10 for raw COURAGE
He fought childhood cancer and disability to be a Paralympic champion and Strictly’s most inspiring star — until disaster struck. But in this uplifting interview with Will Bayley and his mum, you’ll see why he deserves a ...
AWeek a go W ill B ayley p icked up the phone to his mother and sob bed. Born wit harare disorder t hat l ocks e very j oint in his body, the Paralympian has endured goodness knows how many operations and known pain all his life. He rarely weeps.
Instead, life, he tells me, is ‘a joy. I just feel I’m lucky to be here .’ For six weeks the 31- year old brought that same sense of joy to the c ountry on Strictly Come Dancing.
One of the stars of this series, he — seemingly miraculously given the scale of his physical challenges — managed to glide across the dance floor in front of millions with his professional partner Janette Manrara.
His toes might have bled. His joints might have ached, but ‘I loved it,’ he says. ‘It was the best time of my life.’
As we know, sadly it all ended during rehearsals the day before last Saturday’ s live show, when the table t ennis g old m edallist s uffered an excruciating knee injury.
Today, Will’s leg is in a splint. He will not be returning to Strictly as he has torn his anterior cruciate ligament. All he can now do is wait for the results of further scans to see if he will require surgery — which may yet have a devastating impact on his sporting career.
‘We were doing the jive. It was my favourite dance. I was absolutely buzzing,’ Will says with the exuberance that endeared him to so many of us .‘ I just remember jumping from the table, landing and hearing my knee pop.
‘I looked at it and screamed . I thought I’ dbroken it. When the physio examined it and said it wasn’ t broken I went home to rest, determined to dance on Saturday — I’m used to pain.
‘The next day the physio was there whenJ anette and I went into the rehearsal room. I did two steps and my knee dropped to the floor. The physio said, “you’re not going to be able to dance this week”.’
UNDeR the rules of Strictly, Will was given a week’s pass. ‘I called Mum. I was saying ,“ My knee’ s not good. I just know it. It’s not going to be better next week or ever.” I was in tears.’
Chrissie, who runs a beauty salon near T unbridge Wells, kent, wept with her son.
‘The hardest thing for me was I couldn’ t protect you from it ,’ she says to Will now, re calling that devastating conversation in their first interview together. ‘We were both crying. If I could have made it better I would have.’
‘I was saying, “Just the minute you have some happiness in your life — y ou were having such a w onderful t ime, s howing w hat c an be achieved with hard work and determination. Showing people,what I’ve always known, that it’s an asset to be different”.’
Will’ sf ace brightens as his mother speaks. She adds: ‘Later, Janette and I were at the consultant’ s with him [ where t hey l earned t he e xtent of Will’s injury]. He went a whiter shade of pale. I was sitting holding Janette’s hand and my heart sank.
‘Like so many times in his lifehe’s had this wonderful happiness and then it’s like somebody goes, “Do you know what? We’re going to rip it away from you and see if you can come back again”.’
Will tells me that the past week has been ‘a blur’. The injury threatens his hopes for a secondgold medal at next year’s Tokyo Paralympics, but, astonishingly, he doesn’tregret for a moment hisdecision to dance on Strictly.
‘I still have that target of Tokyo to try to win the gold again [he won his first in Rio de Janeiro in 2016] and I’ve had such support,’ he says.
‘I read every single message. That helps. If I have to have surgery it will be a really hard, long recovery, but…’
He pauses .‘ It’s all been a bit of a blur since we had the results of the first scan. It was really weird that day because I didn’t feel any emotion. It hadn’ t really sun kin — until now.’ He reaches out a hand to touch his mother’s shoulder.
Despite the dreadful blow of his injury, Will continues to find joy. He lights up when he talks about his two-year-old daughter Bella’s delight at seeing him on the telly.
‘For two minutes ,’ he laughs .‘ She said, “dada, dada”, then asked for Peppa Pig.’ He spends every weekend with his daughter andher mother, Fi on a, who Will met at a reception in a London hotel.
There’s a good reason why C hrissie and Will share such a strong bond.
Chrissie loves both her sons — Will h as a 3 4-year-old b rother T om — them, and but would feels lay a down particular her life sense for of Will guilt is concerned. and responsibility where His rare disability is, you see,
c ongenital. Chrissie too suffers with the rare arthrogryposis — although it’s a milder version. A genetic specialist told her there was only ‘ a one in a million’ chance she would pass it to her son — but she did. The guilt, she says, has been ‘huge’. Add to this the fact that, aged seven, Will nearly died from an unrelated but potentially fatal cancer, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and you begin to understand why she’d move heaven and earth for her son. slight ‘His problem brother was with born his arm with so a I went to see a genetic counsellor at Great Ormond Street Hospital to ask if it was likely to happen again ,’ Chrissie recalls. ‘He put everything into the computer. It was a one in a million chance. He said, “Go away and have another baby. Don’tworryabout it”.
‘I knew at the 16-weeks can hehad arthrogryposis. I’d had 17 operations from the age of five to 18. There is always that feeling of, “what have I done? What am I going to put this wonderful baby through that I couldn’t love more.”
‘It’s easier to have it than to watch someone you love have it, and I think I loved him more because I knew he needed my love.
‘The only thing you can do is make everything doable and p ositive. But there is huge guilt.
‘You feel it with every operation they go through — every time you take them down to an operating theatre. Will used to fight with the anaesthetist like crazy.’
She turns to face Will .‘ We had to hold you down.’ Will nods: ‘So scary.’ Chrissie adds: ‘We always used to sing Puff the Magic Dragon.’ Will laughs, ‘that was the scariest part.’
The ‘we’ is her and her husband Gary who Will has known as ‘Dad’sincetheageoftwo-and-a-half. Will rarely sees his biological father.
Gary is a ‘calm, kind’ man who, like Chrissie, never mollycoddled Will. So much so that Will says for
I’ve had such huge guilt for passing my Will’ condition on to
a long time he didn’t understand he was disabled. ‘I remember wondering why I couldn’t run as fast as everyone else or beat my brother at sport,’ says Will. ‘In primary school, all the boys used to race each other and all the girls used to race each other. ‘But I used to race this girl called Olivia. I’d think, “Why am I racing Olivia?” but that was about it. ‘I didn’t think I had a disability. I had operations and then went back to school. I just thought it was like someone who broke their arm. I had bad feet and had them operated on. ‘It wasn’t until my first swimming lesson and all the boys started staring at my feet, saying, “What’s wrong with you. Your feet look so painful,” that I started thinking I had something wrong with me.’ He looks at his mum. ‘I was upset a few times but I was also proud of who I was. I wasn’t ashamed of it. I didn’t want to hide it. I’d just say, “I was born like this. I can’t open my hands. This is the way it is guys.”
‘And Mum never complained [about her condition] so I thought, “I’ll just get on with it as well”.’
Chrissie has no time for self-pity. ‘It doesn’t get you anywhere,’ she says pragmatically. ‘Pain is a state of mind. If you don’t think about it, there are moments you don’t feel it. Of course, I have aches but you have to just get on with life — life is such a precious thing.’ Indeed.
When he was aged seven, Chrissie was washing Will’s hair in the bath when she discovered a lump on his neck. Within a week, a biopsy revealed Non-Hodgkin lymphoma — a cancer that originates in the lymphatic system — and at the time the chances of survival were slim.
‘I was so bloody cross with God,’ she says. ‘I don’t go to church but I do have this belief inside of me. I said to Him, “Again. What next?”
‘When the consultant confirmed the results, I said to my husband, “I can’t go straight home.”
‘We sat in this field off the main road surrounded by sheep and I honestly felt like it was the end of the world. I started to cry and I couldn’t stop.
‘I needed to do that before I went back to pick Will up from Beavers. Up until then I’d been fine but, suddenly, it was like being hit by a big heavy brick wall. It was beyond cruel.’
She adds: ‘We were very fortunate again because they asked if he’d do a trial of chemotherapy. That gave us hope.’
The next nine months were a time of highs and terrible lows.
‘The chemotherapy was so strong that when you helped them to wee as a mum you would have to put gloves on because it [the urine] would burn your hand.’
She spent every hour with Will and was determined to be upbeat. Will’s fight against cancer was revealed on Strictly in what would turn out to be his last appearance.
‘We went to film at Great Ormond Street Hospital,’ says Will. ‘I saw a boy who reminded me of me at that age. He had a load of ulcers around his mouth and no hair. He looked really ill. I remember those ulcers — just yellow. I remembered the panic I could see he felt.
‘I remembered sitting on the stairs saying to my mum, “I can’t do it any more.” I was tired. I had ulcers. I couldn’t eat. I’d had enough.
‘I remembered saying, “Can we stop it know?” then I asked Mum, “Will I die if I stop?” She just said, “Yes, you need to carry on.”
‘I remember going to get my bag from my room with all my toys thinking, “I’m not going to complain again.”
‘I wasn’t scared of death. The only time I got frightened was once when I saw Mum crying. I had an infection with a really high temperature. She’d run to her friend across the road and . . . ’ he looks at his mum. ‘You were crying. You were hysterical. That really scared me. I’d never seen you like that.’
Chrissie adds: ‘There was another time once when you were in the bath and your hair was half in and half fallen out. I started crying when I was bathing you. You just looked at me and said, “No tears”.’
Will admits: ‘There were times I thought, “This is so unfair. Why me? Why am I different?” You have those dark times.
‘But I had more days when I’d be happy thinking about getting better — wondering how I could be better at sport than my brother.’
It was during his recovery from cancer when, as he couldn’t take part in contact sports, his grandmother bought him a table tennis table.
‘That gave me confidence. It gave me pride. When I was feeling down or sorry for myself, I picked up the bat and that gave me a nice feeling, particularly when I beat my brother. It was a release. I’d been given a massive chance, so anything I did I was determined to do to the best of my ability.’
WILL joined a local table tennis club in Tunbridge Wells aged 11. Soon, after leaving school, he was competing with the British international team.
He won the silver medal at the 2012 London Paralympics and the gold in Rio 2016. He was awarded an MBE in 2017 for his services to table tennis.
His astonishing life story was told in contemporary dance during his last appearance on Strictly. The judges’ panel was moved — along with the rest of us — to tears. For the first time, viewers saw the extent of his disability as he danced barefoot.
‘I thought this is my chance to be honest and open — to show people my feet and not be ashamed. Every step of that dance was a step of my life.’ It was one of the proudest moments of Will’s life and of his mother’s.
‘It was raw — truly beautiful,’ she says. ‘Then . . .’ She gestures towards his knee, adding: ‘Some reports said Will quit. I hate that word. Will’s never quit anything in his life. He never would.’ She looks at Will. ‘You are not a quitter.’
He nods: ‘I’d been thinking this isn’t fair. I was halfway through Strictly and it was one of the best times of my life. I was thinking, “I wonder why me?” But in the last day or so I’ve thought, “I know I’m going to come out the end of it. I know it will make me stronger.”
‘I’m focusing on Tokyo and, however hard I have to work, I’m determined to win another gold medal, hopefully with my whole family around me.’
Given Will’s astonishing courage and ability to overcome seemingly any obstacle, only a fool would bet against him.