The Palsy Podcast
To mark Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month, Award Winning Screenwriter and Playwright Ciaran Fitzgerald interviews interesting people who have Cerebral Palsy, hearing their stories of the joys, triumphs and tribulations of living with Cerebral Palsy
The Palsy Podcast
The Palsy Podcast - Episode 11 - David Smith
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Paralympic Boccia Champion David Smith is Ciaran's guest for this episode of The Palsy Podcast. David studied aerospace engineering at Swansea University, but has gone on to have career in the sport of Boccia. David competed at his first Paralympics in Beijing in 2008, and has gone on to compete at 5 Paralympic Games, winning 5 Paralympic medals. David is also the founder of Swansea Boccia club, and an advocate for independent living for disabled people.
Hello and welcome to the Palsy Podcast with me Q and Vic Show. I'm a playwright, screenwriter, and podcaster from South Wales. And seeing as Mark is Celtic Palsy Awareness to Market, I've decided to interview interesting people who have Silver Pulsy from Wales and beyond every day in March. If you like this episode, please stay tuned for Paul throughout the month and like and share. Now enjoy this episode of the Pulsy Podcast. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Pulsy Podcast, episode 11. Thank you again for joining me. Um my name is Kim Fitzgerald and I'm recording interviews with interesting people who have cerebral palsy every day in March to mark Cerable Pulsey Awareness Month. And today I'm joined by David Smith. Hi David, how's it going?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, good, mate. Yeah, not too bad. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for doing this. David is Paralympic Botcher champion, so we're gonna talk about creating butcher and paralympics. But first of all, I'm gonna open with a question I kind of ask everyone who comes on this program is what was it like growing up with CP? And was there a moment where you felt where you first felt different from your peers, maybe?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think uh for me I guess I kind of knew at a young age that I had server palsy. I mean, and I couldn't walk. Um, I mean it it was kind of obvious because I was always on the floor. Um, but um, but so that kind of that kind of but I I guess no one really made a big deal of it in my family. Um it was just kind of it it was what it was as it was, uh as it were. Um obviously when I was younger, social life as a kid was a little bit awkward sometimes because I couldn't do the things that my peers couldn't maybe do. So, you know, playing outside in the garden with uh neighbours and all that sort of stuff, it would be uh I'd have to sort of find ways of doing it um that were you know off the slightly different to the norm, um, which was I don't know, I just got on with it. I I don't remember being frustrated by it. I just remember just having it.
SPEAKER_01Hey, I was gonna I was gonna ask you whether you ever found it frustrating or did you just kind of get on with it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I was just kind of get on with it. I think I was my family were always a kind of keep calm and carry on sort of types, and I just kind of fitted into that quite nicely. So um I I I I didn't really want to make a big deal out of it. In fact, actually, the work it got it was more annoying when people did make a big deal out of it because it because I didn't personally care that much. Um like I mean I did. Obviously, you know, give me a choice between walking and not, I probably would have taken walking, but um but I couldn't, so it was never an option, so it kind of just I didn't think about it. I was too busy, too busy trying to work out how to solve the problem, which kind of piqued my interest more.
SPEAKER_01And like if if it's your lived experience, it's normal for you, you don't see it as a bit extreme. Like you say, you just get on with it and like do it after you. And like, what was school like? What was your experience at school like?
SPEAKER_00So my uh earliest experience of school was probably so I went went up to Winchester, a place called Meekrov, which was almost like a precursor to the modern sort of assessment centres. Um, and um up there it was sort of where that my parents found out, you know, that I had cerebral palsy. Okay, it's sort of the my additional needs, you know, and what they would be. Um, and then earliest memories of sort of going to a special school in Southampton called Cedar School, which was kind of infant and primary school. Um, so when I was sort of three to five and then five to eight, I was going there um and sort of getting my first taste of being in an electric wheelchair um when I was about three, although it was on loan to me. So it was kind of uh didn't really fit me, and it was like only for a couple of hours a day. So the rest of the time I was in a manual, which I hated.
SPEAKER_01Um so having spent all of my did it take much time to learn how to drive a electric wheelchair.
SPEAKER_00No, it took me less than 30 seconds. Um I I I understood how to drive the chair better than the engineers did trying to tell me how to drive the chair. Um it was just natural, it just came really naturally to me, um, and it was easy. Um, but the yeah, the the issue I I I spent all of my sort of childhood on the floor, so crawling around. I was a really good crawler. Um, I was you know, I could climbing stairs, climbing into bed, all that sort of stuff. Um, and then obviously surgeons came along and started operating on me because they wanted to fix me, and I then started not being able to do the things I could do as a child, so that became quite annoying. So I I lost faith in surgery quite quickly.
SPEAKER_01Um do you do you think there's too much of an attitude of we we want this child to be normal, we want to fix her, we want to impose our non-disabled view of not what normalcy is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I definitely think so in the medical world, absolutely. Yeah, particularly in the 90s, it was very fashionable. So um yeah, it was fashionable and annoying. It was nothing about like make me the best version of myself, it was about right, let's get this guy walking. Yeah, even though it was physically impossible. Um, and I knew that I accepted that from the age of two or three, and the surgeons took 18 years to figure it out, like it's just like these guys have got the PhDs and they can't figure that basic thing up.
SPEAKER_01Um but it should be their job to give the person, you know, the best functionality for them, whatever that looks like for the individual person, and that might be walking, and that might be being able to use a chair independently.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's because they read from a textbook though, they can't see outside the box, they've got no imagination. Um, they're a bit like they're all like little shaldons, basically all running around the NHS. We're gonna operate on him. Um yeah, I I did have one good surgeon, um, to be fair, uh, when I was uh six or seven. So he took one look at my AFOs and um that I had on my feet and went and ripped them off and put them straight in the bin go. Well, you're never gonna need them because you ain't gonna walk. I was like, Yes, I love this guy. Um finally a straight talking surgeon that doesn't want to read from a textbook. Um, but yeah, so they they're few and far between though.
SPEAKER_01What what did you enjoy at school? What were you good at?
SPEAKER_00Um what was I good at? I was quite good at a lot of things, to be fair, at school. Um I was sorry, uh not blame my own trumpet, but I was quite yeah, I was very I was very the problem with my early years of school was I was at a school which was kind of a jack of all trades and a master of none. Um so they had a massive depth of physical disabilities at my school. Um and a lot of the children had uh intellectual impairments at the same time. Um, and I was probably so the easiest example is like when I was doing maths, I was doing maths in the same class as 11-year-olds and I was five. Um and the teachers in the class couldn't really keep me learning because they were trying to educate everybody else around me. Um so when it came for time for doing my sats, um again, the one of the Mrs. Marnie, her name was she would actually take me into her office at break time and actually teach me as much as she could in that half an hour um to give me a chance at doing my sats properly. Um my sats test results didn't come back great uh in terms of national average. They were all right, but not great. And then that was kind of that was kind of the wake-up call, really, for my parents to go actually this school's not really gonna cut it for him. Um we you know, it's it's ridiculous. Um I'm more than capable of doing an education because they knew what I was doing. I mean, I was actually spending most of my time in school, in primary school, teaching the other kids. Um, so I was actually um my best mate Jack, who had a speech impediment, I was the only one that could understand him to uh and we we were we we were kind of thick as thieves and basically have a history lesson, and he wasn't great at history, but he would basically he knew I was, so he would put his hand up, the teacher would look at him, he would say some sort of gobbledygook, and then he would expect me to just re-regurgitate the correct answer, and the teacher bought it.
SPEAKER_01Um so I mean it was like did you ever feel frustrated? You uh did you ever think, oh, I wish I could have been in the mainstream school. Do you have any regrets about your education issue?
SPEAKER_00Not really, because I think I I think my education was sold when I went to secondary school, um, so to speak. I think I think primary school just kind of put in front of me, showed me the issues that was being faced.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um I think if I'd have gone to mainstream school, I think it because kids can be awful as well. I think I would have been isolated and left out um if I'd have been in mainstream school.
SPEAKER_01Um did you experience any bullying in school?
SPEAKER_00No, I was I wasn't a bully, but I was um I I was in this I was always in the class that was uh top, shall we say? So um you know I was I was the one dishing it out um or would have been if I'd have been that way inclined.
SPEAKER_01And uh then you um went on to go to uni, so you went to Swansi Uni and did aerospace engineering, which I did, yeah. Where did your passion for that come from? Where did you get interested in that?
SPEAKER_00So I was probably when I was um living in Eastleigh with my parents, um, for the first maybe five, six years of my life, we actually shared a house with my grandparents, so we had a a big semi-detached house um in the sort of the nice part of Eastleigh. There is a nice part of Eastley, uh just um very small part, um but yeah, um but so we were um and we had a nice uh we lived with my parents, and my grandparents were very keen. Uh my granddad was a uh aerospace engineer, and so he'd fought in the Second World War, he'd sort of designed air filters for planes, and he just got me into aircraft. Um so um and and I was always his favorite when we were growing up, so we we had a great relationship. Um, and yeah, a lot of the things that he was passionate about I sub subsequently become passionate about. So um so that kind of was cool, and uh yeah, we had a strong bond, and basically, yeah, it my obsession became aircraft World War II. Um I've got an encyclopedic knowledge of anything from 1949 to 1945. Um so so uh yeah, and probably a little bit before and after as well. Um so yeah.
SPEAKER_01And what was your term at uni like? Did you enjoy your term at uni and so on?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uni was great. Um again, I've spent most of my time at college building up my UCAS points, getting the A levels in the physics and maths, because they they were the two subjects that I enjoyed the most at school. So I was doing physics and maths, and then it kind of just made I didn't want to do physics because it was quite tough, and I didn't want to do maths because it was quite boring. But I but so I was like, there's gotta be something like a merge these two subjects together and you have the perfect subject. And then someone said, Why don't you just do engineering? That's kind of the amalgamation of the two, and I was like, that's a good shot. And then I did a little bit of research, and aerospace became the thing that I chose because it kind of linked back to my grand grandfather. Um, and yeah, I didn't know that at the time, but it subsequently realized that that was what he'd done anyway. Um, so yeah, it was kind of a nice aroundabout circle. Um, and Swansea was just one of those places where you just I went in and I just felt quite normal going into there. They didn't treat me any differently. I had a two and a half hour conversation with the lecturers about aircraft and the wind tunnel and all that sort of stuff, which was a proper nerd fest, but great. Um, and um yeah, and and all the questions I had around like access and how can I do this and how can I do that? That their their attitude was kind of like, well, you know, for the flying that we would do, um, I'd needed help getting on the plane. And they're like, Well, the your course is made up of about 60% rugby players, so between us we'll be able to get you on.
SPEAKER_01I was like and were you were you able to do any of the flying yourself, or were yeah, yeah, so yeah, I took part in all the flying um exercises.
SPEAKER_00So we uh as engineers, we weren't actually we weren't designed, we weren't supposed to fly the planes, we were up there to to experience and then to make notes. Um so um so the first flight I did was around the Gower in a two-seat Cessna. Um, and um again that was experiencing kind of the G forces at sort of out different altitudes and kind of experiencing a 2G turn sustained all that sort of stuff. And then we went to Cranfield um in a flying laboratory with basically like an airline, um, but it was a prop plane. Um, and in the backs of the seats, rather than you know, on a long horn flight, you get a video, you know, films and you can watch. Yeah, we had dials and gauges, so we had airspeed altitude, uh thermal uh thermal temperature pressure um over different points of the aircraft, and we had to take notes while the plane was doing what it was doing. Um, which wasn't easy. A couple of times it was like doing a two or three G turn and the pen fent like felt like lead, and you're trying to write stuff down, and this will you keep it still for a minute? Like um, I've got notes to take here. Um, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um you mentioned that you're passionate about kind of World War II era aircraft and stuff. Do you ever have the opportunity to fly in any of those?
SPEAKER_00No, I've never been up in anything with the decent engine. Um, no, um, so um unfortunately not. Um one day maybe save up enough, but it's quite expensive. But um, I've been to lots of air shows and I've seen them. Um I think the only plan I haven't seen in the mosquito at the moment, so that's kind of on my bucket list when it eventually we get a brand new one in the UK. The the Americans have got one and so are the New Zealand, which makes no sense to me because we designed the bloody thing. Um, but um but uh hopefully one day we'll have one back in the UK and we can celebrate um that moment.
SPEAKER_01That'd be great. So how how did you first get into Botcha then? When did you discover it?
SPEAKER_00So I did that at Cedar School, um, but much again, it was probably at the time it was a bit rubbish because I used to throw sideways and couldn't hit a barn door, and the people that were telling me how to play the game didn't understand the game either. Um so we would just go to Stoke Mandeville once a year, um, and yeah, we would uh for the national junior mini games and we would do different events that Stoke Mandeville would put on, and we didn't have any real preparation for it, probably a week, and then we'd go up and play the sports that we'd just been doing for a week. Um and I was always told that I was too disabled to take part in serious sport, um, but stoke so Stoke Mandel is just like a taster session with no real purpose to it, um uh, which was great. Um but yeah, it but it kind of planted the seed because when I went to Trello's um on a Monday night, Botcher was on as a club session. Um and basically at Trello's the only way to get out of doing homework was to do a sport. Oh and because Bocher was on on a Monday night, because otherwise I'd had prep Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, because we were in a top set in at Trellors. Yeah, and they they bloody worked hard. I mean, it they it was so they used to have this merit system where you would gain merits for doing good things, and because we were the top set and we were expected to do good things all the time, we got no bloody points.
SPEAKER_01So literally it was just you're in the top set, so yeah, yeah, it was just normal. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00We weren't it wasn't because we weren't because we weren't doing anything of merit, because we were expected to do it all the time anyway, we've got no bloody merits. The teachers, it was terrible. You know, we'd have some of the lower classes would have like 150 merit points, and all of us on average, you know, collectively, all of us together would have less than the one person that had got the top points in the next class, don't we? Literally, uh like to together. I think one year we actually only probably put 10 points together between all of us.
SPEAKER_01That's that sounds like a rigged rigged system to be honest.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely rigged, but they were like, Yeah, get on with it. Yeah, what are you gonna do? Um yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So uh uh, how would you maybe explain botcher to someone who hasn't come across it before?
SPEAKER_00Um, so botcher is a bit like um Boule of Tonk indoors. Um it's quite soft leather balls on a hard floor. Um what's uh good about it is the balls are quite grippy, so it's easy to hold and throw, and there's no rules on how you throw the ball, you can throw any way you like. Um and yeah, and it can be and it's quite I would say like as a spectator, it's not necessarily a great spectator sport, but from a when you get playing it and you start playing properly, it becomes it a bit like Tetris, you can't put it down.
SPEAKER_01Um and quite tactical.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's very tactical and very competitive. Um so um, yeah, and there's when I was at Trelaws, we would train once a week, um, and then we'd and then we'd have a regional championships in February, March time, and then we'd have a national championships in April, May, um in Sheffield. Um, and we'd rock up in this massive coach and we'd be expected to basically clean up clean up all the medals. Um we'd we'd be looking down all the other little mini buses that were there and go, oh, aren't they cute? Um and then go in, pick up the medals, come home again. Um and if you didn't win, you felt a bit left out.
SPEAKER_01When did you kind of know, oh, I'm good at this, I can be Paralympic standard.
SPEAKER_00So well, I so basically I'd had so I had one regional championships in my first season when I was in year seven at Travors, um, and I got through to the knockouts, I think. Um, but didn't qualify for the nationals, but I'd done alright. Um then um year later, we um I had another regional event and I bloody awful. Um so yeah, nothing happened. Um and then the year after that, I I actually changed my bot my chair. Um, I got a new seating system fit into my chair because before that I was very lopsided and all and wonky, and the physios at Trellores were um very, very good and quite good at sort of quite good at sort of physio with consent rather than physio done to you, as I was experiencing at Cedar School. Um so so it was um and it was about making me better at sport and you know what do you need to do for this, that, and yeah, we need to improve your posture for this, that, and we need you know, all that sort of stuff. So reluctantly I kind of started listening to them. Um, and yeah, over time the the thing the changes they were making started making a massive difference to my life um and general health. Um, but equally um sort of watch uh I literally went from being pretty shite to pretty great um in probably a year um because of the changes they put in. It was simple changes, but they were really effective, apparently. So I I won the regional championships um and then went to the nationals um in Sheffield. Um I got out of the pool quite comfortably. Um I lost in the semi-final, um, but because it was top three, go through to the uh to the British, I never lose a third and fourth playoff. So um basically I won that um and got me through to the British. Um and then um at the British, uh Barry, who was the botcher lead at Trelaw's, um basically he was the one that ran all the sessions. Uh he basically just got a minibus from the back of the um governor's um place, got the head nurse who was a mate of his to share the driving, and we just drove up to Scotland together on a on a weekend um uh for the British. Not really expecting anything, but then I I ended up beating the UK captain, um Peter Pierce at the time. Um I beat the players, yeah, I beat the all the Scottish players comfortably. Um and yeah, I I just uh yeah, just cleaned out, um, basically. And um and and then that was kind of and then within within a couple of weeks I'd been earmarked for the A I was then advocated for head boy at Trelors because they my mates decided to put my name in the hat when I was away. Fast bastards. Um and then they used my result to kind of to do my campaign. Um and then and then they um because no one else wanted to do it. Um and then um when I got back, I got an England call-up at the same time. Um so I was in the first England England squad when I started training with uh sort of people like uh Nigel Murray, um MBE, um, which was pretty cool because he was our best UK player at that point. Um and he had to be a little bit more.
SPEAKER_01How much did you learn from him and how much did your game improve?
SPEAKER_00Oh I made yeah, no, he taught me he taught me pretty much everything, um, from uh sort of one player to another, sort of the the the international stage, because it's totally totally different to the national level. Um and the the sort of things to look out for, the the the underhand stuff that goes on, the little bit of psychology that you need to be aware of, the what not to get involved in and what to get involved in, and you know, when to cheer, when not to cheer, all that sort of stuff. So yeah, he he kind of he kind of put me under his wing, and we together we formed quite a good double act in the in in the team event. Um and then we also had friends at Trelaw's who were also going up at the same time. So I had people in college, Trelaw College, getting into England call-up. So Dan Bentley was one and Ali Lalani, um, who was another good friend of mine. Um so we would then be training together, um, who would because we'd all got England call-ups at roughly the same time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So so that was quite nice. It was a tree, uh sort of as a trio, we you know, made training quite competitive and easy, and we could we could work together and sort of bounce off each other a little bit. Um, and it also made for Trelores, it kind of gave us a focal point. You know, the coaches could put us just shove us all together basically and just get on with it and get get the ball thrown. Um, and I would go from the school to the college quite often to um to meet up with these guys to play butcher. Um and also meet up to go on camps because um at by the year 10 I was uh yeah, and by sort of year 10, year 11 going into college, I was pretty independent, so I was yeah getting myself organized for going to training camps and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Um when are we talking now? What yeah, and like how did Beijing come about? How did you qualify for Beijing and what was your experience like at your first parallel?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so this is the four-year cycle. So literally, um, this is probably from 2003 all the way to 2008. I was actually probably two months away from going to Athens. Um, they were seriously considering taking me having because I'd just won the British the year before. Um and uh unfortunately I was it was deemed that I was too young um to go.
SPEAKER_01How old would you been into this for?
SPEAKER_00No, I'd have been 15 in Athens. So um yeah, I was deemed too young, unfortunately, so we uh so I didn't go, but I was I think at that point they decided I was good enough. Um so who knows? I reckon I would have again youth is great, you just turn up and play, so I reckon I would have given a few people a nasty shock. Um but um yeah, I mean I ended up doing that in the year a year later anyway, so um it was fine.
SPEAKER_01Um 2008 like kind of against international opposition, was that a different challenge for you?
SPEAKER_00Well, the problem with 2008 was it almost came too late because I'd sort of I I became double world champion um the year before um in 2007. So I'd already beaten everyone on the circuit at that point. Um and unfortunately in 2008 I'd sort of um I believed my own hype um and I felt like I kind of got a bit ahead of my station and didn't back up my sort of where I thought I was at with real real performance. So um in the individuals in 2008 I actually made a right dog's dinner of it, to be honest, um, and didn't get out of the pool um and ended up watching the person that I'd beaten in the pool win a silver medal at the in so that was pretty shit.
SPEAKER_01Um like did did you feel any sort of redemption then winning the team gold, or were you still thinking about what you did in the individual?
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, you kind of park it. Um so I mean in the in in the team, we we started bloody awful. Um, I was still struggling um with the the environment. Um so in the end, again, it was Nigel that kind of just put his arm around me and went, like, just do what you do, just do what I say. Stop thinking about it, just play. Um, just you know, you you shoot, I'll I'll point you, you shoot. Um, and so that's kind of how we went. And then we just started a confidence built up over that tournament. We got a few lucky, not lucky wins, but we got a few close wins that we you know struggled to get over the line, and then just as we moved through the tournament, the the momentum built. Um we probably peaked in the semi-final. We absolutely demolished China, who were a very good team. Um, and we yeah, we really turned up for that game. And then going into the final against Portugal, which are we were always our nemesis, really. Um we uh again we just played really well, good start, and managed to get a lead on them before they could figure out what they were doing. Um, so yeah, and I and I I love the fact that I was in the highlights reel for the final. Um, literally all my shots got in the in the in the final highlights reel, went much to Nigel's annoyance. Like, what the fuck?
SPEAKER_01How am I gonna botch you like keeping mentally strong and keeping that good? Because I imagine there's a lot of psychological pressure.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, yeah, it's full on. Botch is really intense. So again, you can't, and there's you can't really miss like and you know, even unlucky shot unlucky bounces can cost you games. So you've just got to be and you've got to be reactive quite quickly to scenarios as they change, you know, someone might get a bit of a fluke or a bit of a lucky bounce, and you've got to react quickly to it and you know, almost uh come up with a plan to sort of solve the situation as it as they as they materialize. Um and also sometimes the opposite the situation just becomes really easy, and you but you've got to take your chances when you get them, um, and and because you don't know when the next one's coming. So it's kind of but also you don't want to take too many chances and then give away silly points, so it's kind of a balance between risk and reward, and you're constantly like weighing it up and uh you know when to be aggressive, when to take when to be steady.
SPEAKER_01Um that that's really interesting, and like you've done quite a lot in terms of growing the sport in Swansea and South Wales. So, how did you come set up Swansea Boty Club in 2010?
SPEAKER_00So, well, basically, uh Swansea uni, I was fed up to playing on my own, to be honest. And I had friends, and I and I had friends at uni who I thought were botcher classifiable, or at least or at least they could throw. Um, so it was like, well, you know, why not come and come and come along and let's have a play? And then I met a few friends um who would um who wanted to take part, and yeah, we just started building up a a club at the local leisure centre, but and they they already put down the bocher marking for me a few a year before. So um with the markings down, it was like well, we might as well use them. Um so so we did. Unfortunately, at the at the university, because Paralympic sports not wasn't that big at the time, like I could never get bocher into like varsity or all of the sort of major sporting events of the uni. Um, and trying to get court time was also a pain in the ass. So I just did it on my own um at a private leisure centre just down the road in the sat in the city centre, um, which yeah, it was fine.
SPEAKER_01And and are you still developing players like what have you achieved in terms of developing the next generation boxer players in Swansea?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we get the club's been going for so long now. We've actually had so we've had a couple of Welsh champions through our door. Um, we've had um players in the in and out of the Welsh squad. Um and yeah, it's been it's been really, really good over the duration. COVID probably knocked it, knocked us back quite a lot. Um, and we've we've lost numbers significantly since COVID. Uh, we've been struggling the last couple of years around competitions, it's just as a lack of competitions at the moment in domestically. Um so it's quite hard to kind of hard to give people the sort of training for the sake of training without any any comps because Botcher comes alive when there's a competition. It's not you know the the training's great, but the competitions are better. Um like um so um yeah, that's kind of the thing that's holding us back a little bit at the moment is just a lack of competition opportunities around Wales um and in the UK in general, really. Um and then for me as a sort of international player, the standard is so much higher. So it's it's hard for me to sort of step down. But it's like it's a chasm. It's not it's not a step, it's a you know the standard that I'm at versus the standard of domestic comp. It's not even it's not the same league. It's not it's not a fair competition almost, even though I'm in the yeah.
SPEAKER_01Is is the domestic level stronger in other countries competitive?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, considerably stronger. Yeah, Portugal, for example, that so their bocha league is based on the the football, um, and their football clubs have an it have a uh social contract um where they have seven charitable events that they have to uh uh sort of support. Um bocher is usually one of the seven that they always pick. Um so clubs like Porto, uh Benfica, they they've all they've all got a bocher club associated to them, and their players do the regional championships and national championships, they compete in team and individual.
SPEAKER_01Um do you think that model could work like in like Swansea City or Cardiff?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot of models that could work to be fair. Any model's better than no model. Um so I think in Korea as well, they've got a massive number of players, because they're all in one in one demographic, really, in Korea, because it's come up two cities and a lot of space in between. Um so they've actually got a huge number of players that compete at the nationals or regionals, and they they have a domestic ranking system where they even if you're a Paralympic champion, if you don't do the domestic system, you don't qualify for the next year's Paralympic squad. So we've we've we've yeah, the Korean system's mad, cutthroat, but brilliant.
SPEAKER_01Um does sound sound brutal.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, absolutely brutal, but great, because like that's how you harden people up to the pressure of the sport. Like it's it's tough all the way from the bottom to the top, um, not just at the Paralympic level. So um, yeah, and and and all the players they bring in are always well trained, well coached, know what they're doing. If you see a Korean player, you even if you they're unranked, you you're kind of hoping they're not in your pool because you just know they're gonna be good. Um, like there's gonna be something about them that they're like, oh, I'm gonna have to play that guy um and just try and get out of the line.
SPEAKER_01Good good in kind of what way do you mean tactically, or they use different things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, tactically strong, what they're doing, got a strong identity about them, they kind of play to their strengths, they're not really worried about who they're playing against, they don't change anything for the their opponent. They yeah, um, and they also have a good court coverage, so they kind of know you know they're not taken by surprise very easily. There's yeah, it's just yeah, they've just got a good solid botcher foundation in terms of like basic skills, um, which a lot of the players coming up who are young and kind of into the sport don't always have, particularly in my category, they don't always have those fundamentals nailed. But if you're from Korea, you probably do. Um, so so they're always, even if they're unranked, they're probably top ten players in the world when when they come in. And so you're so you're in a pool, and you you know, your first pool game is usually, you know, should be the easiest game of the tournament. Um but if you've got a Korean and he's unranked, it's probably not gonna be the easiest game of that tournament, it's probably gonna be one of the toughest. Um that that's really interesting.
SPEAKER_01Um so you gotta peek you gotta peek, gotta go in kind of you can't use your way into a tournament.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you gotta get you start quick and hope that you've got enough. Um so yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and London 2012, then that was a home game, and you were kind of a bit of a poster bite for those home games. How did that feel and what were those two weeks like for you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, London was amazing. Um, I think obviously learnt my lesson from Beijing in terms of what I needed, my setup, um, and found a couple of years earlier Sarah who'd been working with me while I was at Trello's, but also sort of afterwards, who I didn't take to Beijing, um kind of I brought her in under my sort of in my circle, closed circle, and kind of worked as a she became my coach, but then became my sort of on court assistant permanently. And just having that continuity of someone on the on court with you all the time who's that that that one person um just made a massive difference. And she spent a lot of time with our psych around like trying to understand how I tick, how to get the best out of me, what to say on court, what to look out for when I'm struggling, all that sort of stuff, and just built a really strong relationship with me. Um, and that kind of me and her were always kind of strong in competition, you know, when when every when every when everybody else was falling apart, um we me me and her would be the ones holding it together.
SPEAKER_01Um, so because obviously that relationship is really important because if you you can't work well together, you're impossible not perform to your best of your level.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and the pressure of Paralympic Games is just different to any other competition you'd be at. So the players that we'd have in the squad, you know, as the obviously as the years progressed with the squads were going to bigger. So in Beijing, we were we took it to our team, and that was about it. But for London, we had the whole shebang, so we had the BC threes, the fours, the so our squad in London, because we were a home nation, we had a full squad, so there was a lot of players, a lot of staff, uh a big group, and again, with all of that, and most of them were inexperienced in terms of Paralympic Games, so you've got noise, and you've got you know people trying to find their way and pressure and people pulling out with each other and all that shit.
SPEAKER_01So again, did you have to take on almost like a captaincy or mentorship role for the younger players who hadn't experienced it before?
SPEAKER_00Um sort of, but not really, I guess, because I was still relatively young myself, even though it was my second games because I was you know, I was only 23 going into London, so I was very much looking after myself and myself. Um me and myself and I. Um, so it was very much me um in London, um, and obviously with the team as well. Um, but we yeah, I mean there was uh you know players around us that we would kind of keep an eye on, but we had a good relationship with most I had a good relationship with most of the players, to be fair, in the GB squad. Um I mean, I think we all had a pretty good time. Obviously, the results just didn't quite go as well as we'd liked in terms of some of the other categories, and obviously the team was sort of falling down the rankings at that point, so we we we did well to get a bronze medal, but it was um yeah, it was sort of the team was on the way down as I was on the way up trying to get my silver.
SPEAKER_01Were you disappointed with that for the home games and like how did that inspire you like going to Rio?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I would have liked a few more. I mean, I I would have liked Steven uh because he got he came fourth, and again, we always thought that he because he was world champion in 2010 uh with the pairs, and we we just we we thought that the fours might have done a bit better. Um I think it does put when you're in the Paralympic Games, you do kind of it's the collective you kind of want to because obviously Paralympics do you're picking up medals left, right, and centre, and the medal board is constantly going up, and you as a sport, you don't want to be the one left out because you know that's gonna have an impact on funding for the next four years, and um yeah, it's just so so again we and we we felt like we had a chance to have maybe picked up a few more medals in London. Um and we you know we got two, but both of them were kind of me and the team. Um so it would have been nice for somebody else. Um and I think Nigel was looking to maybe medal again, but unfortunately the powers in the BC2s was shifting to a very more Asian dominance. Right. Um and so he was he was starting to find it difficult to medal because he's just running out of power essentially, um and couldn't move stuff as well as they could, so they were just starting to bash him around. And the game has started to change it. We change the the tactics were changing. So before London into London, it was very much sort of build it up, keep it tight, don't give anything easy away, nidge nudge, you know, use a few more balls, but you you keep in the keeping the score close, um, and we and then wait for your chance, wait for mistakes and then counts. But um sort of London onwards it became creating your own opportunities um and not letting things settle. So again, the Asian countries started playing really aggressive botcha high risk, high risk stuff that we weren't necessarily uh used to playing, so people had to adjust adjust. Um and yeah, I was sort of Sarah was the one that was sort of telling me like you need to join this or you're gonna get left behind.
SPEAKER_01Be more aggressive, be more be more aggressive, be on the front foot, you know, take control.
SPEAKER_00You're not gonna beat them being passive. Um so yeah, that and that took me a while to I had to I'm I was reluctant for a long time, and she always said, You you always need a bloody reason. Like you you never just go, yep, custom. Um and I'm like, Yeah, well demonstrate it, show me show if I see the value in something, I will then go all in and I will put all my effort into it. But you need to prove it to me first, otherwise I'm gonna think you're I'm not gonna buy it. Like with the surgeons, I'm not uh I don't just take their word for it, they need to prove it first before they can sell it to me.
SPEAKER_01And I respect that, you know. You you you need to balloon yourself for being completely bad into it. But like Tokyo must have been weird because it was 2020 during COVID. Like, what was that experience like compared to Rio and and London?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I mean they're all quite different. So every every Paralympic game has its own unique flavour to it. Um, I would say. So Tokyo was I mean, no different in that regard, that it was just a bit different to the others because it was a different game. Um I think that obviously lateral flow testing and all that sort of stuff were quite interesting and the no no crowd, but I actually loved it. Um I think it came at the right time for me, because I think if it had happened a year earlier, I don't think I would have done as well as I would have, you know, because I was sort of running out of the end coming towards the end of my tether um with the sport. I'd sort of I'd been a full-time athlete since 2014, so I'd you know six years as a full-time athlete without doing anything else but botcher. My brain was fried. Um, I was winning but not getting any recognition for it. So you know, I was undefeated, I was you know, triple crown, blah blah blah blah blah. And it, you know, I was just kind of getting done with it. I was kind of like, what's the point? You know, I've done everything there is to do, I've won everything there is to win. Like, you know, what's the point of this? So it kind of got into Tokyo feeling a bit like well, I would have been me. Um but thankfully COVID hit sort of March time and I was able to take a proper reset. Um so I had a good three months of not playing any balls at all, which was amazing. Um, and um because unlike some people that just can't stop thinking about bocce, you know, they eat, sleep, dream bocce, I I have no problem putting the balls down. Um like like like you know, it's not it's not like I I we have a you know on court, great, but as soon as I'm off court, it's like right, I want to do something else.
SPEAKER_01Um I think that's the important though, the ability to do a job and have other interests, and and that must be beneficial for your mental health to have a clear head about other things that you're doing in in life.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, I think so. I think I think being more than just a some being more than just a boxer player has always been part of my makeup. Um and yeah, I think that's probably and also you know, I got into the sport not really liking it, I just got into it because I started winning the damn thing and you know it got me out of doing homework. Um and then I started liking it because I was winning. Um and obviously the challenges of losing and having to find solutions to problems that came up. Um, but it was but it wasn't this it wasn't the initial attraction of the sport that got me into it. It was the you know, it was the things that followed from the development of it. Um so um so yeah, and and um and then obviously obviously having a year off more or less, doing all my conditions. At home, sort of reinvented the wheel for me in terms of my nutrition. I'd started working as a um Herbalife distributor and coach. So did quite a lot of work around looking at nutrition, gut health, sleep, my own, um, and realized that I wasn't really looking after myself as well as I could have been. Um, and you know, being, you know, cheese toasty for lunch and skipping breakfast and all that sort of stuff, you know, is great when you're in your 20s, but when you hit 30, um, my body had suddenly started slowing down a bit and it it it transpired in mental fatigue more than anything else.
SPEAKER_01But um so how how would you how would you advise then maybe for people with CP or anyone generally to better kind of preserve and protect their mental health? I'm their physical health first.
SPEAKER_00I think people are quite bad at planning. Um I'm terrible at it. Um, but I think just people without thinking about it are just quite bad at sort of planning for these things. Like uh like even just taking a minute to sort of I think without having someone there to go to sort of prompt with questions that kind of lead to the answers almost. Like we don't so naturally we don't we just crack on with our day um and we don't think about the consequences of these sort of daily habits on a yearly or decade basis. You you you just uh you know it becomes normal, whether it's skipping breakfast, whether it's grabbing a quick coffee before you go into work, whether it's you know having a fully loaded breakfast or you know, knocking back 15 points at a weekend or whatever your sort of modus operandi is, you you don't sort of stops and goes, actually, how is this having an impact on my daily on my health to do the things that I want to do, you know, or to the or to achieve the amp the goals that I want to achieve in the next two, three, four, five years. Um and yeah, so I think so I think part of my part of what I like about my job sort of as the coach is to be able to get people to just stop and have a conversation with me for 20 minutes and just go, right, what do you want to do in the next two, three, four, five years? And how can I help you from a nutritional point of view, yeah, uh, you know, achieve, make those things more achievable? Not saying that it'll definitely work, but it's gonna it's uh I mean the one thing you can guarantee is doing the same thing over and over again, you're not gonna you're gonna get the same results.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00No, unless you're unless unless you're insane, of course, and then you might get a different result.
SPEAKER_01Um, but who knows? Um yeah, you you've also been an advocate for independent living for disabled people, which is difficult for disabled people to make that step and run living, and I'm kind of in the boat now where I want to do that, but it's a big scary step, and I don't necessarily know what the pool system is gonna be in place when I do it. So, what advice would you give and what maybe more needs to be done to ensure that disabled people can live in family?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, see, I was lucky um because I was born at the right time, the right era, um, and sort of I moved areas when things went self um so the history, obviously, the independent uh so I was always on sort of pip and all that stuff, but the um but the sort of care side of it, the most important thing for me was the independent living fund um and having direct payments. And when I went to deciding to go to university a long way away from home was the first step enforcing the council to provide me with a decent care package um from Hampshire. So that was tick box one. Then the uh Tory Lib Dem government came in and pretty much put a bomb into the benefit system um for disabled people, so basically removed all the all those sort of nice safety nets overnight that made independent living more or less impossible. But luckily I was in Wales at that point, so because I was in Wales um and it was a Labour government, um, there was uh basically they they they sort of took took responsibility for a lot of the independent living fund. So deciding to stay in Wales, I kind of moved councils and became under the Swansea remit, which meant that I had a decent care package, which meant I could afford you know my living carers. Um, but also um being at Trelaw's at the right time and having an extra year at Trelaw College meant that I could spend a lot of time researching all this stuff, um and speaking to ex students um and friends who'd moved about how they were going about it, and just kind of piece by piece sort of put it all together in between my trips to the the local pub with my mates because I was doing ASPE and AS Furthermas um because I'd already got the UCAS points I needed. Um so I was basically at Trillores on a on a year's bender um with my friends. Um in preparation for Beijing, but the the education authority kind of were um basically they were paying for my Trillore fees, and I just basically I I just lied to them and I said, look, um I'm staying at Trillores because I need to uh I need to get more UCAS points because the Swansea needs X, Y, and Z, and I haven't quite got that yet. Right. Which was bullshit because Swansea had basically said I was fine. Um but I but I wanted to stay at Trillores because I needed a solid base for to the Beijing Paralympics.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um and I didn't want to be at university before I went to my first Paralympic games.
SPEAKER_01That would have been big upheaval.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, a bit of a so that was kind of the plan. Um, and so I yeah, I used that year as a gap year, basically. Um that was kind of that was um which was great. Um but like I meant I can get get all my ducks in a row, but again, you've just got to play the system. But that's my advice to anyone that's coming in is you've just got to play the system. You can't follow the rules, you have to follow your own rules and your own you've got to be selfish about it and actually go, you know, this is what I need. What do I have to do to break the rules to get what I want?
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, thank you. That that means a lot to me because you get I sometimes feel like, oh, am I am I asking for too much? Is this gonna be possible? But maybe I need to get the competent saying no, if this is gonna work, this is what I need in order to move out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you've just got to you've just gotta be better at saying no to people and also sort of shoving rods at people's asses when they're not giving you what you need. Uh, but also in a way, and also getting people on side, knowing when to who to be friendly with, who not to, who to who to pull in. It's manipulating the system, basically. It's just it's it's it's unbroidled manipulation. Um, and I'm very good at it. Um I'm very good at manipulating.
SPEAKER_01You use that as a quote for when this episode goes up.
SPEAKER_00Independent living is just but manipulating society to get what you need. Yeah, um, like I like that.
SPEAKER_01I like that.
SPEAKER_00So um yeah.
SPEAKER_01Go on, go on, sorry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I know, and then and so the obviously university came and went and then sort of decided that I would live in Swansea permanently. And the main reason why I'd live in to chose to live in Swansea was care package, because I knew if I went back to Hampshire, um that I I would lose a lot of that. So again, you know, while the sun is shining, um, make hay. Um so so again, it's just decisions you have to make a disabled person don't always match what the the reality of what most people probably have to face in terms of but we all have decisions to make, like every every adult has to make choices between this and that, and you do it with the best for the best will of the world. It's just you know, our factors are a little bit more around you know, social care and independence, um, more heavily weighted, so we say.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. Um the last question I'm gonna ask you before we finish is what's one thing that you wish people knew about cerebral pality.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, um I don't know. I'm kind of the attitude I wish I knew nothing about it because I I don't think it's that important. I wish they I wish they'd spend more time just getting to know the people behind the disability. Um because I I again I don't think it's a majorly big deal. I think we've got a very boring disability. Um like like I I've seen a lot, you know, I've seen people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who you know have life limiting conditions and how you know and how they have to deal with things. Um, you know, I I think we're blessed, to be honest. Um, so for me personally, it's a I love that quote that Morgan Freeman says about Black History Month, where he goes, You want to put all my history into a month. Why don't you have a white history month? And I'm kind of the same with server pausy. It's like it's such a broad church across it it covers all manners of sins. No just no one with CP is exactly the same. It also now probably says Dystonia is now becoming a thing in inside, you know, uh as uh diagnosis improves and stuff. And is it it's almost such a it's almost too broad a church to be honest. It's almost like too broad a thing um to you know to put a a month on it.
SPEAKER_01Um I would I would just thank you for destroying this concept of this podcast in a couple of times to do it. That'll be good.
SPEAKER_00Well that's my opinion of it. I I I I I I really couldn't give two shits.
SPEAKER_01Um I like that attitude and I respect that, but everyone's affected them and everyone, but I guess also you'd say what help me, I guess, is learning from other people's experiences and taking little bits and you know that shared experiences, but uh instead of saying. Um but thank you so much for doing this. It's been lovely to talk to you, Kim, about your career. And yeah, thank you for joining this morning.
SPEAKER_00No worries, Karen. Yeah, thanks very much. Yeah. And if any of you guys want to follow me online, please do Instagram and all that stuff, please uh yeah, and also get in touch if anybody wants any support or help around independent living or anything like that. I'm happy to try and give a little bit of wisdom. I don't I'm not very wise, um, but I'll do my best.
SPEAKER_01Um Is it okay if I share some links to your social media in the description of this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, please do. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Cool. Absolutely. I'll do that. Um thank you for David for coming on, and thank you for listening to this episode of the Pause Podcast. Please uh like, subscribe and stay tuned throughout the month for more interesting guests who have CP. We're gonna realize in uh one of these every day on YouTube, on Apple Podcasts, or on Spotify, whatever's easiest for you. So please listen and maybe leave a comment if you've got any questions and let me know what you think. But for now, it's goodbye from me. Goodbye from Davis. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Pulsey Podcast with me, Kean Fitzgerald. I want to thank my guests for joining me, and I hope that you'll stay tuned for the next episode and more throughout my thank you.