ON BODY IMAGE… With Martine Wright and Paloma Faith

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1:31Hello there. I'm diving into the back catalogue, bringing you moments of insight, laughter and truth from past guests. These themed How to Fail episodes are a chance to reflect on the universal experiences that connect us all. This week, we're looking at body image, how we see ourselves and how those perceptions are shaped by life's challenges and experiences. Today, we're discussing a common theme that comes up among my guests, how they feel about their physical selves, something everyone at some point has either struggled with personally or might know someone who has. Firstly, we hear from Paloma Faith from her original episode in February 2024.

2:15Paloma speaks about being thrown out of ballet school aged 10 because she showed signs of becoming curvy, and that apparently wasn't the correct body for a ballet dancer. Then we go to a part of my conversation with the incredible British sitting volleyball player Martine Wright. Martine lost both of her legs in the 7-7 London bombings in 2005 and speaks so eloquently about how she actually wouldn't change a thing. She's now a mother, a wife, a charity ambassador, certified pilot and the recipient of an MBE. I hope this episode offers comfort to anyone who's ever struggled with body image and acts as a reminder that there's beauty and strength in every single version of ourselves.

3:04Your first failure is being thrown out of ballet school age 10. Why were you thrown out? Because this is the really heartbreaking bit. I was thrown out because I showed signs of becoming curvy and that wasn't like the correct body for a ballet dancer. And I was really committed. I was at like a proper ballet school and I went four times a week after school. And then they told me that. They just said, we just don't feel like your body type will be suited, which was a big moment, which has probably influenced me. I think I've got like a slightly, I always talk about body positivity, like I'm envious of it.

3:46Me too. I'm really body negative.

3:53I know. And then I feel negative about being body negative because I feel like I should be being body positive. Yeah, you want to leave by example. You're desperate for it, but you can't. Although I'm quite good at it with my children, I think. So as long as I can make two women be body positive, then I've succeeded. Setting realistic goals. But I think, yeah, it was a bit of a blow. And then it made me sort of obsessed with it forever. Basically, that was it. What form did that obsession take? I didn't ever develop an eating disorder, which I'm grateful for. but I did go on to dance school and I have body dysmorphia like I don't act on it in sort of like addictive ways but like it does sometimes I look at photos and I just think I was huge in that photo but then I'll see the photo and be like I wasn't like in my mind it's like I was really sad at that point because I felt I was overeating or whatever and then I'll see a picture of it or a video and be like I've never been like and I tell people as well I've said in interviews even and I won't say it today I've said like my weight's always fluctuated and actually it really hasn't like I mean within half a stone but like the only time it ever did was postpartum and I was just really headstrong about it and I just got on with it I just got rid of it I was I don't think I've ever it's been as bad as it is in my mind like the torment of it and I really like you say wish that I wasn't because I see other people owning who they are and owning their bodies and I just feel like they're amazing and inspiring and all of that I just can't get there how much of that self-critical voice is actually you do you think and how much of it is conditioning ballet school the 90s being told that a bowl of special care a day was a good diet to shift those extra pounds like it I know it's probably quite difficult to sort of separate all of those strands well I call it the inner bully because it's sort of a permanent thing and if you speak to anybody who's had sort of a successful career most of them have quite a loud inner bully because it does also motivate you and I think that actually when you talk about body relationship with your body it's not usually about your actual body in a literal sense it's to do with saying you can try harder you got to be better and I think like growing up my mum was always really encouraging of me as I was and never put any pressure on me I had some learning difficulties as a as a kid and then suddenly just excelled overnight and it was really strange I was in the Hackney Gazette for doing really well in this underachieving school but I was kind of like very low bottom end until I was about 13 slow reader slow all these things and my mum was just always like you'll come to it in your own time and my dad was always like even when I did well he'd be like why isn't it an A star if I I said I got an A but that's how we graded it back then in the olden days that's what my daughter calls me in the olden days when you were little like I'm not that old but then it just becomes this thing of like me always feeling like that child that was behind always feeling like I needed to prove something even like once I'd got to dance school um one of the teachers called me to her office and was like did you write this essay because it's extraordinary and I was like yeah but she goes why do you present yourself as like a bit stupid and I was like do I she's like I don't I don't I can't believe you wrote it and I I was like I just think that I'm not pretentious doesn't mean that I'm stupid anyway all that stuff it kind of like adds up doesn't it and over years and years it mounts and you're like I have to prove this thing

8:12one of the reasons I was extremely keen to have you on this podcast is because I'm aware that I talk about failure a lot and so do my guests but failure is different when you experience the world in a different and marginalized way I can have no idea of what failure is like from the perspective of a person of color someone who's homeless someone who lives with a chronic illness and I also can have no idea of what it's like to experience failure as a disabled person living in an able-bodied world and I wondered if I could ask you to speak to that has your notion of what failure is changed according to the context of the world that you find yourself in I think obviously you can't go through what I went through that day without it affecting your life and my life and all of our lives and all of the subsequent attacks that have since happened over the last 15 years we can't get away from that but I suppose has it changed as a disabled person I suppose my whole journey has changed when that happened on that morning that Thursday morning in that I know it sounds cheesy but in that split second of when that bomb went off my life completely changed and as a result of that I think my motivations my failures you know what I see as failures did change did change with me I am still in essence Martine I might have slightly shorter legs or thinner ankles as I said that's it prosthetic legs give you really thin ankles but I have changed and as a result I think those failures and what you achieve have failed I suppose I have changed as well.

9:57And I suppose I liken it back to why I went off. And I think a big thing for a mindset or coping with the world that we live in now or have been living or how I've dealt with my life over the last 15 years, I think grabbing opportunities, not being scared of grabbing opportunities is really, really important. And I think I realised this very early on when I was in hospital because I woke up and obviously I saw that I was someone else. I just kept looking down in my bed at that point and saying, I've got no legs. I've got no legs. I couldn't see. I thought my life was over. That was it. I wanted to die.

10:34And I think the hardest thing to deal with for me and when I speak to other patients in hospital, I'm a mentor now for people. a lot of the time they say the hardest thing to deal with was the memories of who I once was and how I used to do things and I understand that and I remember very early on in hospital thinking my life is over I'm not going to be able to do this I was a international marketing manager travel around the world I had a big team of people how was I going to do that now and I think the main question I had to ask myself is really what I was going to do about it all our journeys change our life changes we might not even know what's going to happen in life and do it happens in life to us and I think it's just that ability to be able to cope with those memories and what I decided to do to cope with those memories is I decided to create new ones and I decided to I suppose grab those opportunities that I never ever thought that I would have an opportunity to do so for instance you've mentioned flying yeah I did go out to South Africa and did about 55 hours of flying flying planes on my own but why did I do that I question myself why did I do that well he wouldn't want to go to South Africa for six weeks but why did I do that do you know why because I had in my brain okay I might not be able to run for that bus anymore I might be not I was obsessed with people walking along the road aimlessly talking into a mobile phone i can't do that if i'm on my prosthetic legs or if i'm in the wheelchair especially on my prosthetic legs you know the pavement out there is like the himalayas you can't concentrate on something else so why did i want to jump out of a plane why did i want to yeah go off and fly planes and it was about creating those memories but it was really about okay elizabeth you might be able to run 100 meters or run for that bus but you know what I can do I can fly a plane and it was that strength that if I hadn't gone through this such a negative thing or maybe a failure a failure to get up that morning on time I would never ever have been able to create these amazing new memories and do the things I want to do so I suppose I think it did change I think it did change my brain changed my brain had to cope with what happened and as I said you know it's so important to go on those ups and downs because that's when you can figure out what you want to do but I think a lot of the time it did change as a disabled person because I think my successes and my failures I was seeing it in a very new light and trying to take that failure as an opportunity really as well I've got an opportunity to pick up an MBE, to be awarded the Helen Wollison Award.

13:27I mean, you know, if you said that to me 15 years ago, Elizabeth, I would say, Elizabeth, you're off your rocker. I am not going to be a professional athlete. I am not going to get an MBE. I'm definitely not going to be a bomb victim. But that story, what happened that day or my story or what happened on that event has defined me, has defined me and who I am. But more importantly, the way I've dealt with it, it's been my choices, it's been the people that love me and support me and ultimately it has been my belief. Oh I could just listen to you talk for days on end. I'm sorry I know I went off on one there didn't I?

14:06No no no it was amazing and we will get on to your failure to wake up on time that morning on 7th of July 2005 because it is one of your failures. just before we do I wanted to ask you about what the world is like and whether it is friendly to disabled people because I remember reading this piece it was an interview with you in a newspaper and it was a description of your first visit to a disabled toilet and I think you noticed a pedal bin didn't you they still do that now petrol garages do that now with anti-back I asked a woman yesterday i was in a petrol garage and i'm fine i can put my petrol in i don't need assistance things like that but foot pump for the anti-back and i saw my mask on and this woman walked past to go into the shop and i said excuse me could i borrow your foot she sort of looked at me for the anti-back yeah is the world friendly to disabled people well i suppose if there was a yes or no answer to that i would say no i mean there are inequalities in the world everywhere I mean, look what's going on at the moment, what's happening recently.

15:13Those inequalities exist within our society. You know, you mentioned in the summary or intro, I am proud to say I'm a Beau Bell Cockney. I was born in London and my whole family born in London. And London is not very good for access at all. That's a huge problem for me sometimes because I do like to still spend quite a lot of time in London. But things are getting better. But all of us are responsible for this. All of us are responsible to communicate that with each other. And yeah, as you said, yeah, in an interview, I had to point out that, yes, the first time I used sable glue that was in the hospital, it was actually in the hospital where I was strong enough the first time to actually go to the toilet on my own.

15:59And it was quite a nervy experience. I just looked at this foot bin and think, somehow, I'm just going to put it in the house. and it was like we're in a hospital we're an amputee ward I've got a foot a foot pedal and I do laugh about it but obviously I think in life again that's one of my mantras you've got a smile you've got to enjoy life you've got to laugh because otherwise things will be really really hard to deal with do you know I just I think that's I'm so glad you said that about the antibacterial dispensers because I had never thought that and I think it's so important we will have a duty to think about other people who, for whatever reason, can't use that, or a handle will be too high, or just very small practical things that we all need to think more about.

16:50Yeah. But the thing about disability, think about race, really, and sexism is that we're all individuals. So what I would find hard, someone else might not find hard, or even psychologically, we're all very different you know I'm one of those people I think maybe having an understanding of what life was like before I was disabled if now someone not necessarily wants to grab and push my chair because I wouldn't necessarily say that but if they want to open a door for me or if they want to go can I get something from the top shelf in the supermarket a lot of the time I go all right well you get the top one I'll get the bottom one because I'm good with the bottom ones I don't get offended by that you know that's someone wanting to help and I feel like sometimes we've all got an education you know we're all educators in society you know I look at my son he's 11 he's such an educator just by the experience that he has at home with his mum being a paralympian being an amputee I think all of us have that responsibility to talk about things and educate things educate people and actually I do think the last year this COVID world where we're not all seeing each other face to face and we're not all in the same room I feel like on the flip side it's actually given us an insight into each other's motivations an insight into people's homes literally seeing it through zoom and the first question isn't usually now have you got that email but it's how's your family are you keeping well doesn't your kitchen look nice behind you you know it's all those things that I think really have made us realize that good things come out of bad.

18:33Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And Doug, here we have the Lemo Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customise their car insurance and save hundreds with liberty mutual fascinating it's accompanied by his natural ally doug uh limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us cut the camera they see us only pay for what you need at liberty mutual.com liberty liberty liberty liberty savings vary underwritten by liberty mutual insurance company and affiliates excludes massachusetts