and welcome to The Sacred. My name is Elizabeth Oldfield, and this is a podcast about the people behind the positions in our public conversations. I’m interested in the deep principles and values that drive us, how little space we get to reflect on them, let alone talk about them in public, and how we can better understand people whose principles might be a bit different from our own. Every episode, I speak to someone who has some role in shaping our common life: politicians, like today, but also journalists, artists, faith leaders, poets, documentary makers, academics, science writers… and they come from all over the place on the many, many issues that we disagree on. Listen for long enough and you will find someone who puts your back up. But I hope you will also get a better sense of why they believe what they believe, how they’ve got to where they are, and when you meet maybe them or someone like them who holds that position, you will have just that little bit more empathy, and patience. In this episode, I spoke to Tanni, the Baroness Grey–Thompson, DBE, DL, which is about the fifth very impressive title she’s held. She might have another one by the time this episode airs. Frankly, she is probably the most impressive guest I’ve had on. She is one of the most successful British athletes of all time. She has won 16 Olympic medals, 11 of which were gold, as well as a whole load of other World Championship medals and records in wheelchair racing. And she’s now an active member of the House of Lords, sits on about a million other boards, and honestly, I don’t know when she sleeps. We spoke about how not sporty people like me can understand the world of professional athletes and what drives them and the role sport plays in society. We spoke about her approach to politics, her doggedness, all of the things she’s received from her parents, and what has and hasn’t changed for disabled people in society. There are some reflections at the end from me, as usual, and I really hope you enjoy listening.
What is sacred to you? Tanni Grey Thompson’s answer
Tanni, I am going to do something quite mean, which is not go in with a nice, gentle “what did you have for breakfast?”–type question, but to go straight for depth because I’m terrible at small talk. I am overly earnest, and I always want to know what’s driving people underneath their day–to–day lives. So, I want to ask you what is sacred. But that’s not a standard question. So, to give you some parameters, you can take it anywhere you like. I tend to ask people to bracket out their family and their loved ones, because I think that’s a shared sacred for all of us, and that’s lovely. But it’s really about a principle or a value, or a way of being in the world that has felt very central to the way you’ve tried to live, that shapes your decisions. And don’t worry if it feels very tentative, because actually, I think none of us really know until it’s transgressed. And we get that ick factor of like, “no!”. And one of the tests is that if someone tried to offer you money to give this thing up, you would feel insulted somehow, or very compromised at the idea. So, it’s a bit of a bit of a strange one. But I’d love you to just reflect aloud for me and see what comes up.
Tanni Grey–Thompson
So it feels like it’s going to be really easy one to answer until you actually start trying to answer it. And so, for me, it’s about the values, about the way I behave, which actually has come from my family: from my parents, my sister and husband and other people. It’s about how, you know, trying to treat people how I would like to be treated myself. Although there are times when that doesn’t happen, you know, know, if you’ve had a bad day, and someone is just being extra patronising. You know, all the things I do about… I try to educate people and, you know, be positive and walkways. You know, it’s hard. I think age helps with a little bit of that, you know, just the more times you have stuff thrown at you, you get better at dealing with it. But I think a lot of it is about trying to make things better. And using the platform that I’ve been very privileged to have, either through sport or politics, to try and move things to a better place. Now, the reality of that, is that some people like what I do, and some people do not like what I do. And when you put yourself out there, a lot of, you know, dislike and worse comes with that. So I think actually, the stuff that you hold sacred and how you want to behave, is really important to have. So when times are hard, and you’re getting a lot of grief from people, you still have that line that you won’t cross. So you know, as an athlete, I was put in positions where, you know, I was offered sponsorship deals, that didn’t feel right, or, you know, patches, you know, that you just go, “No actually, I’m not gonna do that”. We have this debate in my family about, when you say money, okay, how much money would it take to do a reality show? You know, and I kind of joke that there isn’t enough money. And then you go, “Well, no there is”, but you kind of always hope that… you know, I think the meets every day is getting up and be able to look at myself in the mirror for the stuff that I do. And that’s the bit that’s quite important. So it’s a really hard one to answer. I’m really interested actually, to spend some time reflecting to think about what those lines are.
Elizabeth
Thank you. Yeah, I think you’ve really helped me clarify like 200 of these interviews in how closely the sacred is related to integrity. And that maybe that’s an easy way for people to think about it. Like, what is the heart, where is your wall of integrity and what’s behind it? Like, what is the thing you’re protecting with your integrity? And we sort of assume that everyone has the same kind of things, and hopefully we have some things that we will share, but that actually some things might feel like they’re jeopardising our integrity, but other people don’t feel that at all. They feel very comfortable. But another thing that we would think is fine really presses up against their sacred values or their guiding principles.
Does something come to mind – and maybe it is as much as about something coming to mind about where it’s shaped your life – a moment in your life where a decision in either direction has been changed because of that sense of integrity?
Tanni Grey–Thompson
Um, so I think, you know, some of the things that I work on in politics are really hard things. You know, that the happiest stuff I work on is sport and physical activity. But actually that’s linked to us as a nation being woefully unhealthy and, you know, kind of tearing the NHS apart because we’re an unhealthy nation. So even that’s not that cheery to some extent. Some of the hardest stuff I work on is around things like, you know, I don’t believe we should be changing the law on assisted suicide, and putting yourself in a position where you know you’re going to get a lot of grief for it. And it’s emails, face–to–face… Like, you know, it’s having letters, saying, you know, I’m cruel, and I want people to die painfully. And it’s that bit, do I walk away and just go: “You know what, I’m just not going to do… I’m going to do the nice stuff that I do, or am I actually going to put myself in a position where I fight for not just what I believe, but from talking to other people, and, you know, what I think is right?” So that there are others, loads of times, where you think it would just be easier to walk away. And then I don’t. And my mum was amazing. Because she always just said she never felt she was given more than she could cope with, even though sometimes what she was dealing with was really hard. She always felt that it was a bit of a test. And I think that has sort of kind of lived through in me as well.
Childhood, privilege and dealing with nosiness
Elizabeth
Yeah, I’d love to hear a bit more about your childhood and the kind of big formative ideas, I guess, that were in the air – philosophical, or political, or religious – that you feel shaped the women that you are today.
Tanni Grey–Thompson
So, both my parents had strong faith. And my mother was Welsh–speaking Methodist. Oh, the complications of Welsh church! My dad was English–speaking High Church, and finding a church that they could both go to was quite complicated. And that changed sort of over time. There’s a lot of stuff we never talked about. I mean, we never talked about faith. I’ve got quite a complicated relationship with faith. And we never talked about party politics. Never knew how my parents voted. But we talked a lot about political issues. And, you know, I grew up in a very privileged household in which there was love and support. And, you know, there’s lots of things we didn’t have to worry about growing up, which my parents also told me about quite a lot. So I kind of realised from a young age the privilege I had, and the fact that my parents were willing to fight for me to get to mainstream education, to get into sport… You know, they had the capacity and the ability to do it. You know, my father threatening to sue the Secretary State for Wales over my right to go to mainstream school when I was eleven was so cool, you know. And then for me, you know, the person who did a lot of work on that – Baroness Warnock, Mary Warnock – you know, 30 years after her legislation, I got to sit in the House of Lords’ chamber in a debate tabled by her about the 30 years since her work and say, “Because of you, I am here”. I mean, to be fair, she didn’t look that impressed. But, you know, you have these sort of circular moments. My parents’ […] was, you know, you’ve got privilege. And before we kind of, you know, talked about some of the things, I had the words to describe some of it, but my dad would say to me: “You’re privileged”, you know, “do something with it.” “Don’t just sit on your backside, and take it all. You’ve got to give something back”. But that came through sports through my early coaches. Roy Antony, Dave Williams, my very early coaches, they were all about giving something back. And you kind of hope that most of the time you do stuff that more people approve of than disapprove of. But you know, when you challenge if, yeah, you’ve got to own it.
Elizabeth
What comes through kind of reading and listening to you is just how ‘can–do’ your parents were and how much they imparted that to you. Can you talk a little bit about the… Because you weren’t a wheelchair user from birth – it came a bit later – and what that meant at home and how you, as a family, processed that transition.
Tanni Grey–Thompson
So my oldest sister was born with a heart condition and dislocated hips. And then when I came along, it was diagnosed that I had spina bifida. I could walk a little bit when I was young, not very well – my legs never really developed. And then very slowly, I became paralysed because my spine collapsed and my own vertebra severed my spinal cord. So I knew I had spinal bifida. We talked a bit about implication. My mum and dad were always very keen when I was… I didn’t spend any time in hospital, really. But when I went to hospital appointments, Mum was always very keen that I asked questions and understood my condition, which I think was quite important for me. She made the doctors talk to me, not her, even when I was like, just…
Elizabeth
She just sounds so empowering.
Tanni Grey–Thompson
I mean, my mum, my mother, was a strong, feisty woman. And it’s kind of funny, because my dad always wrote the letters about education, stuff like that. My mum was definitely behind him, you know, sort of pushing it. Yeah, I mean, behind every great man, there’s an amazing woman is or whatever the quote is. So yeah, no, really empowering. And then, apparently, when I was born, the only question my mum asked was, could I have children? Just didn’t ask anything else. But it’s kind of when I started struggling to walk and then became a wheelchair user, my parents refused to make the house wheelchair–accessible. And I think there were people who thought my mum and dad were really cruel. But my parents didn’t want to make it the only place that I could live, they didn’t want me living at home with them forever. Because, you know, they were saying their job as a parent is to get your child to be independent. And then I was like, five, when the first person stopped me in the street and asked me why my parents hadn’t aborted me, and mom having a really open conversation with me about abortion. And, you know, she didn’t shy away from it and explained what it was. And she’d said, if she had realised, if there had been diagnostics, and if she had known that I was gonna have spina bifida, she probably would have terminated it. Now, people get really upset by that. And it’s like, but she never said, “Having had you, I wish I’d terminated you”. You know. And so, having these really big, you know, open conversations, I think was important for me, because it also helped me think about stuff and deal with, you know… So the next person who asked me that, I had more skills to do that when… I was probably six when the next person asked me that. Having more skills to deal with… My mother, well, she was brilliant. She’d just go “they’re an idiot”. Anyone who told me I couldn’t do something was an idiot. And yeah, I think that that made a huge difference. Because you do have to deal with a lot of stuff. You know, people, you know, come and ask deeply personal questions. You know, when I was pregnant, I lost count the number of people who asked me how I got pregnant, you know. There was a moment – this is not this is not one of my finest moments. I was about eight and a half months pregnant in Cardiff. Somebody asked me and I screamed across the street: “I had sex with my husband. How did you think I got pregnant?” And then I went “Oh, God! Oh, I said that out loud.”
Elizabeth
Fair enough, what was she expecting! Like, it’s so nosy!
Tanni Grey–Thompson
Yeah, so, as an athlete, people are nosy. As parliamentarian, people are nosy. So as a disabled… So my parents helped give me the skills to deal with nosiness. I probably do slightly overshare now, but that’s just because I’ve had so many personal questions asked about me over the years.
Elizabeth
Yeah, I have really loved sort of getting to know your parents at one remove and their kind of historic fight to get you into mainstream school, which seems ridiculous that it was a fight, but it was.
The surgery and about getting on
When you were in your early teens, I think you had quite a significant operation. Tell me about that, because that feels like it must have been some sort of beat in the song of your teenage years.
Tanni Grey–Thompson
Yeah, I mean, I think we… So, my spine was collapsing. I’ve got scoliosis. Because of that, my lungs and all my internal organs were in a really strange place inside me. So my right kidney’s somewhere up underneath my arm, which is kind of funny. Whenever I go for a scan and you go, “that’s where it is”. Like, “have you’ve got it?” Yeah, I’ve got two kidneys, just one’s in a strange place. Anyway. So we knew it was coming at some point. I still remember that appointment where the doctor said, “This is December. You’re coming in in January and you’re having the spinal surgery.” And a metal rod was put into my spine, bone grafts on both hips to tie the rod on. But again, there were my parents who were really matter of fact about it. Because they’re like, “Okay, if you don’t have this, you’ll die. You know, it will be a slow and painful death, because you will slowly… You know, your internal organs will just, you know, be squished.” So yeah, very, very matter of fact about some stuff, about choice. So actually, it was it was kind of funny that I was only in hospital three weeks. Came out, massive plaster cast, jacket, which went from my chin to my hips. Six months, that was on. My sister used to just come and spray perfume. I mean, it was revolting after six months. But I remember going back for a check–up about five or six weeks after the operation. My doctor saying to me, “Oh, how’s the home tutoring going?” And it’s like, “I’m not being tutored at home.” “Now, what do you mean?” “I’m back at school.” “What? When? When did you go back?” “No, no. I came out of hospital. And literally the next Monday, mom sent me back to school.” He’s like, “Oh…”
Elizabeth
In a full body cast?
Tanni Grey–Thompson
In a full body cast. Yeah. Yeah. And she was like… But, you know, what I remember was that, like, because you had to keep your chin absolutely fixed with the bone graft in it, having to drink out of a sippy cup and really struggling to eat because you couldn’t see what you’re eating. So you’d just have to hold the plate up under your chin and sort of scoop it in. And I remember… It’s funny what I remember. Coming out of hospital and suddenly realising that I was going to eat and my sister just, you know, standing up, go and get the tea towel, and just wrapping the tea towel around my neck while I was trying to… So you know, yeah, they were amazing in terms of… You know, there are some things you’ve just got to get on with. It wasn’t a choice, in the end.
Elizabeth
Your mom and your dad must have had times of being overwhelmed, and weary, and weepy at watching you have to go through stuff that not every kid goes through. Did they show you that? Do they did they reflect on that later?
Tanni Grey–Thompson
Oh, they never showed it to me. A few years after my mum passed away, my dad did say there were times where, you know, my mum found it very difficult. But, you know, she had this sort of innate spirit and she never showed it. And I think that was quite interesting that they protected me from that and they felt able to. I think there’s a part that my mom’s faith, I think, and my, my dad’s faith had a lot to do with that. But again, it was hard to tell right? Because, you know, even that conversation: my dad was quite short about how they dealt with some of those things. So yeah, I think, you know, when my sister… My parents used to joke that they weren’t great at having kids, because my sister was born with some health conditions as well. But we were never as children, we were never ill at the same time. And actually, neither of us were particularly ill either. So I think that’s where, you know, mom’s sort of view came from was that, you know, you’re given things that you need to deal with, and also the stuff you’re given, you have to step up and deal with.
Faith, sport and self–discipline
Elizabeth
Yeah, I’m going to ask, but feel free to bat it away – because asking about someone’s faith or lack of, or questions, feels sometimes more intrusive than asking about someone’s sex life, so full permission to bat it away – but you alluded to it being complicated. Lots of people brought up in Christian homes, the teenage years is real crunch time, you know, for or against. Would you mind sharing a little bit more about that for us?
Tanni Grey–Thompson
Yeah, so I stopped going to church in my early teens. And a couple of reasons, having a bit of a discussion with my Sunday school teacher, where he told me God was a man. And me saying, “How do you know God’s a man?” And he’s like, “Because He is, because men are in charge.” And, you know, “Oh, that’s a bit of a conflict with, you know, my view on men and women.” So that was sort of… My dad went absolutely ballistic with me once, where on the census, I put I was a Jedi. And, honestly, he was just like, “That’s just stupid”, you know? And it was like, I have something which is a guiding principle in my life, which comes back to the question you asked me at the beginning. But it’s not about religion, or going to church. There’s loads of stuff my brain just can’t comprehend or understand, either with religion or about the creation of the world, because where did it come from before the Big Bang, you know? And so, for me, there is something which is a faith but it’s not a religious faith, if that makes sense. And I suppose everyone’s seen it, you know. I’ve got friends who’ve got strong faith and amazing people who, you know, just get on with stuff. I see people who purport to be religious and then, you know, behave one way on a Sunday and behave a different way the other six days of the week. So, for me, yeah, there’s something there but for me, it’s not going to church. And, because my parents moved around a bit because of their background, we experienced several different churches growing up and I went to Lourdes as an 11 year old. And it’s really funny. I mean, my mother was a massive fan of sport. She got a call from the local Catholic Church, and they said, “Would Tanni like to go to Lourdes?” And my mum said, “Not sure if she likes cricket.” I know it’s really funny. I tell everyone. And they went, “No, no, Lourdes in France”, and my mom said, “Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah.” So, I got to experience lots of different sorts of churches, which we’re lucky with. So the ‘going to’ bit on the Sunday is the bit I probably struggle with, because it’s more than… It’s when people you know, have their kids christened just in case, or go to church for Christmas. And to me, that just feels really false. You either go or you don’t. You just… So it’s really complicated to explain that… you know?
Elizabeth
I think it is for everyone.
Tanni Grey–Thompson
Yeah, I mean, even I’d say for my friends who would say they have strong faith, It’s hard to explain. I suppose the people I’m reluctant to be around are people who tell me they’ve got faith, and tell me how religious they are. Because then you kind of usually – and this is probably gross generalisation – they’re saying that for a reason, rather than just behaving in a certain way, every single day of your life, with every interaction with people. So yeah, probably Jedi describes it better than anything else, even though dad was so mad.
Elizabeth
Wonderful. I mean, I feel like there’s something, there must be some sort of sport related spiritual path, because it’s been so central in your life. Do you remember the moment where you were like, “Yes, this is what I want to do”? I imagine there was a lot of sport just growing up, because your parents were very sporty. But was there any kind of click moment?
Tanni Grey–Thompson
Yeah, first wheelchair race I did. I was 12, and I didn’t win. And it was just like, “But this is amazing! This is absolutely amazing!” And that was it, really. You know, I played other sports. Dad was very keen that I played other sports till I was 16. Ahead of his time, in a lot of ways, I mean, because actually, that’s something we’ve come back to in sport now. But it’s, you know, saying to kids, you know, “don’t just pick one sport and do that, and nothing else.” And, you know, he was very much, “Yeah, you can do wheelchair racing, but you’ve got to do other stuff.” You’ve got to, you know, work hard at your studies. You know, you can go off and be an athlete, but you got to get a degree first because you have to have something to fall back on. So, yeah, there was that moment where I just knew it was wheelchair racing, and nothing else. There was a point where I thought I might play basketball. And I loved it as a sport, but there wasn’t really a team where I lived. So I think if there’d been a team where I lived, I think I probably would have done that. But actually, I wouldn’t have ever been any good at it. You know, I might have made Junior squad or Senior squad, but I never would have excelled in it, where wheelchair racing was the thing that just clicked for me. So, I liked the training on my own. I liked actually training with other people. I liked the fact that I was in control of my destiny. It was about how hard I trained. And it was about training every single day and making no excuses for, you know, not to. I mean, growing up… So, lots of athletes who tinkered around the edges. There was one guy I trained with he, you know, used to weigh the bolts of his chair, and they used to weigh his food. And yeah, we were very, you know, spent a lot of time being, you know, thoughtful about that. But you’ve actually just got to go out and train twice a day, six days a week, 50 weeks a year. That is the bottom line. And then the other stuff is the added extras, you know. There’s just the bore – and training is really boring. It’s really dull, you know, competing in Sydney in front of 100,000 people is amazing. But you know, you’ve got to do the dull stuff. And that’s true actually with the stuff I do now. You’ve got to do the dull stuff to get to do the nice stuff.
Un–selfing in sport
Elizabeth
Yeah. So, I’m gonna say something that might be slightly offensive. But this is a podcast about listening to people from a very wide range of perspectives and trying to engage across our differences and grow with empathy. I don’t really understand sport. I mean, my husband really does. And we have… I, you know, I love him and respect him so deeply. He’s the most thoughtful man I know. And this is a great source of joy in his life, so I keep trying to understand it, right? To get involved. Well, I’m not there yet. I’d love to hear, as a lover of the games, what is it that you love? What is it that draws you? What is the thing that athletes are prepared to sacrifice so much for to go out and do the boring stuff day in, day out? What is it that’s calling you?
Tanni Grey–Thompson
So, I would say I wouldn’t… I never got massively emotional in big chunks of my own career. There are a couple of moments where I did, when in Athens I spectacularly lost my 800m final, which was my strongest event, and then won my 100m, which was my weakest event. And both those two are very emotional. It’s that, “will you, won’t you”, you know? You give every single thing, you dig deep, you know. When you’re in a race and you’re sprinting for the finish line, there is nothing left. And you’re against, you know, whether you’re the best in the world or the level, you know, I am now where, you know, I don’t actually have anyone to sprint against, because I’m really slow. So, you know, it’s knowing that you have given every last ounce of everything that’s inside you to be the best you can, whatever speed you’re going. And, you know, people say “Do I miss trainings?” No, not really. There’s a little bit I miss when you do this amazing training session. And it used to be 400m reps, that was the one that did it, where, as you cross the line, you’re not entirely sure if you’re gonna pass out, puke, or you’ve done something amazing. There are very few times that you can recreate that outside sport, and I’m not sure there are. Certainly not that bit where you feel you’ve given every last bit of everything that you are. And I love watching that in other people. I love watching people, you know, come from behind and cross the finish line, and whether they win or don’t win, do really well for themselves. So when, yeah, I think if you don’t have that connection with it, you can’t fake it. I just don’t think you can fake a love of sport if you don’t actually love it. Because you just don’t have that emotion.
Elizabeth
Yeah. So, you’ve helped me… One piece of the puzzle that helped me was about the kind of narrative. The time I can understand it is when my husband sits down and narrates the Premier League as if it’s a thriller, right. You’ve got the underdogs, and you’ve got the bad guys with all the money who don’t train their own people, you know. And it just falls into like a cinematic, scrappy, you know, storyline, and then I can sort of get it. But then, sitting down and watching the match was pointless. I just want to know whether the underdog lost or won. But…
Tanni Grey–Thompson
You just want to watch the penalties at the end, that’s what you want to watch.
Elizabeth
Yeah. But you’ve given me another piece of the puzzle, which is about transcendent moments, because I’m very interested in transcendent moments. Moments of awe, and ecstasy, and unselfing, and kind of getting out of our rational brains experiencing life. You know, sucking the marrow out of life. And I hadn’t associated it with sport, but the way you’ve talked about it has really helped me see that, what you’re looking for is that intensity, right? That high of winning or losing, I guess? That it is… you really feel fully alive. Is that a fair description?
Tanni Grey–Thompson
Yeah, and the emotion with winning and losing. You know, it’s not as easy: so if you win, you’re really happy, and if you don’t win, you’re sad. Because, you know, it’s so much more complicated. It’s not a binary thing. But you know, training is hard and it’s boring and, you know, you push yourself. And there are these moments in your career. I remember us competing in Gothenburg 400m track race and you have a heart monitor and you’ve got a speedo. You’ve got all this sort of tech on the chair, you know that you can look at what you’re doing at various segments of the race. And just in that moment, knowing that my heart rate was really high, knowing that you can do it, you know. And I don’t know whether I actually remember the race in slow motion, but I kind of think I remember the race in slow motion. I kind of think I remember every single push about it. I probably don’t. That’s the cinematic view. It’s a lens I’ve put on it going backwards. But, you know, you have these moments when you’re thinking… I used to do a lot of lab testing and you’ve got your maximum heart rate. And then, when you race and your heartbeat is above your maximum heart rate, you kind of go, “I’m not meant to be able to do this, but I’m doing it right now.” And so, we used to do this test called VO2, in which you’re basically pushed to exhaustion until you’re kind of a bit of a massive jelly on a treadmill. And if you do one of those VO2’s really well, it is just the most amazing feeling. But then it’s kind of funny because you get journalists… I remember when my daughter was born a journalist ringing me up about two days later and say, “Which is more important, your gold medals or your daughter?” “You know, gold medals…” Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of quite funny. It’s quite funny seeing people’s reaction if you say gold medals. And I don’t mean that, but you know, there are just these moments in your life that you can’t recreate in anything else that I’ve ever done. So that’s where I feel a sense of privilege as well. But I got to compete, you know, at the highest level, and I did a 10k race 18 months ago. I mean, it’s the slowest 10k I’ve ever done in my entire life, but I remember coming across the finish line and being like, almost bouncing, and my husband was like, “that was so slow”. It was four minutes quicker than my half marathon PB (Personal Best), so twice the distance. And I was like, “But, I did it!” And he was like, “Okay…”, and feeling that sense of… pride a bit too strong a word, because… But it was like, I went out and did something that at my age now is really hard to do. So I think what sport teaches me is that you can do things that are really hard, you know, and you can fail. And I failed lots of my sports career and lots of my political career, but you can quite often push yourself harder than you think you can.
The medical model and disabled people’s autonomy
Elizabeth
Let’s talk a bit about that kind of political, I guess, whole second career/parallel career of your life. And if it’s not, I wanted to just do a little explainer first. Because, I think when we talk about disability in public – which alongside sport is the key thing that you kind of campaign and work on – there are terms that are very familiar in the disability community, but really unfamiliar outside it and are so key for understanding some of the debates and how they work and the misunderstandings. Will you just say a little bit about the medical model of disability and the social model of disability, and the other one, if you think it’s relevant, but no pressure.
Tanni Grey–Thompson
So for me, you know, I grew up in a medical model of the world where, you know, I was treated differently because of my disability, because it was almost like you’re blamed for being disabled. And the social model is actually that it’s about society’s fault that I, or others, can’t integrate in the way that some non–disabled people can. You know, if there were no steps in this world, then, you know, my life would be very different. If the tube was step free, my life would be very different. So, it’s about taking it away from the individual, and putting that responsibility on society to change and do better. The reality is, we still live in quite a medicalised world. You know, the benefit system: disabled people have to prove what they can’t do to get support. And I lost a philosophical argument in the Welfare Reform Bill years ago now saying, “Actually, can we switch it around?” And, “If we give someone this much money, what can they do with it?” as opposed to… You know, trying to change the whole way that we think about what we do with people. I guess, you know, part of that debate is in the sort of basic rate of income debate that, you know, Wales and other countries are having. So yeah, it’s an interesting one, because I’m still treated in quite a medical way. I’m actually just writing an article at the moment about people offering me help, and people making a judgement, whether I need help or not. And even when you say no, they go to help you anyway. And it’s like, what is it about me that you don’t think I have the capacity to make that decision, whether I can do that or not? And sometimes, these things are really difficult, because I had someone quite recently offer me help. I said, “No”. They offered me up again, I said “I’m fine, thanks.” And they offered a third time, and I said, “No.” And they went, “Well, I was just trying to help you. You’re so ungrateful”. Like, awful. And I said to them, you know, “I very politely said to you three times, I’m fine.” And they still decided that I didn’t have capacity. So, it’s moments like that, they’re the moments that test me. Because there’s a teeny bit that you want to go, “Just go away!” And then you go, “No, I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to do that.” But those moments that are quite hard, because people are not listening to what I say, so yeah, it’s…
Elizabeth
Do you ever want to do like a Superman type thing of going, “I am the Baroness Grey–Thompson!” just to get them to go away?
Tanni Grey–Thompson
No. You might think… but that is never a winning argument.
Elizabeth
I know. That’s gonna be in the Daily Mail. But just like “Take me seriously!”
Tanni Grey–Thompson
Yeah, I did have a situation in a different context years ago, where somebody wasn’t very polite to me. And they basically went “We want to take your name”, and I gave them my name, and they said “Is that Mrs?” And it was a Dame at the time, and I said, “Actually, I’m Dame Tanni Grey–Thompson.” And suddenly their behaviour change towards me. And it’s like, seriously mate, if you couldn’t be nice to me when I was like, just me, don’t be nice to me because I’ve got, you know, a DBE. So yeah, you have these moments where it’s… I did throw my shoes that somebody once. I mean, not actually at them, but I mean, it was sort of in their general direction. I was really mad. I was trying to get on the train and I was pregnant. Quite late on, had a really long day in London. Just wanted to get home. And somebody put me on a train to Leeds, meaning I just go to Leeds and change. And it’s like, “I just want to go home.” And I had to crawl off the train. So, I took my shoes off, so I didn’t lose them down onto the track, because I crawled off the train at eight months’ pregnant, and kind of threw them onto the platform. And then, you’re in that situation where you go, “I’ve now got to walk and pick up my shoes.” So I say walk, I mean push here. So, do I just walk away and leave the shoes? Or do I just go…? And I was like, “I really like those shoes.” And there’s nothing dignified about having to walk across the platform to pick up a pair of shoes that you’ve thrown in the direction of somebody. Bless him. I mean, I think at that point, I don’t think he’d realised I was pregnant. I hid it quite well. And I think by that point, he was just like, “Oh my God, this poor woman.” Yeah, he was very kind to me after that.
Elizabeth
I know that it must be incredibly wearying, I think, like it is for people of colour to be constantly explaining themselves and helping people understand nuances around language and stuff. It must be very worrying for you day in and day out. So I kind of made sure I went away and refreshed my memory about where, you know, best language, et cetera, et cetera, and we’ll put all that in the show notes. But I guess I’m asking you not such a technical question, but more of a kind of “what do you wish people knew?” For listeners who maybe don’t know anyone who’s disabled or just haven’t had much encounter in their lives, haven’t had the kind of prompt to educate themselves around it: what would you wish they understood? What is the thing that would make your life… would make it easier for people to be a blessing, not a curse, to you when they meet you?
Tanni Grey–Thompson
I think it’s just time to think about disabled people and disability impairment. And, you know, it’s just so much the time. We’re not a homogenous group, even someone with a similar impairment as mine will have a very different experience. But we’re 20% of the population. And it feels like we just never have that moment where you go, “Okay, right. You’re going to be part of the decision making process.” Why are the decisions made for disabled people with no disabled people in the room? Not consulting, not paying disabled people for their advice? You know, or just expecting us to be grateful for having the smallest scrap of inclusion. And so I don’t get frustrated about having to kind of have that argument, because I think, for me, that’s part of what you know, my mum and dad would say to me. You know, you’re gonna have a platform. You know, just… I actually get quite energised about explaining to people, because you’re thinking, “Okay, well, at least someone’s come to ask so”, or in a situation where I can talk about these things. But it’s that bit about “and be grateful”. And I think the other bit is that not assuming that being disabled is the worst thing in somebody’s life. Now, again, we’re not all the same, but there’s this assumption that every disability must be awful. And it must be tragic, and it must be sad, and that you must live in pain. And so, yeah, some people do, but a lot of people don’t. If there’s one thing I could do in government, it’d be splitting up the way that we’re referred to as sick and disabled. Because that just lumps loads of people in together, and I don’t think that’s helpful. So I think it would be, you know, just been thought about. You know, just… And again, the privilege I have, you know, because people know I’m a wheelchair user, I get treated so differently to the vast majority of disabled people I know. And I still experienced discrimination. And, you know, I kind of see it as my job not to speak ‘on behalf of’ because I see it as empowering other disabled people to have a voice to be able to talk about their experience, and support… I’m in an amazing WhatsApp group, where we talk about ‘disability accident cake’, because when things get too hard, we talk about cake, and biscuits and things like that. But that support network is really important, to be able to then re–energise yourself to start the next day, and to have another fight. I say the word ‘fight’. I thought a moment was going to be in the pandemic, when compulsory ‘Do Not Attempt Resuscitation’ orders were put on thousands and thousands of disabled people with no underlying health conditions. And people just shrugged and went, “Yeah”. And we haven’t had our moment yet where we treat disabled people as genuinely included parts of society. It happens in lots of places, but not across, and that’s true for other protected characteristics. But we still live in a place where it is harder for disabled people to just survive.
Assisted suicide and proper care
Elizabeth
Yeah. I want to talk a bit about assisted suicide because it is related. And I know that it’s a very painful difficult subject, and listeners will have a range of positions and a range of kind of emotional responses to the topic. We had Dame Prue Leith on in the last series, who was very involved in campaigning for it. But I know there’s a particular connection with disabled people and assisted dying. And I’d love you to say a little bit more about your work around it, and how you’ve kind of arrived at the position that you have.
Tanni Grey–Thompson
Yeah, I think if you’d asked me 25 years ago, I would have had a different view. And I absolutely do not want to see anybody, you know, in pain, suffering… But the challenge is how you put a policy in place that offers protection. And those who want to change the law, they’re able… You know, there’s a couple of top line things they say, you know, six months diagnosis to doctors… The devil is in the detail of actually, you know, working that through. And, you know, in Canada, there’s one doctor who’s helped 300 people end the lives, there’s another doctor who’s helped 400 people. You know, without going into all the jurisdictions, there’s some massive safety concerns that I have about been able to go through, you know, people through the process. And, you know, somebody, a colleague of mine, said to me, you know, “Where there’s a will, there’s a relative”, you know. And people’s motivations are not always selfless, you know. They’re not. So, the worry I have for disabled people is that if we live in a society where I’m still fighting to get disabled people into mainstream education, where only half the disabled people who can work actually have a job, compulsory “Do Not Attempt Resuscitation” orders, you know… All these things where, you know, people are made to feel worthless. The option is, they will request this. And you know, having two doctors just go, “You sure this is what you want to do?” and it’d be signed off is a worry because it leads us down a very dystopian path to the future. You know, in Canada, people who live in poverty have requested it. There’s a case which is in the media, a Paralympian, she asked for support for a ramp for her house, and she was offered assisted suicide. And, you know, this is not, for me, it’s not a solution to fix society’s ills, you know? So, I think it’s a very, you know, big decision we’re making. My mum died of leukaemia, not in the best way. And my father passed away with something else, but again, better but not brilliant. But, you know, we need to actually make sure that we put in proper palliative care, proper support for people, proper social care support, not just jump to this as a solution to an end. It’s very emotive. It’s really emotive, and I get that, but I think it’s a very dangerous path for us to go down.
Woke culture, de–platforming and listening to difference
Elizabeth
And finally on kind of politics, and I’m sort of zooming out a bit into how we engage across our differences more generally. Because my itch, my concern, and my question about society is that we’re not necessarily getting better at understanding people different from ourselves, people who disagree with us. You are spending so much of your time in this building, which is set up to be adversarial with two sides shouting at each other. You’re a crossbench peer, which is really interesting position to be in. What have you learned about how we engage across our differences? You know, how you engage with someone who disagrees with you on assisted dying, or a whole range of other things? What helps us keep seeing each other as fully human, rather than doing these dehumanising things?
Tanni Grey–Thompson
It’s really interesting because, you know, the House of Commons is quite different from the House of Lords. You know, we have no career path at the House of Lords, you know. So it’s not about scoring political points. It does happen, but not to the same extent it does in the Commons. I always find it fascinating, where you see people in the Commons, you know, potentially having a go at each other, and then walking out and actually quite good mates with each other. So, I think my frustration is, you know, Prime Minister’s Questions is theatre. Some people are better at it than others. You know, it can be witty, amusing and brilliant, and it can be tedious and horrendous. But that is not politics, that is just a tiny little sort of part of it. I think it’s about listening. And, you know, on social media, I follow a whole range of people, and some people who I think have absolutely appallingly dreadful, awful views on the world. But you’ve got to listen to them, because you’ve got to keep ‘sense checking’ what you think. Like, I changed my mind on all sorts of things. And in the Lord’s actually, you can do that. You can go into a debate and say, “At the start of the debate, I thought this. I’ve listened to you lot, and now this way” – because I’m not allowed to call them new law – but you know, you can say, you know… It’s easier to say, “This is where I am”. And I think you’ve got to continually ‘sense check’ what you think. What I thought at 20 and what I think now, on a whole range of things, is quite different. Somebody could argue because I’ve gone down a rabbit hole, some could argue because I’ve educated myself better and I’ve met different people. There’s a whole range of things that you… and I really worry about the cancel culture, really worry. And I worry about de–platforming universities, because sometimes you have to listen to these people, and using my mother’s terminology, go, “They’re an idiot”, you know. They have no substance, they can’t argue their corner. They’ve got three sound bites, but they can’t do anything else. So you’ve got to – and obviously that there are views which are so abhorrent which I would never follow someone’s social, you know; there are definitely boundaries to that for me – but you’ve got to listen to difference. And the other thing with the Lords is that, if you’re in a debate, you’ve got to be in for pretty much all of it. So you listen. You have a massive divergence of views on subjects, because ultimately, what you’re trying to do is the best thing. So yes, you’ve got to listen to people. And you’ve got to just continue to ‘sense check’ what you think. And, you know, the Lords is amazing place. I mean, it’s one of the most accessible and open places I’ve ever worked. It’s the least misogynistic place I’ve ever worked. And you just have to remember it’s not the real world, you know, where we have gold on the ceilings. You know, it’s a massive privilege. Every day I walk into the building, I pick up my staff pass, I just think “I am so privileged to have this”. But you just also have to remember that it’s not the real world. And that’s my guiding principle every day is, you know, we have lovely afternoon tea and we have pastry chefs and… but you know what? Some of the best and most challenging conversations I have had, where I’ve challenged companies to do better for disabled people, is over a cup of tea and a cream cake. Because you can have that conversation in different way. So you know, it’s opened my mind to lots of other ways of behaving and doing things.
Elizabeth
Listening is so simple, and yet so difficult. Tanni Grey–Thompson, thank you so much for speaking to me on The Sacred.
Tanni Grey–Thompson
Thank you.
Elizabeth Oldfield’s reflection on her conversation with Tanni Grey Thompson
Elizabeth
So, Tanni. Honestly, she is an absolute delight, and that is quite unusual. Not among Sacred guests specifically, but in various jobs at the BBC and at Theos, I had reason to be in contact with a lot of people who’ve had very, very successful careers like Tanni – and she has had two very successful careers; at least two, actually – and it’s really difficult for that kind of life not to change you, not to make you at least a little bit ‘tunnel vision–y’ or harassed, or distracted, or hyper focused. And so, a lot of the people around you kind of bleed into the background somewhat. And yes, power corrupts and success and fame does weird things to people, but it’s often just milder than that, that you meet those kinds of people in age don’t seem quite normal. And Tanni is both astonishingly impressive and comes across as really very normal and very grounded, and really good fun, lovely and warm. And I think a lot of that will just be innate to her, but what comes through is just how amazing her family is and are, and the power of good parents. The power of parents who fight for you, and also require quite a lot of you at times. We have another episode in this series with Catherine Birbalsingh, who is known as Britain’s strictest headmistress, actually coming from, I think, probably a different political perspective. Although unclear and expressed in a different way, it sounds like Tanni’s parents had a not dissimilar approach, you know, ‘you use what you’ve been given’. Take agency. Be grateful for what you have. There is just so matter–of–fact. It must have been such a struggle to raise two children with significant health challenges, and yeah, it’s just immensely impressive. The sport thing obviously seems silly, but I genuinely don’t get it, and Tanni really helped me. These intense experiences, this kind of like “I am alive, look at what I can do with my body” actually reminded me of labour as well, how I felt labour. I loved labour. Like, look at what her body can do. Massively empowered. And yeah, it was really helpful for me. Although I said it to my husband afterwards, I said, “Tanni has really helped me understand why you love sport, and it’s about these very intense experiences of unselfing and ecstasy.” And he said, “Erm, not sure that’s what my mates and I are getting when we’re just like, chatting nonsense on WhatsApp while watching Match of the Day.” So, you know, baby steps. And obviously, we spoke at the end about – sorry, terrible tonal gearshift – but we spoke at the end about some really hard things. About how difficult society still makes life for disabled people. If you follow Tanni on social media, you’ll see that she’s ever so polite, and calm, but reports kind of painfully regular instances of the world just not being set up for her. And yeah, she’s just very honestly challenging about how little disabled people are asking – they just want a level playing field – and how reluctant we seem to be to sort that out. And on assisted dying at the end; I’m always aware, you know, we’ve had guests on who are very pro changing legislation to allow assisted dying and guests on who are very nervous about it, and it is often people in the disability community. Although Tom Shakespeare, a previous guest, is much more open than Tanni is. And I’m just aware how sensitive and how neuralgic that is, particularly if you’ve been up close with someone suffering in the last few… in the last season of their life. So just wanted to name that really and say, I know this isn’t a theoretical argument, either for the people who are terrified and want to stop it, or for the people who are desperate for the last change. So let’s just be careful with each other as we disagree, s’il vous plaît.
