STRICTLY STACEY
I drank loads, smoked loads of fags.. but I never ever did drugs
STACEY Dooley makes the biggest challenges look easy – whether confronting Isis fighters in her investigations show or winning her first nine-point score in Strictly.
The TV journalist’s impressive “Grimsby foxtrot” to Hi Ho Silver Lining with partner Kevin Clifton on Saturday put her top of the leaderboard and 5/2 favourite to lift the Glitterball trophy.
But no matter how daunting or enjoyable her achievements, they are nothing compared to her successfully navigating a tricky childhood in Luton, Beds – where drugs were rife – and a close pal died after getting hooked on heroin.
“Drugs were always available when I was growing up in Luton,” she said. “My pals did loads of gear. Everyone was taking pills and sniffing coke.
“Boys would take pills at school on their lunch break, girlfriends did them after school. A boy I went about with was heavily involved with dealing coke.
“I remember going into his room one day and there were scales out and he was bagging it up. I’ve seen people sniff drugs. I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen people take heroin. We lost one of our pals to smack before his 18th birthday.”
Growing up in this environment could easily have led life down a very different path for Stacey, who has received an MBE for services to broadcasting.
Her experiences have helped her chase down criminals, child soldiers and drug dealers for interviews in Congo, Cambodia and Mexico.
Fans of her hard-hitting documentaries have witnessed Stacey’s bravery and determination against all odds.
And this dogged singlemindedness is perhaps down to her mother Di, who she describes as her “absolute hero”.
She was a single mum who moved down with Stacey from Liverpool to Luton to live, at first in a bedsit above a pet shop.
Stacey said: “She used to work in pubs, clean houses, or do whatever she could to put food on the table. She even used to work on Christmas Day and I’d go with her to the pub to help clean the ashtrays.”
Stacey’s book On the Front Line with the Women Who Fight Back reveals they could only move into a council house after Di took a photo of Stacey in her nappy holding a mouse and sent it to the council. It was her mum who also put a picture of Leah Betts – the 18-year-old who took an ecstasy pill and died – on their fridge to serve as a warning. She said: “‘Mum, take it down’, I kept saying. She said, ‘No, it’s there so that if you ever think about taking an E, you’ll remember what happened to her’. “I thought it was a bit over the top but maybe it worked because I’ve never ever taken anything. “I could drink loads when I was younger and smoke loads of fags, but I’ve never, ever done gear. “I haven’t smoked weed – nothing. Drugs have always scared me. The thought of feeling totally out of control and not being able to claw myself back is just not for me. I was never teased about it or peer pressured into taking drugs.”
The special bond shared between Stacey and her mum is not surprising, as her dad was not on the scene.
Di recalled: “He was only living with
her and me until she was two and a half. It wasn’t until she was nine that she saw him again. “He came back for the occasional wedding or family occasion. When he tried to come back in her life in a more meaningful way, when she was aged 13, it was too late to reconcile.” Her dad died when Stacey, now 31, was in her early 20s. Diane, who moved on with new husband Norman, said: “She was sad. It was a lost opportunity.” Stacey admitted she went through a phase of shoplifting with pals in Luton. And then there was a troubling spell with a controlling boyfriend, which she spoke about while publicising her BBC3 domestic violence documentaries.
Asked by the Radio Times if she had personal experience, she replied: “I haven’t been physically attacked by a guy.
“But one particular lad…he wasn’t the nicest guy in the world. I had no understanding of what a healthy relationship looks and feels like. I mean, I was 14 when I was with him, and I left him when I was 17.” It was during this relationship Stacey left school at 15 without qualifications.
Her first job was waitressing for £3 an hour.
While working, aged 20, at Luton Airport in the perfume and make-up section of duty free, she was chosen for the BBC3 series Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts, about sweatshop labour in the fashion trade.
After campaigning against child labour and appearing on Newsnight, shewas approached by BBC3, who commissioned her first documentary.
Stacey has gone back to the subject of drugs and, in April 2015, she looked at drug use around the world, visiting Mexico to look at meth production and South Africa, where she discovered a new stronger strain of cannabis.
In 2016, she was held by police as she investigated child sexual exploitation in Japan.
Closer to home, in 2017, she made Kids Selling Drugs Online and found dealers in the UK earning up to £300 a day, still in their school uniforms. n her 2018 Stacey Dooley Investigates series, she visited Russia, Florida, Iraq and Hungary to probe wars, domestic violence and fashion industry pollution.
During one heart-stopping episode, she confronted an Isis solider in Iraq, which won her a One World Media Award.
But now all her focus is on Strictly. “My documentaries are harrowing, very straight and serious. That’s the work I love. But when Strictly came up I thought, ‘Why not’,” she said.
And there are two people very happy that she has put all the dangers behind her, for now.
“My boyfriend is delighted and my motivation is him,” she said. “Mum is beside herself too.”
I’d drink... and smoke loads of fags, but I never, ever done gear STACEY DOOLEY ON GROWING UP IN LUTON