I had operations on my feet and hands, then I got cancer. I couldn’t face the treatment but Mum told me I would die
MOST viewers watching Will Bayley foxtrot with professional partner Janette Manrara tonight will have no idea what the Paralympic gold medallist has endured to make it on to Strictly.
Born with the genetic condition arthrogryposis – causing curvatures in both hands and feet – he had countless painful, bone-breaking surgeries throughout his childhood to try to help him to walk.
But all that stopped abruptly at the age of seven when Will was diagnosed with an unrelated blood cancer.
He said: “I had non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It was really bad at the time, I was in hospital for about a year-and-a-half.
“We stopped the operations on my legs because we decided to just focus on the cancer. I didn’t have any more after that, which is probably why my feet aren’t as good as they could be.”
To combat the disease, the young schoolboy, from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, was given a trial drug at London’s Great Ormond Street hospital.
During his lengthy stays there, Paralympian table tennis player Will, now 31, remembers deciding at one stage that he’d simply had enough.
He said: “It was a tough one. I knew I was really ill but I remember saying to my mum that I didn’t want any more treatment. I refused to go.
“But I said to her, ‘If I don’t go back, will I die?’ and my mum said, ‘Yeah’. So I was like, ‘OK, I’ll go back’. I think those sorts of times make you a lot stronger.”
Thankfully, the drugs halted the potentially fatal disease.
He said: “It managed to get me through it, I’m so lucky that it worked. To be alive is amazing, really.”
The cheerful athlete says credit for helping him survive the crisis must go to his “amazing” mum Chrissie. He said: “My mum was so brave, she was a massive support. I only saw her cry once during the whole time I was ill – and that was by mistake.”
He knows that his illness also affected his brother Tom, now 34, and stepdad Gary.
He added: “It was tough for them too because they were basically home alone for such a long time. I took all the attention from my mum.”
It was a gift from his grandma that was to change his life for ever – a mini-table tennis table so he could play on the ward.
He said: “That’s when I first started. Then when I left Great Ormond Street, I just wanted to carry on, so we got a table tennis table in the garage and I started playing for a club.”
The sport became his passion but it didn’t stop him getting unwanted attention at secondary school.
Will said: “I used to struggle with confidence a lot. Obviously when you’ve got a disability, you worry about how you look.
“It didn’t break me down but kids can be quite cruel. They would say, ‘Why have you got weird hands?’ or, ‘Why can’t you walk properly?’ When you’re getting changed for PE you don’t want to show that you’ve got feet like mine.”
Will took to poking fun at himself before anyone else got the chance. He said: “I learned that if I took the mickey out of myself a lot, then no one else would.” Again, Chrissie was his rock. He added: “I remember speaking to Mum about it and she would say, ‘You should be proud about the way you look and the way you are – don’t let anyone say you’re not as good as them’. I kind of believed her.”
It was when Will was playing table tennis at county level – aged 15 and against able-bodied opponents – that he
was noticed as a potential Paralympian.
When they first approached, he didn’t think it was for him. But finally he was persuaded to give it a go.
He said: “I went to a training camp and lost every single match. It was really hard but it made me want to play more and get better.”
In the run-up to Beijing 2008, when he was 19, Will was “reclassified” into a more able group, having previously worked his way to becoming one of the world’s best.
He said: “One of the coaches said I should retire because physically it wouldn’t really be possible for me to compete in the category above. “It was tough. I lost every single match in Beijing 2008 and went from being No5 in the world to No57.” Will trained for six hours a day and gave up his place at the BRIT School, where he had started studying acting, in order to move to Sheffield and focus fully on London 2012. He made it all the way to the final but was beaten by Germany’s Jochen Wollmert. Will said: “It spurred me on for Rio. After being beaten, I was really motivated to go and win the gold.” In 2016, he did just that, coming home to be awarded an MBE for his efforts, which he collected from Prince William the following year. When he wins, Will remembers the schoolkids and coaches who didn’t believe in him. He said: “Wanting to prove people wrong is a massive motivation.” Which brings us back to Strictly, for which he has had special shoes made to aid his balance.
H e added: “My feet were totally back to front when I was born, because of the joints. They had to break them and then put them straight. They are covered in scars where they’ve been rebuilt with rods.
“But somehow now I’m dancing so they must have done a good job.”
Paired with show favourite Janette, the couple have worked tirelessly to perfect their routines, managing scores of 24 for their salsa in week two and 23 for last weekend’s paso doble.
But it was his opening dance that Will really got everyone’s attention, performing a quickstep which earned him 26 points and led judge Shirley Ballas to declare: “What disability? What limitations? That was absolutely off the charts.”
Tonight’s foxtrot has proved the hardest yet. He said: “It’s such a technical dance and it’s slow and it shows off my struggles really.
“When we’re dancing a bit faster, I can bluff my way through it. When it’s slow, you can see my balance problems. I haven’t got any ankles so the rise and fall is impossible.”
But Will is loving the backing he is receiving from viewers.
He said: “The support has been phenomenal – I never expected it.
“I have had parents who have written to me with children who have it in all four limbs and they’ve said, ‘We weren’t sure if our son or our little girl was going to be able to walk and now we’re seeing someone with arthrogryposis dancing’. That makes me feel good.” His own daughter, with ex-partner Fiona York, is proving harder to impress. He said: “Bella has just turned two. She’s amazing but when I’m on TV, she still wants to watch Peppa Pig.” Will and actress/model Fiona have an amicable relationship despite no longer being a couple, and he sees Bella at weekends. Once Strictly is over, the Paralympian has his sights set on retaining his gold medal in Tokyo next year, and hopes to compete in Paris 2024.
Strictly Come Dancing is on BBC1, tonight at 6.40pm.