Tanni Grey Thompson

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and one, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is an athlete. She broke a British record for the 100 metres at the age of 16. She won a bronze medal in the Seoul Games in 1988, and she went on to win four gold medals in Barcelona four years later, and gold and three silvers in Atlanta after that. In Sydney last year, once again, she won four gold medals. All her victories have been won in a wheelchair, because she was born with spina bifida and hasn't walked since she was seven years old. Just because my legs don't work, she says, doesn't mean I don't want to win. She's the most successful track competitor in the history of the Paralympics, Tanny Gray Thompson. Tanny, I think the sight of you crossing the finishing line when you were getting that fourth gold in Sydney and your kind of hands raised in victory was an enduring image of the Sydney Games. Was it the most exciting moment in your life? Or one of them anyway? It was. I think there were so many mixed feelings with Sydney. So much of it was actually relief more than anything else, because going into the Games had been quite a lot of pressure on me to do well.

Presenter1:32

And as the games went on, um the first medal was easy, the second one wasn't too bad. By the time I got to the third, everyone was saying, Well, you're just gonna win four, aren't you? And you just don't know. So, um it it was a a whole mixture of things and it was great'cause my sister and her husband were out there, which was really nice to have family around. The rest of my family stayed at home, so it was Your mother can't bear to watch you apparently.

Speaker 11:50

Your ma

Speaker 11:51

Uh

Presenter1:52

Never has been able to watch me race. Actually BBC Wells took her into a studio to try and get her to listen to the race'cause they were broadcasting it live and she just walked out. She can't listen at all. But was it all covered live? Were your your family back here?'Cause your husband was back here as well, wasn't he? Were they able to see it? Um they saw bits and pieces. Actually my first race, which was my eight hundred,

Tanni Grey Thompson2:06

Whatever

Speaker 12:06

Uh

Presenter2:11

I came through the finish line and stopped because I knew where my sister Sean was sitting and she threw me my phone, which was probably highly illegal for the track rolls, and I rang Ian and said, I've won, I've won and he said, Oh yeah, I've seen it on BBC Online and you know, within about a minute and a half, two minutes of me finishing, there's actually a picture of me on the internet on the BBC site. And then as an athlete, you know, you get to do your lap of honour, it's all very exciting, and then you got chucked off the track'cause there's another event coming on.

Speaker 12:26

Maybe see.

Presenter2:33

I went off to to do the medal ceremony and after that Sean sort of I met up with her and she said, I'm really sorry, I'm really sorry about your phone bill and I said, Oh, what do you mean? And she'd actually rung mum and dad.

Presenter2:44

As we were just coming up for the medal ceremony and being on the phone for about thirty-five, forty minutes, while they were doing the medal ceremony and the union jack was going up, so mum and dad could actually listen to it live. Oh, she'd held it up for them to hear. Yeah, and was singing along. And I mean, it was fantastic for mum and dad, but it's probably the biggest single phone call I've ever had to pay for. And great, she did rang on my phone, she didn't ring on hers. But it did get a lot of coverage. And that I think that's the point, really. This time, above all the others, I think the Paralympics got covered seriously, didn't they? And that must mean a lot to you.

Speaker 12:54

Yeah.

Presenter3:13

I think the coverage this time just completely changed the perception of the Paralympic Games. Barcelona was a good start for us and Atlanta didn't move things on too much. I mean, I think for Sydney it helps because the Olympic team did so well. But I think just because the games were organised absolutely, completely spot on. You know, they'd they'd thought of every single thing. And it was great. I mean we didn't really have a concept while we're out there just what coverage we were getting back home. It was the only one we actually got back

Presenter3:40

Into the airport in London, and you know, hundreds of people have come to the airport to welcome us home. They were there because they'd been genuinely excited by the games, and that's the point, really, isn't it? That they were watching because they were watching athletics, they were not watching disabled people. Absolutely, and I think that's the way Sydney moved it on. It they just showed someone winning and everybody else not winning, and it's not, you know, all these poor little disabled people having a go. It's just it's winning and not winning.

Presenter4:05

Tell me about your first record. Well, this is um a s a hymn that I I grew up I uh I'm Welsh and went to stacks of rugby games and only knew it as Bread of Heaven until I was much older. So it's uh Guide me, O thy great Jehovah.

Presenter5:11

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, Bread of Heaven, to us, sung by the Dunvant male choir with the band of the Welsh Gods. What about the name Tanny? Is it Welsh for something, or what is it, Tanny? No, it's actually my sister's fault. I've got an older sister, Shan, who's eighteen months older than me, and I was actually christened Carris. And apparently when she was told there was going to be another baby, she was very excited, and no one actually thought to say that it wasn't going to be somebody her size to play with.

Presenter5:37

So when I was brought home from hospital, apparently she just looked at me with complete disgust and just said, Oh, it's tiny.

Presenter5:42

And uh tiny over a period of time became tanny. That's where it came from. I mentioned in the introduction that you were walking until you were seven. What what happened to stop you walking?

Presenter5:53

Well, I was born with spina bifida but it was very mild and at the same time by sort of coincidence I had a curvature of the spine and really just as I I grew older my spine started to collapse and where my spinal cord had been exposed that sort of became crushed and I became paralysed. That's what bifida means is it's a gap. It's a gap in the spine. And to be honest I mean I don't really remember it happening because it it was over a year, maybe eighteen months. I gradually learnt to adapt to things as I went along. So it wasn't sort of any shock or trauma. It wasn't one day I could walk and the next day I couldn't. It just happened very slowly. And then for me having a wheelchair meant a huge amount of freedom to do things because when I'd been walking I really struggled to do stuff. And then suddenly I had a chair and I could bum around and I could play with my friends.

Presenter6:39

So for me, having a wheelchair has always been something that's been extremely positive. Quite. And and have you got any feeling in your legs at all? I'm completely paralysed from the waist down. And that was quite hard. That was probably the hardest part when I was sort of seven and eight. Because I remember thinking, Hey, great, I can't feel my legs. I can go crawling over things and it doesn't matter. And you sort of see this trail of blood and sort of scabby knees and things. And that was the hardest part to learn to deal with. That I actually had to be careful because of my legs. But that's what comes through reading about you, is that sort of positive thought and that's not something you've affected. It seems to be something that's been totally natural. It must have come from your parents. Oh, Hugh, my parents have been a massive influence on me. My mother is very strong-willed, which I think I I get a lot of my personality from her. And my father just is a problem solver. And between the two of them, they just taught me to get on with things. And they seemed t to manage to not allow you to go to special schools. You didn't. You went to mainstream schools, didn't you?

Tanni Grey Thompson7:34

And why not?

Presenter7:34

And why not? Well, I think that was something that was very important. I think when I first started going to school,

Presenter7:39

They just didn't realise the school system and didn't realise I wasn't meant to go to a mainstream school. And then once I was there and I I started having problems walking, that they started to realise that there was a a separate and segregated school system which I was meant to be in. And then by the time I got to sort of ten and sort of the Education Authority were pushing me to special school, my parents just said no, didn't want it because I didn't need special education. I just needed an accessible school. You just needed a school with a ramp. Absolutely. And it it was quite a hard fight for my parents. I mean I'm

Presenter8:11

I think I'm just will always be grateful the fact that my parents were very aware of the Education Acts. They knew who to write to to complain, they knew how to fight. But it was a fight, obviously. It was, and I had to see sort of psychologists, psychiatrists, I had to go through IQ tests. There were this whole stack of people around me making decisions about what I needed. And eventually my father sort of quoted the 1981 white paper on education at anyone who was prepared to listen. And there was a little line in the Warnock report that said, you know, I had a right to be educated in the best environment for me. And they fought and fought and fought and made sure that I went to mainstream education. Tell me about your second record. Well, this is probably my favourite song ever. It's Soft Cell and Tainted Love.

Tanni Grey Thompson8:57

Boy could give you, take my tears And that's not nearly all Tainted Lotus

Tanni Grey Thompson9:06

Tainted love, don't touch me, please. I cannot stand the way you seize. I love you, though you hurt me so. Now I'm gonna pack my things and go. Tainted love.

Speaker 19:12

Damn the way you tease our love.

Presenter9:26

Soft cell and tainted love. Um I don't really know how you do what you do, Tanny, when you race. I mean, you're travelling at speed on a kind of three wheel chair. You've got that one wheel out in front, haven't you? But your hands are flailing by your side. What are they doing?

Presenter9:40

Well the technique of wheelchair racing is incredibly important. I guess the nearest comparison is something like hurdling. And a lot of people tend to think you actually grab the pushrim something like you you do with a day chair. But actually we have very well padded gloves and you actually use sort of the first two or three knuckles of your hand which go inside the rim and flick it round. And my racing chair is completely custom built around the shape of my body. So I can only fit in it if I'm wearing one layer of lycra. So it's a little bit like a a Formula One sort of cockpit car. It's um it's quite difficult sometimes to get in and out of it. So it really holds you and you're pushing around and and releasing as you get to the bottom of the turn aren't you? And your hand rotates off the bottom of the pushrim. So that's when if you see a head on shot of athletes racing the hands would come and sort of fling back and it actually looks a little bit like a butterfly stroke in a swimming pool. And that's the most efficient technique and and that's really my strength. And what sort of difference in miles per hour can that make?

Speaker 110:14

And you'll

Speaker 110:18

Does it

Speaker 110:28

And I think that's a good thing.

Presenter10:38

A bad technique you could probably maximum speed speed you could push out would be eight or nine miles an hour. A good technique twenty one, twenty two miles an hour. How dangerous is it? I think when you're on the track, I suspect it's not so dangerous'cause you're flat, uh, going along the flat and the track is specially prepared for you, but you do marathons as well, I know. That that must take a lot of guts.

Presenter10:59

Probably more stupidity doing marathons than anything else. You you do get a few crashes on the track, but not as as many as you do on the road. With the road you can be in packs of anything. I think the biggest pack I've ever raced in is about fifty-five people, and that is coming up to a sprint finish at the end of the marathon. So that's where it does get a little bit fraught, because it doesn't take much to actually bump into someone and knock them out. But also you're very low to the ground, aren't you, in that chair? We're only a couple of feet off the ground. And you're sometimes going downhill on the marathon? Well, the the fastest I've ever actually been in my chair is about 49, 50 miles an hour, and that's through the Tyne Tunnel. And at that speed, your brakes don't work and your steering don't work either. So.

Speaker 111:23

Yeah.

Presenter11:36

You just get used to it. And actually, it's a huge buzz. I mean, it's it's a fantastic feeling when you're going that kind of speed, knowing that you have no control over what you're doing.

Presenter11:44

She said, You need a lot of bottle though to do that, isn't it?

Speaker 111:44

You just pray. You just hope.

Presenter11:48

That's part of it. I think so. Um and I think that's the thing that for me makes wheelchair racing, especially racing on the road, very exciting. I I love that feeling. So this racing chair, as you say, is specially designed for you and it takes advantage of all the things that people know about designing cycles, I suppose. It's it's comparable really, isn't it? Well we use as much cycling technology as we can and we use all the best cycling wheels, brakes, you know. It's it's a very similar but the way we train and the way we compete is more similar to cycling than it is to running, although for some bizarre reason we're we're part of athletics. But what about the day chair? How does that compare, the one you use most of the time?

Speaker 112:15

Although f

Presenter12:22

Well, my racing chair is about six foot long, probably weighs about six kilos. My day chair is actually heavier and stronger because it has to be because it sort of gets bashed around so much. But obviously it is a very, very important part of your life. I mean, I don't know what you could compare your day chair to. I mean, certainly it's more important than shoes and socks are to us, as it were. It it is, it's the most important thing for me because it's my independence. And I think because of the way I am, I don't like my independence being taken away from me. So I think the hardest part for me is actually when I'm flying, I do a huge amount of travelling through the ear.

Presenter12:55

I don't like being pushed through airports because I don't need to be. They presumably want to put you in their own wheelchair, as it were, and take yours away. I think that's probably the the only time I think I actually get quite stroppy as a disabled person. I remember having one argument with a guy at Birmingham Airport.

Presenter13:10

Where um he was saying, Oh, well, you know, you can't have it and it's the rules and uh and gradually there's people queuing up behind waiting to check in. And I sort of said, Well, okay, if you take the shoes and socks off of everyone who's checking in behind me, you can have my chair And they said, Well, that's a breach of personal liberty Right and then go on okay. Record number three. Oh, this is probably my most embarrassing record. Uh this is Abba and Waterloo.

Presenter13:33

Why? I'm a huge Eurovision Song Contest fan. Should you admit that? No, I shouldn't admit that at all. Um, always have been. I mean, I just love it. I think it's so tacky and wonderful and it's just great. And this is probably the first song I remember watching on T V as a young person.

Speaker 213:37

Yeah.

Tanni Grey Thompson13:52

You mean you want the money?

Tanni Grey Thompson13:57

What are you doing?

Tanni Grey Thompson13:58

Promise you love me forevermore.

Tanni Grey Thompson14:03

One and two

Tanni Grey Thompson14:05

Couldn't escape me by wanting to

Tanni Grey Thompson14:10

Bye-bye.

Tanni Grey Thompson14:11

Knowing my face and feeling

Presenter14:15

ABBA and Waterloo. You obviously, Tanny Gray Thompson, intended to be serious about sport from quite early on. You'd started doing athletics at school. You went to Loughborough University, which is known for its sport, although you're reading politics. When did you decide, though, it was really not a hobby, it was something you could make a career out of?

Presenter14:33

It was probably only really when I was at university. Up until that point, the profile of wheelchair racing wasn't that high and I had always presumed that I was going to have to get a fairly decent job to be able to pay for my hobby.

Presenter14:45

And then as I was coming towards the end of my time at Loughborough, I'd improved tremendously.

Presenter14:50

I'd been to Seoul and uh I knew that's what I wanted to do. You'd won a bronze at Seoul by then. Yeah, in the four hundred and and for me that was probably the point in my career where I realised I could get a lot better. Because it was the first time you'd really performed, as it were, in front of tens of thousands of people, wasn't it? Seoul was just the most amazing experience. I was nineteen and although I'd been to internationals and different games, really all the travelling I'd done had been in Europe and in the States. And actually going to a country like Korea, which is such a completely different culture, was a huge eye-opener for me. And I remember we had a little bit of time at the end of the games, sort of going shopping in sort of downtown Seoul. And you could be and it was the sort of richest shopping district in the city. And on the street corners there were sixteen year old prostitutes with needle marks.

Presenter15:39

And that that for me as a nineteen year old, you know, grew up in Cardiff and had never seen very much, was a a huge shock.

Tanni Grey Thompson15:45

Hmm.

Presenter15:45

And what about nerves at the games themselves? Because you do suffer from nerves, don't you, for all your great success?

Tanni Grey Thompson15:51

Dash.

Presenter15:52

And I think they get worse as I get older. I get very nervous and I've never really found a way of dealing with it. So um How nervous? What form does it take? Always? Virtually always. So it still happened in Sydney? I mean, even when you were clocking up those four goals in a row, presumably particularly before the last one, the four hundred metres wasn't it the last one, as we say.

Speaker 115:59

How nervous, what form does it take?

Speaker 116:05

Ball wet.

Presenter16:16

Di did anyone then suggest to you, look, forget it, give up, stop? Well, one of my coaches, um, part of me being an athlete, I actually like being at the Walmart track way ahead of time because just in case things go wrong, you know, I'm a great what-if. So I was sitting at the track about two hours before I had to start warming up, just chatting to one of the team coaches and I just said to him, I don't want to do this anymore. I feel so sick. I just I know I'm going to have to spend the next half an hour in the toilet. And he said, Well, why are you doing it? And I don't know really. He said, Well, if you actually had the choice and someone came along now and would take you away from this and you never had to do it again, would you go? And I said, Don't be so stupid, of course I wouldn't. So it's this kind of split personality in athlete. You just don't want to do it. And it's the worst feeling. I actually start feeling ill thinking about it now, just the the waiting, because I I don't like waiting for things.

Presenter17:06

Record number four.

Presenter17:08

This is um a theme tune from MASH, which uh was a great favourite of mine when I was growing up, watching on T V as a comedy. And then I don't think I realized the words of it until a lot later. But uh I I guess going to Seoul and and seeing what it was like in Korea and the impact of the Korean War had quite a big impact on me.

Tanni Grey Thompson17:26

Through early morning fog I see Visions of the things to be The pains that are withheld for me I realize and I can see

Tanni Grey Thompson17:45

That suicide is painless

Tanni Grey Thompson17:49

It brings on many changes.

Presenter17:54

Suicide is painless, the theme from MASH. What I hadn't realized, Tanny, I don't know whether it's out of laziness or ignorance, is that that paralympics has nothing to do with paraplegic or paralyzed, has it? It's para as in parallel.

Presenter18:08

But there's been lots of different names for the equivalent games over the years. I mean it used to be Olympics for the disabled and as sort of the word disabled became less politically correct everyone was searching round for a different term. And it's only really from Seoul in nineteen eighty eight that the term Paralympics came to be generally accepted. And it's sort of paralympics, not para-Olympics. It's running alongside is literally what it means. Like paramedic or absolutely and I think that's um quite important for the athletes who compete there because we are not the Olympics with Paralympics. You mentioned political correctness and and you know everybody tries to be very diff very careful with language but it is very difficult. It's all undergone a huge sea change and rightly so.

Speaker 118:30

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 118:31

But

Presenter18:46

But then I hear you giving interviews talking about wheelies and blinkies. What is right and what is wrong? What do you like and what don't you like? Oh, well that's where it it gets incredibly complicated.

Presenter18:58

I'm an athlete with a disability or I'm a disabled person and for me being an athlete is the most important thing, so that's the thing I would rather be known as first and foremost. And I think political correctness is important in terms of putting over the right image, especially to people who don't understand disability. But on the other side, amongst other groups of disabled athletes, we're probably com well we are completely politically incorrect all the time. What do you call yourselves?

Speaker 119:22

What you call

Presenter19:24

GIMP's probably the most uh popular one. Um I I dislike being called a wheelie because that's the method by which I get around and would never want to be called crippled because I just I'm not crippled and crips, crip sport, yeah. But it's very difficult because within sort of the internal world of Paralympic sport it it's okay to do it. And it it gets very difficult. So I try and always um be more politically correct than I I sort of maybe would like to be. But do you really care that much what you call it at the end of the day? At the end of the day I I don't care at all. I think it's more about the way people refer to me and that's the most important thing. What about bo boyfriends? What about your social life in in in those early days? You know, when in the teenagers and early twenties, I think when appearance matters so much. Did you have uh but did you have able-bodied boyfriends or?

Speaker 119:53

But you really

Speaker 119:56

At the end of the

Presenter20:15

Yeah, m mostly. I think for me, because I didn't know that many disabled boys, I was in a mostly a mainstream environment. That was kind of probably more natural for me. I wasn't particularly interested in boys that much. I mean, I was interested in studying and I was interested in sport. But I can imagine that your mother was always asked, or maybe when you got engaged, she was asked, you know, is he, is he, is he, is he okay?

Presenter20:40

And uh mum's quite funny with that because she sorta says, No, he's got three heads and um Ian my husband has a disability. He was a cyclist and broke his back in a cycling accident.

Presenter20:50

And that doesn't actually make any difference to me. The the interest we have together is sport.

Presenter20:55

And I don't think I ever could have married someone well, I couldn't have, who who wasn't interested in sport, because he understands.

Presenter21:01

just one hundred and ten percent why I want to go training, what I want to do, why if I'm going to go away for three months training, you know, he doesn't get upset, he just thinks of all the positive opportunities, and that's the most important thing for me ever.

Presenter21:14

Pickle number five.

Presenter21:15

This is an American band called Blind Melon. I'm not sure if if it was ever released over here, but it's a song called No Rain. And a few years ago I spent about four months training in Australia, and this was the song that was kind of popular at the time, and it was on the radio every morning when we went to training, so it's probably my second favorite record.

Tanni Grey Thompson21:31

All I can do is read a black to stay away.

Tanni Grey Thompson21:36

And it rips my life away, but it's a great escape

Tanni Grey Thompson21:43

The Scarlet.

Tanni Grey Thompson21:47

Escape.

Tanni Grey Thompson21:50

Escape

Presenter21:57

Lime melon and no rain.

Presenter22:00

Barcelona 1992, then you scooped the pool, Tanny. You won those four gold medals and you did, you said, probably the best four hundred meters you've ever done there, actually. That was actually my semi-final race, which I think out of all the four hundreds I've done, there's probably three or four which have abs just been perfect in terms of the start, the pick up and everything that happened. I broke the world record and I remember coming off the track, just yeah, I had to scrape them down off the ceiling. It's probably the most excited I've ever been about a race. And I remember coming round and meeting my family and a whole group of guys from the team. And I remember them looking at me and they obviously, you know, just realised how ecstatic I was. And a couple of them just turned around and said, you know, you start. And I go, it was rubbish. And I just remember just coming straight down going, right, okay. Yep. And because the next day I had the final, so it was probably the best thing they ever could have said to me. And then Atlanta ninety-six, not not so good, I think one gold and three silver, wasn't it? And a chance remark from one of the team that really upset you. What happened? One of the administrators sort of said to me, Well, that's it, you know, you've only got a gold and three silver. You know, that's your career pretty much over and done with. You might as well retire now because you're not any use to anybody anymore.

Presenter23:11

And I'm sitting there thinking, Oh, okay.

Presenter23:15

I think that made me come away and really think about what I wanted to do and made me decide actually, you know, I did want to go through to Sydney, but also I needed to actually now start thinking of other options because your life as an athlete is very short, it's very unpredictable, you never know when it's going to finish because of injury or non-selection or other things. Of course, but what you did in that moment was tap into your competitive edge and discover that it was as keen as you would have liked it to be. I wonder where you get that from?

Presenter23:42

I think I get a lot of it well, um, from both my parents. Dad is very objective and likes to see a good game, where mum is completely biased and just wants Wales to win at whatever cost, especially against England. So I I think sort of the the two combinations, they actually fit very well together. But do you think you would have been an athlete if you hadn't had spina bifida?

Presenter24:02

Do you think that you have the mind and spirit of an athlete that would have come through? Is it in the genes or is it actually because you were disabled?

Presenter24:11

I think I'm just very competitive. I don't think that is any different. I I've just been competitive in in everything that I've ever done. I I want to be the best I can.

Presenter24:20

And it's like that with him, you know, it's kind of bizarre that we we're sort of married, we train together, and every time we go out training, it's a race between the two of us. And even though he competes for Britain, he's faster and stronger than me, I still desperately want to beat him. Have you ever beaten him? The closest I've came was on the the Portsmouth Half Marathon in ninety-three. And actually coming up to the sprint finish, he got about five guys to sit around me and box me in and just nudged me into the curb so I couldn't sprint past him. He didn't. He did. But um yeah, that's that's a race him. Is it? Have you forgiven him? That's really nasty. Um

Tanni Grey Thompson24:46

Hey, let's raise him.

Speaker 124:47

Uh

Presenter24:50

Well, I don't think so. I mean, actually I shouldn't have let myself get in that position. So it's my fault as much as anything. But uh that actually m that's probably the the biggest motivator I have is because I want to beat him so much. That would be one of the best things ever. Would it ever happen?

Presenter25:05

I like to think it will. Ian says that if I ever beat him in a race, he'll retire. Pick up number six. Oh, this is actually Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge in his spoof chat show. And when he first came onto Radio 4, I kind of didn't really understand his sense of humour. And then Ian and I went away to South Africa for a few weeks, and we were staying in the absolute back of beyond. And this is the only tape we took with us. So we actually know it very well, and we're kind of very sad, Monty Python-esque people who sit and quote at each other. But I think it's just some of the funniest stuff I've ever heard. What's it about? Can you set it up for us? Well, Alan's been his usual sort of bombastic and rude self to his guests. He's actually been hypnotised but doesn't believe it's going to happen to him. And he's been taken back to his very sad and mixed up childhood.

Speaker 225:49

Are you there? Yes. Good. Now tell me what you can see. I'm in class. Yeah?

Tanni Grey Thompson25:54

The headmaster's come in.

Tanni Grey Thompson25:57

Yeah. Uh

Speaker 225:57

What's happened? Thanks.

Tanni Grey Thompson25:58

Oh, he's looking very pleased. He said someone's won an essay writing competition. Someone's written an essay on sport and it's won a prize.

Tanni Grey Thompson26:08

What else is he saying? He said, Is there an Alan Partridge in the class? Two, three.

Tanni Grey Thompson26:14

So what I want to know is when are you going to hypnotize me?

Presenter26:19

Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge being hypnotised in his spoof chat show, Knowing Me, Knowing You. You've done Tanny Gray Thompson more or less everything you can do, I think, in your field now, haven't you? You've got nine gold medals, twenty world records, four London Marathon titles, and you're only thirty-one. Is that it now as far as the really big international competitions are concerned, or have you got Athens two thousand four in your sights?

Speaker 226:36

I'm gonna

Presenter26:46

She frowned. That's the the hardest question. Um I think really from the point I was in Seoul, I always knew that I wanted to go on to the next games.

Presenter26:55

And coming back from Sydney, it's the first time I just haven't been sure what I wanted to do. I don't think I've reached my peak yet in terms of my own personal performance. Whether that means I can still carry on winning, whether someone comes along who's quicker than me, I d I don't know. But I think while I still think I can improve my own personal performance, I'll keep going. And there's always another marathon, and there is this time, you know, on April the 22nd. Are you in training? You're going to do it? I'm doing London. This is actually going to be my eleventh London.

Presenter27:22

And um I mean that's the other thing, you know, it's once you've done a few, you actually want to do more London than anybody else. So there's there's always I couldn't find competition in anything that I do. But then there's the marriage and there's the the mortgages we say you've nearly paid off. What about a family? What about children? Is that on the agenda?

Presenter27:37

I mean, that's something that um I'd like to happen. I think

Presenter27:42

For me, the time has never been right, and I'm probably getting to the age where it would be nice to start thinking about it. I actually made a joke in Sydney because I think once you hit your thirties as an athlete, you always get asked those sort of questions. And I think I said something, you know, if I could be pregnant by the second weekend in January, I could have the baby and not miss any winter training. And some people took that and it was sort of half serious, half joking. But I've committed to actually being part of the Welsh Commonwealth Games team at the end of next year. So 2002. And then after that. So everything's on hold, isn't it? It is. And then after that, I make a decision about what I'm going to do.

Speaker 128:08

So everything's on hold, is it?

Presenter28:16

It's the Pesh Mode and Personal Jesus and this was just really a a a band that were were very popular when I was at Loughborough and it just brings back lots of very happy images of of living in Towers Hall which was sort of three hundred and fifty students and and probably playing this very late at night on a Friday.

Tanni Grey Thompson28:36

Yeah.

Tanni Grey Thompson28:51

Ringside.

Presenter29:01

Depeche Mode and Personal Jesus. So it's casting away time, Tanny. I don't know how well the uh the wheels operate on sand. But you're good at coping on your own. I mean, those kinds of things don't worry you, do they?

Presenter29:16

Not really. Um

Presenter29:18

I think I'd be okay for a little while. Actually, part of me would like to escape and actually be away from things for a bit. I think what I'd find very hard is is missing my very close family. Um I've always been very close to my parents, my sister and Ian, and I think those are the ones wherever I am in the world, I'll speak to my parents probably at least every two days, most often every day, and it's the same with Ian. So I think that's what I'd I'd really struggle with. But but obviously you'd miss them. Them apart, people apart. What do you think you'd miss most about the world you inhabit today?

Presenter29:49

What thing or what

Presenter29:51

What

Presenter29:52

Habit or what?

Presenter29:55

I don't know. I think probably not being able to train.

Presenter29:57

I think that would be the hardest thing. I think I'd have to find some way to be physically active. It's a complete way of life, isn't it? Be because I spend so much of my time doing it, I can't

Speaker 130:02

It's a complete

Presenter30:07

And even right now I really can't imagine doing anything else. So I think that's the thing that I'd so I'd have to be very creative and go and, you know, develop some way of training on the island.

Presenter30:17

Sure, you could do that, couldn't you? Yeah, that would keep me busy for a while in between sort of building somewhere to live and and all the other things, and finding food, which would be a struggle.

Presenter30:25

Last record.

Presenter30:27

This is Stuck in the Middle With You, and I just think it's a really great song. There's one line in it which makes me laugh, which is Clowns to the Left, Jokers to the Right, Here I Am Stuck in the Middle With You. Sometimes just a a little bit the way I feel. It it's not been brought on by Sydney, but it it's sort of, I guess, evolved and as an athlete

Presenter30:45

It's nice to have all the fame and glory and everything that goes round with it, but sometimes people want to pull me in lots of different directions. And that's quite hard, fulfilling everyone's wish for me to travel 400 miles and be somewhere for ten minutes and actually combine it with what I want to do. So, in a very light-hearted way, this is just sometimes how I feel. Stuck in the mind.

Tanni Grey Thompson31:05

Try to make some sense of it all

Tanni Grey Thompson31:08

But I can see it makes no sense at all

Tanni Grey Thompson31:12

Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor?

Tanni Grey Thompson31:16

Cause I don't think that I can take anymore

Tanni Grey Thompson31:20

Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Presenter31:28

Stuck in the middle with you, sung by Steeler's Wheel. If you could only take one of those eight records, Stanny, which one would you take?

Presenter31:35

Oh, um, I think it would have to be Alan Partridge because I think all the other ones I kind of know them so well, I could always just sit and sing them to myself as this mad person on the island. Uh but I think with Steve Cook and I could sort of quite happily listen to that and sort of answer back and and have a nice little conversation with dear old Alan on the tape. What about your book? Oh, now this is very difficult. I read huge amounts, so I've spent quite a lot of time thinking about what I'd like to take. And probably because food's such an important part of what I do, um I'm not sure if I'd be allowed to take sort of a a guide to the island in terms of all the fruit and vegetables and berries, if there are any on the island, that I could and couldn't eat.

Presenter32:13

Well, why not? That'll be okay. We'll find you and what about your luxury?

Presenter32:17

I guess this is from spending huge amounts of time sitting at the airport with nothing to do.

Presenter32:22

So I I'd been thinking about two things. Either one would be uh a Game Boy, because I spend a lot of time very sadly sitting playing on that just to kill time, or it'd be juggling balls. But uh I shared a room with a girl for about two weeks who was learning to juggle and I came home from a competition and had to learn to do it. So I think probably if I could take five juggling balls with me,'cause I can only juggle three fairly well, I'd like to do that because that'd just kill loads of time until I was rescued.

Presenter32:49

Tanny Gray Thompson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 133:00

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.