Mark Foster

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0:58life smelling of chlorine and turning up for work in speedos. Well, his longevity wasn't all about a puritanical approach to diet and lifestyle. For while his body looked like he might lead a monastic existence with his famous six-pack, Mark Foster was partial to a beer or eight and frequently enjoyed a late-night party, even if it was on the eve of a big race. As a teenager, he was expelled from Millfield School, where he'd earned a scholarship, and it seemed at that point rebelling came naturally to him. Behaviour which may well have been tied up with his internal battles over his sexuality.

1:30He knew he was gay from an early age, but for decades he'd kept it hidden from teammates, closest friends, colleagues and even family members, which is why his recent biography is entitled My Double Life. Foster finally came out about a decade ago, so we're going to talk about how life has changed since then, whether or not he has any regrets about not coming out sooner. And of course, we might well touch on the work he does for the BBC. He's a much loved and admired member of the BBC's swimming coverage, which led him to a role on Strictly Come Dancing, where he also excelled. And he's a proud campaigner for people with allergies for the Anaphylaxis Society after his very close friend, the Scottish athlete Ross Bailey, died from an allergic reaction after they'd been to lunch together.

2:11And of course, we might well find out if that famous six pack is still going strong at the age of 56. And if it is, what's he doing to keep it? Let's go meet him. Mark Foster, welcome to The Midpoint. How are you? I'm very, very well. Thank you. I kind of objectified you a bit in the introduction. I mentioned your six-pack twice. Did you? That was my old life. It's now a hidden six-pack. It was something that you were well-known for, wasn't it? And your very, very lean, lean body was photographed a lot back in the day, wasn't it? Yes. You enjoyed that? Yeah. Not that it was about that, but I guess the thing is when people are taking snaps of you, and I mean, part of being an athlete is you're in shape.

2:51and the abs and the body came from beating your body up every day in the pool or in the gym. But then also I started learning about food from Mr. Colin Jackson who is obscene about his physique. He's so disciplined. Unbelievable. But then it sort of rubs off on you. The environment you're around rubs off on you. You look at him and think, he looks great. He still looks phenomenal now. And actually I think he's the same weight now as he was when he raced, just without the massive legs and abs. I mean, he's still got them, but they're just not as big as they were before. Yeah, a good person to learn from.

3:25He's been on the midpoint as well. Yeah. And I have worked with him for many, many years. So I know this is daily practice. Yes. Yes. But also when you look at it, you kind of don't go, I never get this, oh, I'm doing this because it becomes your habit. It's just what you do. And you look at him and go, God, you eat really healthy. And it's not like he's eating healthy and sort of basically stopping himself having certain things. It's just him. I think people go on a journey as athletes sometimes with food. And I certainly got that from your book that obviously you were tall and lean naturally.

3:58So you probably didn't think about things in the early stages of your career so much because you could put anything in your body, including beers the night before a race. If that's what you wanted. But then as you got older, you realize the power of nutrition for your body. Yes, yeah. I think you start realising that the training is the biggest part, I would say. Obviously, the mental side of things. And then nutrition is really important because it's what you're fueling your engine with. And you say there as a kid, back in the late 70s, early 80s, when there was really no knowledge really about food.

4:35There wasn't really dieticians. Nutrition was kind of like when you just eat. And when you're swimming four hours a day. I remember I went to Millfield school from 13 to 16 and my daily breakfast after morning training was four bowls of Frosties and that's not good nutrition is it and I know it but back then it was like oh just hoover anything and everything and what you loved and what you liked whereas when I was a professional athlete it would have been eggs it would have been protein it would have been repair the muscle so as a kid without any knowledge I would hoover everything in front of me And I guess as someone who managed to make his career last quite a long time, and we should say as well with sprinters in swimming, it's kind of the opposite, isn't it, to, I don't know, looks like to athletics in a way, because it's the longer distance athletes who tend to go on longer.

5:27And in swimming, it's the other way around, isn't it? You tend to get the 15, 16-year-old long-distance swimmers are the ones that end up winning the big medals early on. I think some of that's probably mental, because swimming, I mean, Becky Adler to retire... Swimming a long way is hard. Yeah, you're in your head a lot. And I know you are as a long-distance athlete, but at least you're out in nature and you're kind of distracted by other things. You're not distracted by the black line. I mean, Becky Allenton retired at 23, and I was always like, and I still am a bit like, why? I mean, her why is I won the double Olympic gold early.

5:57I was never going to better it. True. And also, she spent a lot of time up and down the pool, up and down the pool, up and down the pool. So for me, the beauty was, yes, I started off as a bit more of a distance athlete. Well, I was part of a distance program. Sarah Harkastle, 1984 Olympics, silver and the bronze in the 4-800 freestyle. My coach then was, you're in the pool for two hours, I'm going to hammer it. We're just doing two hours. There wasn't any knowledge about sprint training. And then when I went to Millfield School and I had a coach that kind of went, okay, that's the distance programme, that's the sprint programme.

6:27I went into the sprint programme, became national senior record holder at 15, which I really am grateful that was a sprinter because I probably wouldn't have... If I had the distance, I wouldn't have carried on to 38. It's brutal. 60 ,000, 80 ,000 metres a week in your arms. And then kind of sprint was, I don't know, the beauty of sprinting is, and you get this when you watch athletes, you go quick, you stand around and have a chat. You go quick, you stand around and have a chat. Distant swimmers, there's no chat. Up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. It takes a certain mentality.

6:58So that's interesting, but it's not just a physiological thing. It's actually a psychological thing that might be the reason why we don't see people winning 800 metre golds at the age of 35. for example. Yes. In the swimming pool I don't know what the oldest... Yeah, I meant swimming, yeah. Yeah, long distance. Because actually 800 metres in athletics is the middle ground actually, so Kelly Holmes was 34 when she won her double. The 800 on the track is like 200 metres in the pool. Is that right? Is that how you equate it? Yeah, it's four times the distance. It's an easy, it's mathematically easy.

7:33So I went through a period, and I mentioned this in the book, which Colin Jackson and coach me. So not only did I, spending a lot of time around him, did I see the way he'd think and thought, but he always used to say to me, why do you do that in the pool? And I'm like, well, because it's what we do. And he's like, well, and this is what got me thinking. This is the beauty of being at Olympic Games where you learn from other sports and you kind of go, oh, we could implement that into the pool sort of thing. So he used to say to me, diving off the block, it's just diving off the block. And he went, okay, well, why don't you go in the sand pier and do standing jumps, long jumps, just another way of doing plyometrics and then on the track your event is 21 seconds I go yeah and he goes well that's kind of like a 200 meter runner because it's 19, 20 seconds on the track admittedly I don't take 19 or 20 seconds but I could do it in 25 or 26 so he put me on the track and go do four 200s on 10 minutes which is brutal by the way it's far easier in the pool and yeah so it kind of like it was just a way of learning to train the body in a different way that wasn't doing what you do every day I got that from the book changing, going to live in Germany changing things round it keeps your kind of psychological and mental stimulus going as much as anything else very few top swimmers I imagine stay with the same person their whole lives and stay in the same place because often it's an opportunity for education you've pointed to Millfield for others it means going to America to university doesn't it and the collegiate system in America there's a lot of stuff in the book but there's little sliding door moments when at 18 years of age I got offered a scholarship to Arizona State University.

9:10And you look at America, best swimming nation in the world, always have been, and the reason for that is, A, the number of people that do it, but they've got the best facilities, best coaches, but also a lot of the best athletes from Europe, from South America, go and train there. So every day is a competition. And when I went to Hamburg in 96, I was 26 years of age, 27, One, the big thing was it was a conscious decision. My coach at the time said to me, it wasn't going well. I trained in Cardiff for a couple of years, and I loved Dave Haller, who was my coach, but it didn't go well. And I remember saying, I'm going to leave, and he went, look, the answer's in you, which was one thing.

9:51It was sort of me making my own decision, but I went to Germany and trained in Hamburg with a coach who looked after Sandra Falco, who's a top German swimmer, and I just love what they did. And he came with it. He literally went, okay, what does athletics do? they do a lot of lifting they get as strong as possible stay as light as possible and swimming basically back then was you just swim there wasn't any any knowledge around weights and dirt was the first one that kind of sort of brought that athletics world into the swimming pool so to speak but the big thing for me was i made the decision i packed a lot of stuff into the back of my bmw at the time uh which by the end of the end of the journey was not comfy i left I left Cambridge in the morning I went on the autobahns which was an awful lot of fun I must say but I got to Germany in the evening and I couldn't walk the next day because I just sat in my car I had three days and I went oh my god what I've done but it was the best decision I did it was the best decision Tell us about becoming the fastest man in the world for the first time what it was like to know that nobody else anywhere else on the planet could swim as fast as you that day It was cool I think the thing is it was cool All because it's a world record and it's a world record.

11:04And as you say, no one on the planet's been faster. I mean, ultimately, if I break it down, it was my best time. So where do you go from there? Well, I aim to do a best time like I did when I was 11 years of age. But at that moment, it's your best time. But you touch the wall. The world record was a guy called Crocker from America. I'm trying to think of his first name. And then he went Joe Crocker. And I'm like, no, that's not the right one. And it was 2164. and I went 21-6-0. Did I think it was on on the day? No, I was just swimming a race. I knew I was in good form. But you touch the wall and you kind of go, that's awesome, it's cool.

11:39But for that moment, and it doesn't last very long because I think this is the thing with sport against time. You touch the wall, you look, instant feedback. Good, bad and different, instant feedback. You go with a coach and go, okay, we go again. And what do we do differently? Do we do the same thing? Because we've got the formula, so it works. and it works until it doesn't work anymore. And then you kind of go, okay, well, let's change stuff. Let's do a bit more of this or a bit more of that. But, yeah, for that moment, I used to, I jokingly said to people that any place on the planet, when I went on holiday, I could go to a pool and I could pretend I couldn't swim.

12:15I should have made a lot of money, right? I should have hustled people, apart from having seen the Olympic rings on my chest. But it was kind of cool. Yeah, then it got beaten and then I beat it again and it got beaten and I beat it again. so yeah but it was a kind of glorious period of your life wasn't it being able to aim for that and yeah I wonder how addictive that feeling is um yeah good point not really thought about it I suppose the the addictive thing for me was I found something that I was good at I found something most importantly that I loved uh and I and when people say to me in my career did I make sacrifices probably but I didn't know I made sacrifices because all the people I hung around with my peer group, my mates and they all did the same thing so getting up as a kid jumping in freezing cold water five days a week Mum used to get me up at five breakfast at 5.15, car at 5.30 be in the pool from six to eight in the morning two hours doing seven, eight thousand metres before I went to school I mean beasting myself I went because my mates went All the other kids at school didn't even know what I'd been up to for the two hours before I got there.

13:22I wonder why you smelt of chlorine. I was chlorine, boy. I've got to be honest, I was the cleanest kid in school, right? Here he is. When all the kids are starting to get there, their hormones are creating slightly nasty odours kind of for the teachers. They're literally like, have Mark Foster at the front of your classroom. You'll be fine. You've never had an odour. At what age then did you know, I could be really good at this? Was it being kind of plucked out and offered a scholarship or was it swimming for your region? Yeah, a little bit of everything. So you win club competitions, then you do county competitions and then you go to the nationals.

13:59And for me, when I was 11, I went to the National Age Group Championships in Blackpool. Every year it moved around. But in swimming terms, we didn't have many Olympic pools. So it was either Blackpool, glamorous places, by the way. Leeds. Leeds, Leeds, Leeds, Leeds, Leeds International Pool. I didn't actually mean to go Leeds, Leeds, Leeds. I used to swim in that pool. Did you? Yeah. I mean, back then it was like, oh, this is kind of, it's an awful pool. But back then it was like, it was a great pool. Yeah. Because that's all we knew and it's what we had. It's no longer there, of course. It's not there.

14:32Coventry's not there anymore. That was one of the great pools we had. I also lived in Coventry and swam in that pool as well. Did you? Yeah, yeah. You could have been a swimmer. Yeah. Well, except that everywhere I leave, they knock their pools down. I don't know what that says. Both those pools at the shallow end, three foot six, which if you know swimmers the size of them and you're diving off a side with a block on it into three foot six. I don't know how we didn't bash on these more often. We just got used to flat diving. So there, Crystal Palace, there wasn't many nationals, but on this occasion, 11 years of age, I went to Blackpool and I'd won the county championships.

15:05So clearly I was good, but then I went against people from Scotland, Wales, north, south, east, west. And it's important to say, this is pre-internet, right? So you couldn't, like my kids, when they've been, you know, at school sport, could check out who was the person that you're going to have to beat, which other areas. You probably knew very little about your opposition. None of it. None of it until you sort of get there and then basically your first sort of moment of how good am I as a star list, right? Because every kid during that year leading up to that competition, they enter the fastest time during the year, all right?

15:36And on some of the races, I was ranked first and some second. And of course, then you're like, ooh, there's some other people here. Because I won a lot of races quite easily back in the... Not easily, but by a margin in some of the races. And then I get there and I'm like, ooh. And there's a random story about this in a minute, but there was two people in particular, a guy called Stephen Sweeney from Liverpool and a guy called Ian Froud from Ferndown Otters near Bournemouth. and in every race we were top three okay so we get there and i'm like oh so i look at the start sheet and i'm like oh this is going to be this this is the nationals this is going to be tense there was about 120 kids that started the race obviously not at the same time because that's messy but they did all the heats i got through to my heat made the final and out of six races i won i won five and breaststroke i came 30th i realized early doors i was not good at breaststroke um So this was five other strokes, basically.

16:33I won the 100 freestyle, 100 backstroke, 100 butterfly, the 200 medley and the 200 freestyle. Tight, close, with these other two kids, Stephen and Ian. Who hated you by this point. Actually, I've got a picture in my bag. I didn't mean to, but I noticed in the front of my diary this morning I've got a picture of me, Ian and Stephen. It will mean nothing to you. But I know I'm not going to show you, but I'll explain. Stephen I went to the Ivy Club the other week for a sports quiz so there was Daley Thompson there, Colin Jackson Backley all these athletes, Akabusi and we all were team captains on the table anyway the quiz happened and at the end of the event people mooched around having a chat and this guy came up to me and he went and he said Mark and I went yeah and he went I used to swim against you and I looked and it's not going to sound wrong I don't mean I looked down at someone but I looked down at him Because you're six foot six.

17:27I'm six foot six. And I said, you're not Stephen Sweeney from Liverpool, are you? And he looked at me and he went, oh, my God, you remember me. And I went, I'm actually doing a book at the moment and I've written about you in the book. So he sent me all these, this is one of his pictures, he sent me these pictures from the presentations where I am back then, I don't know, five foot six and he was about four foot eight. And he goes, you're still as big and you're still as small. Still like to swim? Still likes to swim. He actually, by the time, it's quite interesting because, of course, I didn't know his story.

18:00I've raced against him. And we actually did hang out a little bit outside the pool of those championships in Blackpool. Then he got into triathlon. He was very much into football, so he was nearly a footballer. Quite interesting how things went full circle coming back to that moment. Yeah, it's lovely when you meet people from your very distant past, isn't it, like that, and not somebody that ended up being an international like you did. Yeah, but one of those interesting ones, sorry, just for that, is you get people that come up to you, though, and go, and this is what was interesting with Stephen because I get people come to me all the time and go I used to race against you and I'm looking and I'm going did you?

18:32and they go yeah yeah yeah you were in heat 8 and I was in heat 4 and I'm like yeah of course you were not the foggiest so actually getting someone that I went I remember every stroke you swam actually you were a bit part of my childhood at this point so this was a moment where okay this kid's got talent and people are going to start keeping their eye on you and the talk might well have started not long after that about scholarships and Millfield obviously being a school that's famous for its sport, but particularly a rich heritage in swimming. Was that always the aim for your family, for your mum?

19:03No. So when I was 11, I came back from the Nationals and the idea was I'd go to grammar school. So my elder sister, doing the 11 plus. So Katie, my elder sister, went to Southland High School for Girls. She got the 11 plus. My middle sister, Claire, she didn't. She got what's called borderline on the 11 plus, whatever that means. anyway you're either in or out so she was out and I did the same and I was out and I think mum was very much like she wanted to give me the best possible chance education was obviously important although I was good at swimming that was never it was never going to be a job because swimming wasn't professional in that sense um so she kept looking around she tried kelly college I nearly went to kelly college when I was 11 um but then millfield at 13 said we'd love them to come down here my family couldn't afford to send me there but I got a scholarship and at the time Millfield gave a lot of scholarships to swimmers so Duncan Goodshue was actually at Millfield school and when I went down there about a quarter of the national team trained out of Millfield school so at 13 I arrived at Millfield as fastest I was the fastest 11 year old on the planet and then the fastest 13 year old on the planet and I turned up down there and there's senior swimmers that could kick my ass but it was beautiful because the bottom line is I was surrounded by people better than me as I was when I was 11 years of age and I just used to watch the way they dove in the way they're technically what they did and probably most importantly what they did outside the pool and their habits slowly became mine and they kind of molded me into the summer I became your mom is obviously a central character in your book isn't she because you know she's clearly an incredible woman who had a lot on her plate yeah tell us a little bit about about how she looked after you all and how she guided you.

20:46She was born in 1941 in the war and her dad was a Spitfire pilot and her mum at the time was 17 years of age. So that was a bit of a no-no. So my mum was adopted. She was adopted by my mum and grandad. So that was her childhood, so to speak. So her kids were kind of everything because that's what moulded her, her into the mum she became. and she always loved sport. I was born at home in Billericke in Essex. I was born in the house at home. My two sisters listening on the stairs, and this is, I don't know why I'm telling you this, but my older sister, she decided she was going to die in labour because she heard my mum giving birth to me in the front room.

21:29So that moulded my older sister. My older sister had kids. So your older sister, because of that moment, decided, no, not for me. She went, I am going to die in labour, and that must have come from being three and a half years of age sat on the stairs. I think they call those things core memories don't they? Yes, it's amazing how things sort of imprint on your brain. But mum was awesome. She from the age of when I was what eight when I started doing early morning training she'd get me up at five. She'd be the one that literally pushed me, motivated me, drove me to the pool and then she'd take me to school.

22:01So I had two sisters and myself and my mum did everything and that sounds wrong. My dad was around. My dad worked. And then mum and dad split when I was 11. And my mum just was intent on giving me the best sort of opportunities. So did your dad come into the picture in terms of decision making about things like Millfield? Yes. I think around Millfield he did, because I think he helped out with the school fees. On the back end, I got the scholarship, but there was still some money that needed to be paid. So my dad, with my grandparents, mum couldn't afford it. they were but mum was kind of like she made it happen so she was the one that went sort of begging to her parents and basically said to my dad even though they'd split up that this is what Mark's going to do and it wasn't about you know he's going to be a swimmer he's going to have a swimming career because there was no career in swimming at the time it was like I want to give him the best place where he can swim and the best place where he's going to get an education at the same time Millfield was an eye opener in terms of leaving home.

23:03So it's almost like your parents saying to you, well, you're not wanted here anymore. So I remember getting to Milford in the first term going, when my mum drove off, I was like, oh, like, where are you going? And then you've got to make friends, which is cool. But for the first term, I remember on the phone a few times going, I don't like it here, I want to come home, as a 13-year-old probably did. And then after the first term, I never wanted to go home because all my mates were down there. and I was like, oh, can I go to yours for the holidays? Can I go to yours? And it became, I don't know, you kind of learn, you learn to come out of your skin a little bit, make friends and it was the best thing that I could have done at the time, really, really was.

23:40And swimming, obviously, weaves all the way through the book but so does the story of your sexuality and you start talking about that and then for the reader, it's really interesting because even though I thought I kind of knew your story, you're thinking all the time about what must be going through your mind what must be going through your body the feelings that you might be having even though you don't talk about it overtly at times because you recognize quite early on that you were gay i knew there was something i don't think the thing was i kind of didn't call it that necessarily no i didn't label it in terms of it was kind of so the first thing that happened was i watched james bond movie and i see sean Connery coming out of the sea in I think I got told this because I can't remember the name of it but Doctor No, the movie Doctor No and he walks out in a pair of trunks and I'm with my sisters and my stepsisters and I said I don't know what I said but I said something like oh he's good looking, whatever I said but the beauty of being a child is that there is no filter and also hearing that through 2026 kind of eyes that doesn't feel like any kind of statement at all does it?

24:48I suppose to say something that felt so kind of different to what you were supposed to be seeing in that movie. Yeah. It's James Bond. I think it's Hesler Andrews you're supposed to be. Yeah, I meant to be looking at the woman, not him. Was it Bo Derek or whatever? I think it might have been Bo Derek at the time. They all look the same. I'm joking. Well, they did through my eyes. It was, I don't know, it was kind of... All I ever heard from Changing Rooms school playground on the news, in the street, being gay was not good. The language that was used, the abuse that was used. And also you talk about the AIDS epidemic.

25:31And then the AIDS epidemic was sort of towards the late 80s, mid-late 80s. So there's all this sort of signalling language around it which was, well, that ain't good. And whatever that is, whatever I'm feeling is kind of like, OK, well, you can't feel that and you can't act upon that. So you put that away and you kind of like try and mould yourself into what society wants you to be. And even looking at the TV. So the people that I could see were gay on the TV were very flamboyant. That was nothing like me. There weren't any gay sports people. You weren't Danny LaRue. You weren't, you know, Barry Manilow necessarily.

26:12And as you say, who were the openly gay sports people? None. And there were none because it was one of those things that back then, it wasn't, it wasn't not safe. It wasn't okay to be. And the big thing is that people always sort of said to me, well, swimming is not rugby and it's not football. There's not a terraces, but it's still a sport. But it was my big concern was because society behaved in a certain way. And what I heard in the street, I kind of went, okay, well, I can't be that. Whatever that was going to be. I couldn't be that person. and then I worried about sharing change rooms with my teammates sharing rooms with my teammates with sponsors what are they going to do and of course we all have a positive and a negative voice in our head which one's louder but the negative one was going you can't take a risk but you didn't really talk to anybody about that this was all your internal monologue weighing up constantly is this the right time no so just getting down to business of being a great swimmer and then masking basically and changing your behaviours.

27:19You kind of, and someone said, was it, I was talking to someone the other day and went, was it tiring? And I went, I didn't think it was because it's just the way I got to be. So avoiding conversations or the half truths, the lies or whatever I came out with. That when you made up Catherine? Yeah, that was so imprinted. Catherine was a good one. Catherine came from that. I was a bolt out of the blue when that one came out. But it turned out to be quite long-lasting, Catherine. Yeah, Catherine was great. So Catherine is... I was at a time where I was with Vincent for 20 years. I met Vincent at 21 until I was 40.

27:57And a friend of mine and Vince's... It was a work colleague of Vince's called Tony. And his wife was Catherine. And she was very pretty. She was lovely. She was just lovely. And I knew a lot about Tony and Catherine. and on this occasion at the 95 European Championships, I'm 25 years of age now, I'm sat in a room with other lads on the team. There's probably six or eight of us in the room. And I am world record holder. I'm European champion. I'm all these things. I'm like the captain, the oldest man on the team, the biggest man on the team. And I'm sat there in this room. And men generally, historically a bit less so now, but historically blokes talk about stuff above the surface.

28:36They talk about crap. So we talk about football, we talk about cars, talk about girls, just talk about stuff, right? Women talk about the interesting emotional stuff underneath the surface. Men don't, they avoid it. That's just what we do. I sat there and I just was going, I need to come up with a story because it's going to come to me in a minute. And for some reason... You felt it coming, that question. It kind of was going around the room. Right. Sort of like, what are you up to? What are you up to? It was a bit of a share. Yeah, it was like pass the bottle round and you have your little five minutes of say-so.

29:06And I just remember sitting there going, And, oh, right, Catherine, you know a lot about Catherine. She lives in Cambridge. This is what she does. This is what she looks like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was going along in my head. And then I just kept saying to myself, just don't go red, right, because you're blatantly going to make something up now. Do not go red. And fortunately, it was summertime, and I'm swimming outdoors, and I've got a good tan going on. And that was my dialogue. So we talk about being present in certain situations. I was literally in my head going, this is it.

29:37this is what's going to be and when it came out it was a bit of a it was weird because it was a blatant lie to me they didn't know and yeah that's where but she existed so she was quite useful she was very useful because then when I went to awards dinners and stuff Catherine came with me so I went home and I told Catherine Catherine and Tony and Catherine and Tony laughed and Catherine thought it was genius and we got on really really well so she said if you want to go to any events and you need me to come with you I'll go with you so she actually came to two or three sort of award things with me So Catherine was very real and the lads thought Catherine was it.

30:11So that was it then. You'd snuffed out the conversation. I'd smokescreened them. Yeah, it didn't need to happen. But then Vince in the background is your real life partner that you're with. So was he fine about that? There was subterfuge and lying? He thought the Catherine and Tony thing was genius. And he didn't mind not being your public partner? Not at all, because Vince, 20 years older, growing up at a time when even more so illegal to be gay. So he knew the dance. I mean, he'd done it more than I'd done it in the past with him and his partner he'd been with before me. And he kind of got it.

30:45So he kind of went, I know that's the way that you need to behave outside of here. So Mark, Mark, Mark, the person where I could just be myself was was home. and then when I went to, and I trained, at the time I was training down in Bath, that was kind of like, well, you've got to be Mark the Athlete down there and I'll be waiting for you when you come home and you can be yourself here. But then when you were outside the house, not being able to be publicly affectionate or anything like that, did that ever become a problem? No, no, because Vince was incredibly understanding and so I went home at weekends.

31:21We lived at a place called St. Nears near Cambridge and most weekends when I went home, we'd go into Cambridge whether we go to a restaurant or go shopping or do whatever normal activity stuff. But friends of Vincent's knew us. So you could socialise with enough people. Yeah, Linney and Phelps were the two because they were sort of in between mine and Vince's age, Linney and Phelps. Not Michael Phelps because that would be weird because he's a lot younger. Although Phelps, you would wish he was Michael Phelps. So I used to hang out with them and they knew Vince, they knew the story and they were very, very protective and it became you know, became just, that was our bubble there where I could be Mark and Vince and then when I left the house and went off to train Vincent was always on the end of the phone I think if you hadn't been so aesthetically kind of appreciated by women and men maybe you could have kind of got away with people wondering about your love life, your sex life your relationships, but But there were kind of chatters and rumours.

32:26Oh, who's he going? He must have loads of women. He must be going out with loads of... Who's he going out with? That kind of thing would go on. For a swimmer as well, because you transcended swimming, you know, and you were somebody who was well-known beyond swimming. And so how you managed it was clearly quite clever because you had this kind of work persona and then your private life. Was there ever a point where you felt, actually, this is so unfair that is it my responsibility to normalise this? and for people to see that this guy that they think is so macho and so incredible as an athlete can also be a gay man.

32:59Yeah, that came much, much later. I think while I was competing and swimming, nah. It just wasn't something that entered my brain. And I think I got so used to behaving, compartmentalising things and having two separate lives, so to speak, that it was easier just going along with it than it was breaking it and it's the full complete worry of what's going to happen. It's a bit like Pandora's box. If I open it, what's going to happen? What are my mates going to say? What are my coaches going to say? What's the sport going to say? What are the sponsors going to say? I just didn't really want to take the risk.

33:36I mean, to the point where, and Vince knows all this stuff,

33:43going to championships, obviously, lads are lads, women are women, we're on the team together and at the end of the championships, during the championships they'd be like oh have you seen Joanne Millar from Canada she's really really pretty and of course I hear it I see it all the lads and then another girl called Therese Alzheimer from Sweden who's a very very good friend of mine everyone's like oh Therese so I end up sleeping with these girls I did with Joanne with Therese and she's a good friend of mine and Vince knows didn't know at the time but it was kind of like there you go that will satisfy your whatever suspicions you might have or whatever your thoughts might be.

34:25I can sleep with the prettiest girl in this championship. It wasn't about the prettiest girl in the championship. It was more to do with, well, they wanted that. I could have her. But it was more of a, there you go. That'll buy me a year. If there's any chat going on, that chat won't be there. How does Therese feel about that? She's your friend. No, Therese is lovely. Actually, she was the first person, two first people I came out to in the swimming world. So that was 96. Mark, you didn't have sex with the then come out, did you? No. That was a brutal evening. No, no, no. So that was 96 Olympics in Atlanta.

35:02And then four years later, we're in Hamburg. I went to train in Hamburg. 97, I went to train in Hamburg. And then beginning of 2000, we'd see each other at competitions, remain good friends. And then 2000, she went, oh, I want to come and train with you and Dirk. And then my training partner from London at the time, or it was actually in Bath, was Neil Willey. So he was a bit British backstroker. So the three of us shared a flat in Hamburg and we trained with Dirk Lang, our coach. And every Saturday night, after training and finished during the week, not every Saturday night, occasionally, the three of us would just go out.

35:34Go out for a restaurant and we'd go and get pissed. It was during the season, away from competitions. And on this one night, we went to a lovely restaurant and Trey's got us on, by the way, there's a new thing rather than tequila and lemon and salt you have tequila cinnamon and orange it's a sweet version of it and i'm not a big drinker but that was very nice uh we could drink you were quite you're quite i could drink oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm just not i'm just not a big drink especially now i'm not a big drinker at all um and we'd had a few this night and we ended up in this nightclub and theresa's on the dance floor and she's getting hit on by a few people and because i'm quite big i kind of danced with her and kept other people away from her and I turned around and I looked at the bar and Neil's sat there with his arms folded and I'm like well you don't look very happy so I went over and I went they started seeing each other at this point and I went over and I went what's wrong with you and he knew about 96 from Interace and I went what's wrong with you and he went what are you doing and I'm like what and he went you're hitting on my girlfriend Interace what are you doing and I just turned to him and because I had a skin fall and I think the thing is at this point also I respected and trusted Neil Interace I went mate you've got no worries I'm gay and he just looked at me and he gave me a hug and he started crying a bit and he went wow it's amazing and he went thanks for telling me and then obviously that was Neil first and then I told Therese but the beautiful thing about that was the fact that I had opened up to two people who I knew I could trust but it also meant I trained in Hamburg which it meant once a month Vince came over and hung out with us and it kind of like normalised it a bit but it also meant So this was a slow creep towards coming out to everybody Absolutely.

37:13Because obviously the family knew relatively early on in that period of your life. You came out to one of your sisters first. Younger sister first, then my mum. That was a whole one. Because I think you want your parents to be proud of you. And of course, I like to think parents will be proud of you no matter what. She was, though. Unless you're a mass murderer. But parents are pretty proud of their side person in that situation. No, she was. But it was the first little bit of I sat down with mum and she went, I said I've got something to tell you and she's kind of like are you in trouble, I was a naughty boy so she was like are you in trouble again and I was like no no no no it's not about that and I said I'm gay and she looked at me and she started crying and she went what have I done wrong so she took it upon herself she was like okay this is my fault but there's no fault as we know now but this is her trying to deal with what's going on in her head and her emotions, what have I done wrong I'm not going to have grandkids what my friend's going to think you know all this stuff that went on for five minutes ten minutes and it was her stuff because she was just trying to process it Did you just let her process and speak?

38:21How do you add advice from somebody about how to have this conversation? No I just no I didn't I don't think there's any right or wrong way I think it's just I think ultimately it's like blurt it because the hardest thing is saying it and then then let everything else fall around you and then just start I mean conversation's key to everything and she was beautiful she could have grandkids, I could have adopted I could have had surrogacy and your sisters we've already heard about the one sister that's never going to have children because of hearing her birth Claire had Oscar, Oscar's awesome Oscar plays a bit of semi-pro football he's very very good but it was a moment because I wanted her to be happy I wanted her to be joyous and of course that's her first response but then I'm like But then I go back to I'm very fortunate.

39:10You've seen that program, It's a Sin, where at a time in the 80s where people were kicked out of the house, disowned by families, disowned by friends, losing jobs. I mean, frightening. I mean, horrible. And I was fortunate. I had someone that put her arms around me and went, I love you no matter what. Because that was her. And also I think that's why I go back to her being adopted. She kind of, that moulded the way she was. Do you now see young athletes in swimming coming out younger? Do you ever hear about anybody of 18, 19? The sports I work in, I don't hear many young athletes coming out. No, I think there's, I would say, football is really its own entity in a sense, isn't it?

39:55I can't talk about other sports. I actually really don't know the swimming side of things. I only see what I see on social media. Are the only gay swimmers competing in the circuit? That's a good question. Top elite international swimmers? I don't think so. The ones I do know are the ones that have already retired. It's the same, I guess, with football. The names that have come out kind of afterwards, rugby, they tend to come out at the end of their careers. Isn't that something that's ever going to change? I like to think it will. It's just, you know, whether it's five years, ten years, 50 years, maybe it never will, I don't know.

40:28I mean, I spoke to someone the other day, and what fed homophobia in the first place or racism in the first place were papers. You know, it was kind of like this obsession with the sexuality of people or what's right and what's wrong. And it's definitely shifted. It's just still got a long way to shift where people feel that they can be. And again, I go back to me as a kid in the change room. I'm sharing a change room with a load of other lads. And this is quite funny. Not funny, but all my mates used to say to me, did you fancy me? And I'm like, no, no. I know they're quite gutted, but I didn't fancy them.

41:06They think every gay bloke fancies every man. No, I didn't. But I think my thing was, you're my mate, so I don't. Maybe the way I compartmentalise things in my brain, I'm like, no, no, no. Yeah. But they're quite gutted, really. Was I the one? No. As well as obviously having that experience to kind of grow up with, if you like, which psychologically weighed quite heavily, and probably you've alluded to bad boy behaviours and rebelling and various things which I'm sure a psychologist would unpick and have a field day with you. You may well have been through all of that. I've tried to unpick my own brain, that's difficult enough.

41:38You also had a tragic experience with your friend Ross Bailey and I know you've done work for the Anaphylaxis Society since because of what happened. How much did that shape who you are today? I didn't realise at the time because it was just one of those things that sort of happens and you think you deal with it. Although I should have really gone and sat with someone and got some counselling around it. But I think it's one of those things that it's kind of like, are you a sportsman or you're a bloke or that's what we do? We just get on with things. We don't, because it's a weakness if you talk about stuff.

42:15So basically, Ross Bailey, who was the next up and coming, Colin Jackson, next great hurdler in the UK. Scottish. Wonderful human being. fit human being he was just in amazing shape as athletes are and he'd just done a Diamond League event somewhere in Europe, I can't remember where it was but he was going to do the second one but he didn't he came back to carry on training and Colin was over in Athens at the time and I remember training with Ross in the morning, we did some weights in the morning because I did weights with the athletes I swam a lot, I obviously didn't swim with the athletes because that wouldn't have been a lot of competition but on this occasion and we're going to go and play golf in the afternoon.

42:56But in between training and golf, we had a couple of hours. So we went back to the house, put some bets on some horses. Don't know why, but we did. I don't know why I'm giving you that detail. And then we were hungry. And near me in Bath, there was this lovely delicatessen around the corner. So we walked around there and I walked in and the guy's like, I've got no sandwiches left. And I'd been in there a few times and he knew me. And he said, I'll make you something. What do you want? And I said, I just said, what can you do? And the first thing that came out of his mouth was coronation chicken.

43:24I talk about these sliding door moments when things happen in life. He could have said ham and cheese. He could have said egg mayonnaise. He said Coronation chicken. I also went, lovely, love Coronation chicken. Ross, what do you fancy? Ross could have gone, what else do you do? He went, oh, that suits me as well. To me, it's curried chicken. We went back to the flat. We sat down, took a bite. I'm like, oh, great, lovely. Ross took one bite, and as soon as it went in his mouth, he said, there's nuts in here. I didn't even know he had an allergy at this point. Colin's on the phone ringing from Athens going oh Ross is coughing taking his Ventolin Colin's going oh tell him to shut up this has happened to me before when we were on a train in the mid we were on a training camp and Ross is like I'll be alright in a minute Ventolin I'll be alright in a minute goes upstairs to the toilet makes himself sick comes down I'll be alright in a minute and this went on for probably 20 minutes and I kept saying do you want me to take it to the doctors can you take anything for this and he went no I'll be alright in a minute got my Ventolin and then I think after about half an hour he kind of went hang on this is normally gone and it triggered in he went this ain't good so he went yeah can you take me up to doctors so I got him in the car and he's grabbing the dashboard on the way up struggling to breathe I mean it was horrendous and I get him up there and I take him in and the doctors and nurses get hold of him and they're obviously giving him whatever they were giving him adrenaline epipens whatever they're giving him and the door closed into the surgery as he said to me, I can't, well, it was said to me, just so that out loud, I can't breathe, I'm going to die.

44:57And horrendous. So they put him into a juice coma and he died a couple of days later. And it was, that's why I do stuff for the anaphylaxis campaign and that's why, you know, when they used to get on a plane and they go, we're no nuts today because someone's got an allergy and you're going, really? Yeah, really. Because it's frightening. But for a beautiful person that was taken away so young, so early, but also someone that was so fit and healthy that something so small and minute could just wipe them out it's just absolutely frightening but after that when i swam i pulled out of a couple of competitions straight away because i just couldn't deal with it and i what i didn't realize was which is kind of obvious but not at the time when i was in training we were doing certain sets when you're really pushing yourself uh i almost like feel i was going to go into a bit of a panic attack and i'd got ventolin i got beckertide inhalers i got all these things because it was like oh you're induced asthma and it wasn't it was that stuff that was obviously that thing like jaws being very real in the back of my brain seeing that happen to ross became very very real and it was real so that sort of played out a few in competitions i'd be like what happens if i get out of breath halfway along the swimming pool what am i going to do all these little things just start going around in my head in terms of facing mortality did it change anything in your kind of life plan No, no, I wouldn't say it.

46:17I mean, I'm sort of generally... You were already sucking the marrow out of life, weren't you, I guess? I mean, you know, in terms of breaking world records and, you know, being a successful Olympian. I felt very lucky to do what I did in the pool because as a kid, just like you with gymnastics, you did something which... I mean, sport's a game. And as kids, we all like playing games. It's a game. It's fun. It's joyous. so all of a sudden I felt lucky that my job was swimming up and down the pool something that I loved doing, something that was a game I knew it would come to an end at some point did it make me think about things differently?

46:51I generally say yes to everything I probably did originally, I don't know but I kind of go well my big thing is how do you know you enjoy doing something unless you try it it's as stupid as I went on a holiday once with Vince years ago and he went, how about we get some snails and I went, no, disgusting, and he went, have you ever had any? and they went, no, disgusting. And he went, well, how do you know? And it's like garlic. To be fair, it's like garlic chicken. So I wouldn't necessarily rush out and have them again, but it was one of those things, I'll just try everything. Just try it. Try it strictly.

47:20We both know about that. Yes. But that is the beauty as well, the kind of profile that you have, that you get offered all kinds of interesting things, that the lad from Southend, as you remind us a lot in the book, the lad from Southend, you're proud of your roots, you're proud of where you came from and what you've been able to achieve. as we sit here now and you're 56 years old and looking in great shape, you look healthy and well, you're navigating this decade well. Do you feel as happy and fulfilled as you ever have? Yeah, pretty much so. I feel fortunate that I had the career I did, that I do what I do now, that I get to talk to a lot of people in businesses, but the one thing that gives me most satisfaction is when I go into schools and colleges, whether I do their awards or I get the opportunity to talk to them.

48:11And hopefully that little moment when I was a kid, when Duncan Goody came and spoke to me, yes, it was about swimming, but I get to hopefully inspire them or change the way they think or just a little thing they might take away from what I say that might help them. I feel very fortunate. I feel very fortunate at 56 years of age. I get to do what I do. What do you want people to take away from the book? The whole thing about doing it was, I said to Tom who wrote the book, The Ghostwriter, because at school I was very good at maths, I'm very good at logic, I'm not very good at English. I can speak, but I'm not very good at the written word.

48:51So he put the story into a readable form. He wrote it very, very well. There's no shame in having a ghostwriter. A lot of people do. I mean, you'd have to explain yourself on that. Because he said to me at the beginning, he went, look, give me everything. I'll write it and if there's anything you don't want to know you can take it out right and I knew a few other people I won't mention any names that had done books in the past and I went you didn't really say anything I know everything there's nothing in there I didn't know about you so I thought I want it to be something where I do open up I'm a little bit vulnerable I tell people stuff they don't know about me but the big thing I said to Tom was my why is it's got to help people if it starts discussion it's a bit about me being vulnerable telling certain stories exposing more things about myself but more about and I've had lots of messages from people that have that are still struggling with being themselves some are still in marriages with kids and that's become their and I won't judge anybody because everybody's got their own story and I never stepped in anybody else's shoes but people and some other people have had the same story then they came out but other people I think that on the other side of the world where it is illegal to be gay or the death penalty to be gay that they might go, oh, do you know what?

50:06Someone else has been able to be themselves, which is the way you should be able to be. Well, it's a great story. And as always, it's lovely to spend time in your company. And I hope you continue to thrive, survive, and do everything you want to do through the next few years of this decade and beyond. Mark Bolster, thank you. Thank you so much.