Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 37: Sylvia Mac

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

Sylvia Mac is a campaigner, a survivor and an award winner. Sylvia was two when she suffered horrific burns, in a scalding accident, and was given the last rites. Against the odds, she survived but it wasn't till her 40s that she learned to accept her scars and not to feel ashamed of them. Her three children have been on a difficult journey with her but there is love everywhere in her life and she says it's never too late to start believing you're beautiful. She won the Wellness Warrior award in 2020 and founded Love Disfigure to offer support to those living with burns and scarring.Trigger warning: this podcast mentions a burning accident and suicidal thoughts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hey my loves, this is Risky. I'm recording this for you in a play park.

That's right, you heard me correctly. I've gone rogue. I'm doing this out and about. There's other parents around, other kids, trains, dogs, big puddles. Anything could happen. I thought now's the time to talk to you. Anyway, how have you been? Hope you've had a good week. What's been going on around around here i've had quite a varied week actually it's uh involved me getting so drenched in the torrential downpour that happened in london on monday that uh i went to a parent's evening that they decided to hold outdoors in and we're not talking about just a you know an average big downpour we're talking about the sort of downpour that resulted in houses getting flooded the local borough declared a state of

emergency and ray and i walked to parents evening spoke about his school work uh and the time when every time the lightning flashed and the thunder crashed everybody jumped out their skin and then on the way home i got so drenched and they oh that's right they cancelled the tubes we couldn't get home that way as we walked and then my skirt had got sodden underneath my raincoat so i decided the best thing was to take my skirt off and belt my raincoat like a dress which i thought was incredibly practical my nine-year-old son was not quite such a big fan of that anyway I got home it's one of those sort of walks through the rain where in the end you just succumb to it Ray was just walking wading through the big puzzles and actually it was quite fun well I'll go and get it for you wait

there that was a request for apple juice um anyway last week I was lucky enough to speak to this week's guest. Her name is Sylvia, Sylvia Mack, and she goes under the name Love Disfigure on Instagram, which is where I first... Actually, it's not quite true. I found out about her on two places. Instagram, yes, but also the BBC News website where there was an article about her. Really interesting interview. And I thought, oh, I would love to speak to her for my podcast because

I wanted to share her story with you if you haven't heard before so essentially as Sylvia will talk about she was very badly burned as a child in fact she's she was burned exactly the same age years and months that my youngest is now so I can really oh touch the sides of that that trauma because it's sort of like worst nightmare stuff um you know she explains it all much better than I ever would and I felt so privileged listen nobody has to do these podcast interviews with me I ask people that I really love to speak to and I get very excited when they say yes but we are talking about very personal things here and people's lives and Sylvia very generously talked to me about all sorts of things including a time when she was abusing with alcohol she was feeling suicidal and I really regard that as a massive privilege and indication of trust that people give me those

life stories so thank you very much to her and I really hope it helps some people out there because I think the most thing you must feel all the time when you're in that situation is very isolated and alone and people being brave enough to talk about it like Sylvia when they're the other side counts for a lot doesn't it anyway I uh i'm playing fast and loose talking to you for such a long time in a playground so i'm going to leave you with our chat which i absolutely adored and i think she's an amazing woman just as a side note as well silvio looks really young she's got a grand grand babies and she looks honestly you'd think she was like 20 or 30 years younger than she is. Extraordinary.

Anyway, that's beside the point. Just wanted to get that out of there. Anyway, I will leave you with our conversation. See you on the other side. And I've got some apple juice to find. Is that right, Mickey? Oh, you want to go on the slide. Brilliant.

All right, see you in a bit. Bye. see you in a bit bye thank you for having us over here and come on you're welcome lovely Hackney

sorry you can't get anywhere tomorrow it's ok take up your whole day no it's alright there's just a bit when we were driving around and we stopped

this guy and we're like excuse me do you know his apartment oh no he's desperate around here and we're like oh god you're just gonna be circling your house for hours but no we've got here now and we're sitting very close to this fantastic award seems like a good place to start with the woman of the year awards 2020 and this is the boots

wellness warrior award that you were given last year. So that must feel like an amazing thing to have been given, not just because of the significance of the award, but given everything that's gone on to get you to where you're at now. Yeah, I think the most amazing thing about it was my eldest daughter, Naomi, she nominated me and she put me forward and I never knew anything about it until I was contacted in an email to say oh do you know that you've been sort of like nominated and all these people have actually put you forward for this award so there's a good possibility that you might even win this award and And I was like, what's this award?

And then my daughter said, oh, by the way, I've got to tell you that I put you forward for the... So it was quite amazing, especially as she had been through so much with me growing up, you know, and, you know, it wasn't very nice for her, what she had to see and what she had to go through. So coming out of it and being so proud of me and doing something like that just made it so wonderful you know this season is all yeah it's making me feel weepy I'm sure for not the first time we're going to speak but so this is

yours this is what that lives with you yes so she's the one with the three children. Yeah, so, yeah, she's great. She's always been just a great child growing up, always supporting. She was a bit like a mummy at times. As young as probably the age of 10, she just was so grown up and adult-like and she just took on quite a lot and um she see quite a lot of things and you know we we spoke about so much lately and she's so proud of me and so happy that you know that i am i have accepted my body and my scars now and yeah it's really lovely no it is and i think i think kids can be amazingly perceptive sometimes and recognizing that you know i think as as parents we can

sometimes feel like we're they sort of we set the tone for everything whereas actually of course you're a massive part of what sets the tone for a kid but also they get influences from lots of other places so as they grow up they can see she could probably see sort of almost two sides of you the caring mother side and also the you that's just you trying to deal with being you if that makes sense and I think um that I was very caring as well my mother also very caring and supportive of me growing up especially as I nearly died as a as a child age two and um so my mum was always very supportive caring always at the hospital she'd travel for miles to get to me every single day from East London to Middlesex she'll get on the train and you know every day she would visit me and and right up into you know my 20s

she would take me to the hospital still while I was having procedures done um so I think I got that caring side from my mother and then I kind of like brought that out with my children because all I ever wanted was to have a child um and I don't know what that why that was probably because because I was the youngest of five girls yeah um and um yeah so it was amazing when I actually become pregnant and then had Naomi she was just such a great kid yeah yeah well I think you know you sort of alluded to it so this is this all sort of stems from this massively defining thing that happened to you when you're only two and a half is it two and a half which so actually involve one of your sisters is that right

yes um so I've got um four elder sisters as I said and um my sister Sheila she's a couple of years older than me so we um like to play in our in the in the flat I think it was like a two-bedroom flat actually so there were seven of us living in a two-bedroom flat in the east end of London and um yeah so it you know we was happy we played a lot and um you know my mum and dad worked really hard to make sure that we were okay and you know we were well fed and always looked clean and dress you know all of that stuff they they they worked so hard to make sure we was okay and um and this particular day we was um we we were having quite a lot of power cuts and so my mum decided she would boil water on top of the stove and then put it into bowls onto the bathroom floor um and then she'd just pour it into the bath and she was doing that regularly this was just for to running baths just yeah it was just to keep the like boiling water to make sure that if the power

cut you know if the power the electric runs out then or power if we have a power cut which we had lots of and blackouts and stuff like that she would um you know always have that boiling water there to put into the bath for us and me and Sheila always had a bath together so we would like always be the last ones to get into the bath and so she'd put this um boiling water um on into this bowl on the on the floor and we were just playing hide and seek you know you don't expect to be playing a game a child game and for it to turn so wrong you just don't um which is why I say you know but just be really careful as as a child like you've got to just really watch your children and and make sure that they are safe um and my mum

had told all of us you know not to go into the bathroom but I think because I was two and a half I kind of read that differently and and I thought oh you know this is such a great place for me to go and hide you know I'm two and a half years old I'm gonna go and hide in the bathroom because mum said don't go in there and so no one's gonna go in there so you can see how it was kind of like yeah it's construed in my head like it's it's a great place to go in there. So you can see how it was kind of misconstrued in my head. It's a great place to go. And so that's what I did. And I just went and hid behind the door and shut myself in there.

And eventually she realised that, well, she's got to be in the bathroom. So she just pushed the door and I went flying backwards into the boiling water on the floor. And then, oh, you can imagine it was just screaming and, you know, my mum trying to run me under cold water. Do you actually remember it? I don't remember it. No, I don't remember anything. All I remember was just the hospital, being in the hospital and how difficult it was being in there um being left with my mum's purse while she went off home at the end of the day and um being in a

wall that was surrounded with adults as well as children and most of the burn survivors in there um had their faces burnt so they would have their faces bandaged up so that must have been very scary it was very scary for me and i remember i used to spend most of my time hiding under the cover and i actually remember one day just um kind of like waking up and seeing somebody in front of me, like with their face fully bandaged, with like just some little holes for their nose. And it just frightened the life out of me. And I had so many nightmares, so many nightmares.

I went home when I got back home and I began just having nightmares. So how long were you in hospital but I mean because this was just to sort of clarify severity but you were actually they thought you might not make it yeah so when it actually happened we went to the nearest hospital which was just around the corner from us it was a London hospital and um they they had no facilities for burns. They just didn't deal with that kind of stuff. And they said, you know, she's two and a half. She's not going to make it. Like, she just won't make it because it's such a bad injury

and it's so deep and it's just so... It was the trauma. Was your mum and dad both with you? No, so basically my dad went to the hospital with me and left my mother at home looking after the others because she needed to find someone to look after the children. So he said, look, I'll go. So he went to the hospital with me,

and while he was there a priest come down, and he spoke to the priest because my dad was um quite a religious man he went to church he catholic man and he decided that i hadn't been baptized i was the only one that hadn't been baptized and he said to the priest could you baptize her and then give her her last rites and so that's what he did um but he also rang my mum to say she's not going to survive so it was really difficult for my mum and um and it was literally within the space of probably 30 minutes 20 30 minutes that another that's come in and said, let's try something. Let's try, get her to Middlesex Hospital and see what we can do.

They'll put her on life support if she survives. So they got a police assistance, got us all the way to the hospital and I stayed on life support for I should imagine about probably about a week um and then they told my parents that I wasn't gonna survive and needed to get the family anyone else in um and the next day the guy next to me in the bed next to me he also was severely burnt um his his wife had come in one um sorry his wife was cooking some oil in a pan and he walked in she threw the oil over his head and he ended up on life support and then why did she throw the oil up by accident because no because she thought that he was cheating um and then the my parents heard the doctor say that he would survive but i wouldn't

and we were like in the beds next to each other the next day he died and i lived oh my goodness so it was quite quite something yeah wow i mean is this something as because obviously when you're talking about your family i hear bucket loads of love that's there in terms of that you could you know your parents had good intentions they were actually you know trying to look out make sure that there was water for the bath if the power cut again yeah and so effectively i mean i know you know as an adult you're sort of working out why did i run behind that door yeah but actually two and a half year olds yeah i mean my little list is two and a half i wouldn't count him to have common sense very much at all yeah and and also

if i say don't go and have a look behind their chance that's the first thing i think to do yeah so sometimes you know i think things just happen yeah and I'm sure every family can think of, off the top of their heads, at least 10 near misses that happen with all sorts of accidents, you know. And is it something you would talk about? I mean, obviously the treatment must have been going on for, I mean, you've mentioned being in your 20s and still in hospital. Oh yeah, it still goes on today. Really? Yeah, I'm still due to have a lot of work done to my back. And is this because scars get tight?

Yes, so because of the depth of the scarring, I've got full thickness burns. And so what happens is underneath the skin, I've got these thick, it's a bit like spaghetti junction, basically. It's just thick ropes. They run up and down. So at the moment, i'm doing yoga so i've noticed that when i do stretches like i there's so much pulling and tightness when i swim because i've been swimming for years it's always been really good for me because it keeps my weight

down which is great um and at the same time like it helps me become more flexible but the tightness is always there in the back because because of the contractors and basically what they are they're just from from the depth of the the burns of the injury they just knotted up through muscle and tendon and and all of that so I'm waiting to get all of that fixed out wow I mean so this is just the magnitude of the accident so this is the majority of your back yeah well it left a big hole in my back yeah and when they pulled me up off the life support um they they didn't even know because i'd been laying on my back even though um because they expected they didn't expect me to survive so they wasn't doing any work on my back um so when they lifted me up and turned me turned me over this is words

from my mum she said that um she just see this hole and she just went to scream like and go oh you know like and they just went to her no you've got to support your daughter don't get upset don't let her see you upset now and she had to just be strong and yeah and is it something that got spoken I mean did you talk about this accent because obviously that's that's a massive deal between your mum and you but yeah all of your effect this is you know the whole family this is a defining thing because we the the only time that we really spoke about it it was it was never it was just like whenever we'd go to the hospital together and i'll be i remember i used to be skipping along, holding her hand,

and I used to ask her questions all the time. This is from the ages of six and seven and eight and nine and going back and forth to the hospital. And I'd talk to her about it, and she used to just say to me, oh, you're an angel. She'd say all these, oh, you're an angel. And she'd say all these, just, oh, you're so beautiful and you're amazing.

And, you know, you survived. She just always encouraged me in positive words and stuff. And I used to feel so good about myself at that age. And I remember, like, I used to skip along and look up at the sky and go, oh, I'm an angel. Oh, you know, I used to think I was so like

wonderful and great and because that was like instilled in me over the years but um I never really ever sat down and spoke until like probably in my 40s maybe and I'd say to my mum you know like like what what actually happened like and she'd go over it and go over it and and and it was like oh okay well I've heard it so many times that it doesn't really matter to me you know whatever happened um I'd never blame my mother anyway because she's always been so supportive and caring. Yes. So, yeah, so literally, like, we would always just, like, have little conversations, but nothing too deep. But by the time I hit secondary school, that was when it all changed for me,

and then it was like, I'm no longer that beautiful angel. I'm now a problem and yeah it just went downhill from from that age so when you sort of went to secondary and yeah double figures and just was it just the sort of brutality of that that landscape because that can be it was just it was just a one-off thing that happened and it was on my first day of secondary school just a one-off thing that happened and it was on my first day of secondary school and we were playing hockey and um we were told to you know on your first day you're told to bring your old kit you take everything with you you don't expect anything really and we were playing hockey and the pt teacher said you're all going to have a shower and I was just absolutely shocked and I was like

no like I can't like I just didn't know because it was my first day of secondary school I didn't know how to you know I didn't want to talk up to this teacher and she was quite big and she looked a bit scary to me at the time and um and she just went to me go and get changed go and get changed get your towel put it around you and and I did and the old time I was just so scared and as we were kind of like going along she was literally like pushing people into the showers like one two three four five out it's I didn't even understand why we was having a shower for like five seconds and then being pulled out and then as I got up to her I just went to her like no like I can't and she just ripped the towel off me in front of everyone and pushed me into the

shower and she didn't even think for one minute that oh I can see something's wrong here you know and and that just caused me to to lose all my confidence and like low self-esteem and all of that and I found it really difficult to find friends and I literally um I hate PE just because of that moment. I was that child that just didn't want to engage in any type of sport because of that. But my mum went off to school the next day. Like I said, she's always supportive. And she was a really strong woman. Like, you know, she'd chase a boy down the road with a mop and broom you know she's really like that kind of really outspoken tough tough woman and um yeah she went straight up the school

and said she's not having she's not doing pe no more and i was like oh but i like pe and she was like no not if they're going to make you shower you're not um and we had nuns at this school and and the head nun she just said no you don't have to do it if you don't want to and so I had like a free pass whether I wanted to do it or not okay um which was nice but but the damage had been done the damage had been done yeah and it was um just horrible um I'm Trying to find friends. Yeah. I couldn't find friends and I didn't really know why. And then one day I decided to start speaking to this girl

because my sister Sheila went to the same school and she was really, like, bullish. Like, she liked to... She always got into fights and stuff. She was really naughty all the time. And every time her name come over the tannoy everyone used to look at me and go oh your sister and i'd be like i sit at the back of the class i was quiet i didn't want to i tried to make myself invisible so i i'd never put my

hand up in class i'd be at the back always whenever there was like a group photo on an outing i'd be at the end and funny enough i literally i just see a picture the other day on facebook because there's a group of of us from school and the i was standing at the end of the picture with my little plastic bag my little lunch bag and um and i just thought god that was me I didn't want to be I didn't even want to be in the picture because I felt ugly all the time I didn't feel I just felt so uncomfortable I'd walk into the toilets and everyone would be brushing their hair and putting on a bit of makeup and I'd just be like you know put my head down walk in walk out and yeah I found it really difficult to just yeah just being be me and it was literally just felt like I was in this bubble I think as well

when for your parents I'm sure you've been the other side of this with your kids but there's this bit that happens when they get to a certain age where suddenly all the things that all that stuff you took the force field you try and put around them of you know you're beautiful and amazing and you've got so much going for you and there's this bit where the kids get to the sort of yeah double figure secondary school and that just doesn't work anymore coming from the parents or coming from their family so for your mum and dad who'd spent so long trying to sort of imbue you with all this confidence and you know you're an angel and it's like this is actually pretty miraculous you're here and you're so special and then suddenly they try and say those things and it's just

yeah not hitting the spot anymore it's just um and I suppose for you do you feel like it was a hundred percent caught up in how you felt about what happened because of your scars on your body? Because I thought I was unique and different and just beautiful. And all of those words were... It's great when a parent can tell a child that has a trauma those kind of things. tell a child that has a trauma those kind of things um but then there comes a time when that child gets a little bit more grown and then they start to question oh actually and and sometimes you wonder if is it damaging what the parents have done like do they need a bit more educating when it comes to stuff like that I definitely

think so because I just feel that a lot of parents out there are doing that all the time with the children and they just can't cope when it comes to you know when they get to like a school age where they want to want to be confident and have friends and they start to kind of go within themselves and they lose that and they just don't have the help or support and there was no support for me yes i know this is the thing i think we're still i mean even that that thing of giving kids the sort of lack of agency about the control like that thing saying i don't want to go in the shower you know that whole dynamic of the teacher saying it's happening yeah no yeah no yeah it doesn't feel right and so when you say about things changing do you mean if if someone is how to help people cope with all their

idiosyncrasies and anything that feels outside of the typical yeah when they when they come into that that kind of environment they've got better tools yeah because if you think about it I've I've got the like the best parents supportive caring love I've been brought up in this loving family that would do anything and everything for me as far as I'm concerned and and people always go, well, why did you end up like that? And it's just from, I think, having too much pumped into me, like hype, like, oh, you're great and, you know, and I'm special. And, you know, also you've got to remember I've got four elder sisters and I'm suddenly made special.

And that was also, I i felt damaging for my sisters because i feel like again um the the other children need to or that child that you're making special needs to just be like the other kids and um and not keep putting them on the pedestal and saying it's okay if you don't want to do that darling that's fine well you four have to do it you know and and I feel now like it's maybe not so much now but you know as I got older I started to think do my sisters dislike me and there was a few times like I'd been through things with them and and I thought actually I think they don't like me very much because they used to go oh you're spoiled or you're just so spoiled and then my mum would say yeah well she's got a reason to be you know and I was like oh what do I do

yeah you know and as much as they care and they support you and and you feel like you can talk to them you just want to talk to someone else that as scarring or you know someone else that's like you that's all you want really yeah and it helps yeah it helps but um I just didn't have that I felt like I was the only person in the world with scars and that's the truth yeah which and I suppose it's it's funny because you said about this things have changed a bit now but then there wasn't that support but it's also for the parents I think for your family they got taken from one way of life to suddenly having this kid with yeah really quite advanced medical needs.

Yeah. And they're just ill-prepared all round. So there sort of needs to be more support and clarity and transparency with all those things. I think we're getting better. Yeah. And people like you are definitely... I was thinking about this yesterday when I knew I was coming to see you. And I was thinking about those concentric circles, really.

And about how through all of your experiences, you're now able to put back into the world the person that you were looking for back then. And for all those people whose lives you touch, with people who go, oh my goodness, I never wear a bikini on the beach and now if she can do it, that's like, do not underestimate.

I'm sure you've told this a lot, but it's such a significant thing. It is um and whilst not everybody might go through something as specific as as you know scarring yeah i think on i can't think of many people that go through life without any experience of feeling like yeah i don't know how to find that that confidence or find a person that's like me particularly in the brutality of secondary school yeah and you're right that they have that thing of just finding another kid like you and that sort of resilience but I wonder as a parent I wonder how your mum and dad would have found that at the time because I think your instinct is just to go oh my god she's here and she's going through so much and we just want her to feel loved and given this space

but it's interesting hearing it from a grown-up going yeah actually I felt like I was giving too much of a yeah pedestal that's like a longer way to fall down again but you but you've also got to remember that the families have gone through it as well the children were there the parents um you know it wasn't until I hit my 40s and I was really, you know, on social media, social media or on the website looking for help and support for bodies like mine. And I couldn't find that. And something that stood out to me was that families suffer with PTSD when a trauma happens to a child so straight away that that I was just like I was like oh my poor mum like and that really bothered me so much especially even that time when she was told

don't scream don't show how you're feeling about this that's a lot suddenly oh I do you know yeah yeah so I always say like to people that i speak to you know um the families are just important and they need to be involved in conversations when it comes to their child or you know and i think it's also about inclusive inclusivity and how we show what society is like and all the many ways that people exist yeah because um i think it's often i mean do you can you think of any times when you were growing up that you did see someone in any position where you thought oh that that actually that resonates with me um yeah elephant man yes so I remember watching the film I think his name is John John Merrick I was actually talking about him this morning to my kids really yeah they asked

me about the slightest film I'd ever seen and I said that film made me cry so much and I remember at the end of it thinking he's the only person that that I kind of resonate with that I felt I'm just like him really you know I felt sad because I felt sad for him but I could see that inside he was you know he's a real person and he just wants to fit in and that was how I felt so it was as much as I say you know he was the person that I looked at and thought some people might go yeah but he was extreme you know compared to you but it's got nothing to do with that it's how I was feeling at the time yeah I can completely understand that and it's a it's a sort of it became almost like a sort of slightly um what's the word um exaggerated version of how you're feeling because the whole that was obviously in a time in victorian england where people that

were outside of the typical work you know freak shows yeah and you think about i was describing literally it's so funny brought it up because i was literally talking about it in the school around this morning as we walked through the park and i was saying you know in this time people would pay money to go and see people do we know oh a woman who happens to have a you know a beard or can join twins or so for the elephant man you know even that is you know horrific like yeah a nickname out born out something. And I think that's why now looking at that film, it's particularly so heartbreaking. Because you just can see that this is an...

But I guess for you, the whole thing of the freak show thing was probably how you felt when you were going to school. Yeah. That day in the showers. Yeah. And the way that I felt was that everybody knew. And even though they didn't, even my best friend, she didn't even know that I had scars and she didn't find out till later on anyway but um I kind of felt every time I went

into school that everyone knew that I had scars and then in the summer when we wore short sleeve shirts I've got some scars on my arms and when we wore shorts the really short shorts for PE you could see the scar on my leg and also if anyone and most back then I don't know if it's still the same girls would just come and hug you and and they touch my shirt and feel like the lumps and bumps are on my back and that was really uncomfortable I had to try that and I think that's why I stayed at the back of the class and I always tried not to be seen because I didn't want anyone to do that and go oh and I had a few people go oh what's this and I'm like oh and they used to think i was wearing something underneath my my blouse or my shirt so yeah it's a little bit i suppose well you've got all this where you're

feeling about yourself in an emotional cycle obviously still dealing with the physical stuff as well operations and that's that's incredibly wearing and again like reinforces your feeling that you're living a life that not everybody else is living because that's a very serious thing to have to think about yeah procedures and operations and things like that as well and so this was you say it's still happening now but you did manage to meet someone when you're in your 20s I guess is it to yeah your family yeah I met some someone and um it was good because he told me that he'd accepted me for my scars which and it was difficult because obviously at that at that age you now think about well I did anyway I thought about having a baby and I thought about just everything about a relationship and me being in a relationship

and would it work and and I questioned it and then um I kind of had times where I'd have to sit down and explain to the person that actually I've got scars and then they could walk away if they felt to and did that ever happen yeah it did yeah really yeah they wasn't interested yeah and um like I literally would never see him again until one day I met this guy and and um I told him I had to do it every time I had to say look because I couldn't start a relationship and then when it got a little bit deeper like further along I didn't want to have to go through that the first initial you know dating period and then end up like oh gosh now I'm gonna have to say it I don't want to waste my time to be honest

and probably a little bit more to it but I I just said you know I've got scars and this was from first off and we were actually just friends at the time and he said oh oh can I have a look and I was like oh no one's ever asked to look at them before and I was like are you sure and he said yeah I don't mind it doesn't bother me and then he was like oh touch them and I thought oh this is really weird um and then that was it it was just like oh love that's it I'm in love now doesn't matter he's accepted me you know um I still wasn't happy um but I was I was happy that somebody was now loving me. And then when I had my daughter, I thought I'd be great,

everything would be perfect because I've now made a little family. But I still wasn't happy and I didn't know what was going on. I was struggling so much. This is when you had your first baby. Yeah. Can you really remember that that time when you she's born and just oh it was the best feeling in the world being a mother it was just it was and i was i was one of these people because i had to go and see the consultants um to make sure that

it would be okay for me to get pregnant in the first place because of the scars across my tummy and they were like yeah that's fine you'll be fine don't worry it will stretch in other places don't worry everything could be fine it's it's on the outside and it's not you know on the tummy it's not deep underneath you'll be fine and yeah and it looked really awkward but and, but, and I had quite, quite a big tummy at the time. Um, and it stretched really well and everything and, um, had the baby. She, she was fine. Throughout the old pregnancy, I was literally like one of these pet, one of these mothers to be that, um um loved every single day of pregnancy and when it got to it i said no i don't i want a natural birth i don't i'm not taking anything and and i just went right through with it i didn't understand mothers i went to every class every antenatal class um but i just didn't understand

these mothers that complained all the time I was too hot and I used to be like oh for goodness sake you should be you know in loving your body and loving as much as I hated my body but I was just like you've got like a little human being in here um and then when I had had her it was it was great I just wanted to breastfeed her straight away and and all of that and and it just seems come natural for me yeah um and like I said I think it was all to do with my mum being a loving caring supportive mother yeah and then it kind of like rubbed off on me a little bit uh yeah and you've mentioned that with your daughter that nominated you that she she sort of saw a lot growing up and she

quickly was quite a sort of old soul with what she was dealing with yeah yeah absolutely she so she seen me go through the period where um i started to abuse with alcohol um because I thought you know what's the point I'm buying these magazines every week uh and I I would I literally would like open up the magazine and I couldn't see any representation of bodies like mine in there and in fact some of these magazines were the ones that you know have the celebrities on the front and they're pointing at the little fatty bits and they're pointing at that scar and and I just thought you know what what do I have going for me in this life if that's what's going on and I'm buying these magazines but I still kept buying them and uh yeah and then I started

to abuse with alcohol and I just felt like I was stuck in this box I couldn't be me I couldn't be the person that I really wanted to be and I knew that like inside I knew that I was kind of Inside, I knew that I was kind of, I'm not trying to be gay or anything, but I knew that I could be like a good person. I wanted to be that person, but I just struggled so, so much. And that was the only way of kind of like just trying to forget a little bit. Yeah, well, I think it's funny when you said about the magazines i thought actually when you when you put it like that it's absolutely extraordinary that that's a sort of legal way to portray anybody who's just getting on with being who they are

whether they're in public eye or not and actually you don't you don't think about the fact that not only is that not how most people you know we could circle things on everybody but for anyone that's going through you know very complex relationship yeah with their physicality that's absurdly yeah i mean overindulging is even allowed as a thing like yeah let's pick pick holes in this i mean how damaging how criminally damaging and and you say you keep buying them because it's sort of laid out like it's aspirational and it's kind of there's a lot about it it's like sort of catnip of like new bits of information and stuff but really what you're really doing is reinforcing this feeling in yourself that you you don't pass muster

yeah and that other people see people like that whereas of course you don't see people like that I don't see people and that's not how most people are not walking around ringing things actually when you talked about meeting the the guy that you know you had your babies with yeah when you when you love someone there's that bit where you're learning about them and taking it all in and then after that they're just there aren't they you don't you don't see it over and over yeah any of it good bad that they're just them aren't they you don't you don't see it over and over yeah any of it good bad anything they're just who they are and actually the people that have got lovely souls only get more attractive and the people no matter how gorgeous

they are if they're not very nice to be around they start to you know not look as good unless it just sort of represents that but yeah we've got to make sure that that never ever becomes part of you know the future, actually. No. There's so much. When he says, well, you felt like you were in a box, it's like, well, it's so, and I've mentioned it before, but just that idea of the representation. Yeah.

Making sure for all those kids growing up. I mean, even, I've spoken to my kids about this as well, but even the fact that it's sometimes in films or in stories the um evil characters might have a physical scar yeah which is extraordinary when you think about it isn't it the association of one and the other um which isn't fair you know it's not fair on young people young children that that are growing up with a visible or hidden difference like me and they see that and other people see that and other children see that and then they'll see the person their friend maybe that has a scar and then they'll be like oh you're the baddie you know and and it is really damaging and I don't think

you know media sometimes and the press they just the way that they put things out they've just got to be so careful yeah because they are they're still damaging so many young people when your kids were little how did you go about not passing on that feeling of you know how you felt about yourself yeah getting them to feel good in themselves yeah I think I was really good at um acting a little bit and um just letting them know that they're they're beautiful and they're like I always was a bit like how my mum was with me with them um and I made sure that they were okay and that everything that I did was for them every bit of love I had was for the children and and it showed later on because when I went through a point of such low self-esteem and severe severe depression um I the very first time I went out with my

daughter to the went to the bus stop I don't even know where we were going but she was um in her buggy I can't even remember how old she was but probably about the age of five four probably about four or five yeah and I remember her sitting in the buggy and the bus coming along and I looked at her and I thought if I stand back that bus will carry on going past shall I just run in front of it? And that was kind of what was going through my head at the time. And as it got closer, I turned around and looked at her and I thought, you can't do that to her. You can't do that to her because you wouldn't want your, you know, you didn't want your mum to go through that,

so why would you do that like you shouldn't know and so I stopped myself from doing things like that but but having said that I still had all these other thoughts of ways of maybe like a lot of suicidal thoughts and and writing notes and talking to my daughter I remember saying to her you know you know mummy might not wake up tomorrow and then I realized what am I doing like I'm why am I saying this stuff to her it's not good you know so that's why I'm saying Naomi the eldest she went through a lot like she went through a lot and she's going no mummy it's okay and it's just horrible to think about it now and to see how she's grown into just a really good mother

herself now with three children and you know and it's just a shame that she went through that and like I hate myself for it but I can't change it All I can do is change the way that I am as a person and just keep showing her, you know, inspiring her. Yeah, and I think also, you know, obviously that's really heartbreaking. But I think the biggest success of things was always as i think as parents is to create people children that can grow up to be to be loved and give love and actually it's you know there's through all of this even through all the darkest moments there's still that love that's there and the fact that she actually is the person you looked at and thought i'm not

today yeah and sometimes you are just putting one foot in front of the other and getting through the days but I said well thank you so much for being so honest about it as well because you know these these are things that are very private dark thoughts at the time and I think there gets to be a lot of um and shame and secrecy around that as well yeah um I feel like sometimes I want to share those things and and you know you just can't because you never know if you're gonna you know if it's the wrong time for somebody else and um so yeah I tend not to like talk about those kind of things but I'm sharing it with you yeah well I really thank you very much because also it makes what you've achieved so much more extraordinary actually because for anyone that's gone through

things or felt you know touched the sides of anything you're talking about the idea that you can go from literally feeling like that to coming out the other side and you know when you've spoken about sort of having this like epiphany later on it's that's an amazing sort of switch to find in yourself because it did sound like you almost had this one day that kind of yeah changed everything oh yeah yeah and that was with your your boy was with is that your whole family with you um just my just my son was with with me and your mum my mum yeah and um we um it was it was kind of like the whole year leading up to this holiday was very strange because um my sister who's now a firefighter one that um pushed a dog even though it wasn't she's a firefighter that wasn't fire yeah but she loves telling everyone my sister that's my sister like she's so proud of me and everything and they go oh you're the one that pushed her and she's like oh stop it we just

but we met for comment i know but we met you know we're at that age now where we just joke about it. I'm glad I speak to that point. Yeah, they can be really horrible. You're the one that did it. Only in families. Only families are allowed to talk to family like that. I know. It's funny. In fact, we're so close, actually, me and her.

Are you? So, so close. Do you remember her being there through all of the childhoods all the procedures yeah i think like through the procedures and that it was always just me and my mum always um my dad just seemed to be always at work um was your mum a working mum did she have a job yeah oh god yes and funny enough so the hospital where i'd originally gone to the london hospital my mum um she cleaned she was a cleaner in there and she used to clean in the mornings in the evenings she just worked so hard she was a cleaner in the hospital you first went to yeah

yeah that took me away and sent me somewhere else yeah so she'd been working in there for years and um and my dad was a delivery delivery driver so and what about you were you working throughout this time as well or you raising raising the family or um so yeah so when I was raising the children I strangely enough only worked with children yeah and um and I felt like it was because I struggled to talk to adults yeah it's really strange but that's the truth actually because kids as well they're very um they sort of take it as it comes really so they don't they're quite pragmatic about life there is no other version of events and you say this is how it is okay and then you move on to the next thing yeah it's funny because

I um so I taught swimming and I worked in special needs school which I loved and it made me feel so good that was one of the jobs that I absolutely loved in my 20s um and so yeah I was always working throughout and um so um leading up to the the actual turning point when my life changed, my sister Sheila, her friend, had just lost her job in the fire brigade. And I said, oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. And she said, oh, it's okay. I've got a new job and I absolutely love it.

So I was like, oh, that's amazing. She went, yeah, you should read this. It's called The Secret. And I was like, oh's amazing she went yeah you you should read this it's called The Secret and I was like oh right okay so she sent me this um just a little bit some paragraphs to it and I thought oh this is really amazing you know I've never thought about this I've really been really negative really depressed crying a. And this is quite a positive thing. I'm not used to anything like this. I'm not used to being positive. And I thought, oh, I'll try some of these things. And it was just like one day went out, like made myself look kind of like nice,

looked in the mirror and went, you're beautiful. And went out and I remember this guy come running across all the way from the other side of the park and he went I just noticed you from all the way over there and I thought you're absolutely beautiful and it was the strangest thing and then and I was like oh you know I'm a mother and he was like he's got like a rucksack on his back he's like oh yeah i'm going to university i said yeah but i'm a mother and he was like okay and i'd never been approached or he went i just want to tell you you're really beautiful and he walked off and i thought this was the strangest thing so that was kind of like the the first start to this thing the secret sorry this is like a book by

ronda bern and it's about about manifesting and stuff like that, and just positive affirmations and stuff like that. Okay, and so that advice was look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you're beautiful. Yeah, that you're beautiful, and I found that really hard to do, but with my clothes on, I could just about do it, so I tried it and I did it, and something happened. And then I was still kind of like looking to see if there

was any support out there for me because even in my 40s I still needed some support I wanted to meet a friend I wanted just to talk to somebody and and everything that kept popping up was face face face and charities and organizations everything was about the face and nothing about the body. And I thought, well, you know, what do I do? Like, there's nothing there for me, no support, there's nothing, what do I do? So eventually I, you know, met up with my mum and she said, you know, if you you're gonna you just look like you need an holiday so we went on holiday me my mum and my son um spent a couple of weeks um in Bulgaria and um I don't even realize how bad I actually was like I had it was kind of like when we needed to go and lay on sun loungers i had to be like at

the back around the pole i couldn't have anyone because i'd constantly be turning my head i couldn't have anyone like behind me but i wasn't showing off my scars either so i literally would have something like over the top you'd always top of me yeah yeah but um you know when I lay down I would just like kind of lay down and all the front and whatever would be on display and then thinking back one day we were around the pole and a lady was walking past and this was like the second day that I'd seen her she was she was plus size a big curvy lady and she was wearing a bikini and she walked past me and I noticed that everyone was staring at her and I just watched her and then the second day I see her again and I watched her and I thought she's so happy all these people staring at her she just looks so happy and I thought oh god that's amazing

I wish I could like do that I wish I could be like that so that woman actually inspired me um and then like following days um leading up to like the second week of the holiday my son said oh i want to swim in the pool and so i said okay we need to like get a sun lounger there was nowhere nowhere to go and then he went mum look over the back there but i was like no but it's not right at the back he said no it's all right there's only a couple of people behind do you think your kids by this point was so used to having yeah just so because it was just it was just constant and so they knew they knew oh she's not going to want to sit yeah i was really all right mom there's only a couple of people it was like a habit like i just it was just constant and and i i was constantly looking around and wasn't sure and then at that moment was when I noticed this guy with his

sunglasses and he was laying down with his phone in front of his sorry with his phone in front of his face and um I was I was turning around getting angry because I was such an angry person I was really annoyed and I'm I'm saying no he's filming me he's filming me and the worst that I could think was that he was gonna film me upload this to YouTube it was gonna get hundreds of thousands of likes and hundreds of thousands of people all around the world are gonna go oh that ugly scarred woman and that's all I could think in my head, and that is how bad I felt. That's what the voices in your head were like.

Yeah, because it was just like pure negative talk the whole time. I didn't know what it was like to be positive about my body. And so that was difficult. It was a difficult day. I was, you you know being really horrible like this man got up and walked off with his wife and I wasn't screaming or anything but I was you know quite abusive that's what you're saying things to him like what are you doing yeah you know what what why are you filming me did it and my's saying to me, calm down, he's not doing that, what's wrong?

She went, look, come on, let's go to the beach. And we went down to the beach and when we got to the beach, there were loads of people at the front, but we were like all the way to the back, all alone. And I said, well, this is better. there's no one around now and as we sat there for the first time in a very long time my mum began asking me about my scars and she said to me oh can I touch them and I was like yeah if you want you know you want to touch them you can touch them she was like oh do they hurt does that hurt and I was like mum I'm fine I could see that she was really worried about me um and obviously because she hadn't seen my scars for years I was now in my 40s and she was now like oh oh does that hurt does it and I'm like mum I'm

fine you know that I suffer with my back and that's it don't worry about it then I said to her do you want to walk down to the water's edge and she just went no I'm fine so as I walked off I had like a bikini on and a sarong but it was pulled right up high and I just went to go and like paddle my son was just sat playing and um as I walked down I turned around and I noticed that she had her head hung really low and at that moment something clicked and and I thought I know why she's why she's doing that like she's really worried about me and because of the way that I just behaved like she's really worried and I don't want her to worry like why why should she have to go through that why should you be worrying at my age she shouldn't have to and um and then I walked to the rest of the got to the edge and there were loads of people on their sun loungers and

and um I turned around and it was just like I don't know what happened but I just took off this sarong, threw it down threw even my shoes, kicked them off and I just went mum mum and she looked up and I went

look at me look at me and it was the weirdest thing ever because I just thought I'm allowed to swear I just thought fuck it like I'm just gonna I'm just gonna show everyone that especially my mum I'm doing this for my mum I don't care what everyone else thinks and as I walked back towards her I just done a bit of a kind of like runway walk you know I have my hands on my hips and I'm walking and I felt like that moment and I but I actually believe truthfully that everybody was sat up watching me it was such such a weird moment it was like something out of a movie you know like where as I start walking and I'm like looking at everyone

and they just all suddenly sat up to look at me and it that's how I remember it it's so weird and I got back over to her and I went we're going to be okay you don't need to worry about me everything's fine and she just went I know I know like that and that was it but we had a great holiday yeah we had a great holiday so but I mean so did you find that that it really was just that after that it was like there was just a new tone I felt like for years I'd been saying you know this is my jacket this is my coat my burns is my coat is my jacket of scars and and I just wanted to take it off and that was the moment that I took it off and I just felt free like I felt like god something's happened do you never put it back on again no I've never put it back on again it's still there on the beach

yes not just the sarong there's a whole other wardrobe with the shoes and everything yeah exactly and you said your son was sort of part of that too do you think it was

yeah significant that he was there um or more just that maybe I think it was just at that age where he just he was just

he was just having fun spending the whole day in the pool yeah I can't care less but you've said that he was i suppose because you know he said that there'd be times where he would cuddle you and say it's okay mum so do you think your kids have sort of been part of this yeah definitely yeah he's i mean like i said he's 17 but he's really he's really proud of me. You know, even though I'm seeing, like, the other day he was in the Sunday mirror in my underwear, you know. And I've gone and opened it up and I went, look, England football, you know, on the front.

Your mum on page 33. And he just went, oh, yeah, that's very good, mum. That's very good. That's amazing. So he's quite happy he knows what i do yeah but also you're gonna send that into the world these these people that will also be equipped to to navigate that sort of stuff with other people that's actually you know they've been given the tools to sort of see how this trajectory can go yeah and not be so um

to sort of see how this trajectory can go yeah and not be so um trepidatious about dealing with the sort of more tricky sides of life yeah I feel like as well um not just like all the things that I wanted to do I'm doing now but I feel like I'm just turning everything like 180 because I you know like me buying those magazines and not seeing representation of me I'm like I don't need an agency to represent me I don't need like I'm gonna be I'm gonna be um the first person to go and make that change and and that's what i'm doing like i will come up with something in my head and i just go for it like there's no stopping me like if i think it's going to make a positive change for especially young people and young children that are growing up going to school they might have acne they might have you know scarring um from from trauma from you know and anything that that they feel like other people looking at them they don't feel confident I want them to see these pictures I

want them to see all of this stuff and go oh and they do and I get the messages I you know I had a message from a young girl that had been burnt and she was actually in a hospital bed and she sent me the picture of her in a hospital bed and she went thank you i know that i'm going to be okay and that would that just meant so much yeah it's just so um it's just so inspiring it's powerful stuff as we're talking about with the concentric circles. It's amazing how these things can ripple out. Yeah. And, you know, and also give support to the extended families as well because I think the fact you've talked about that

is actually something that would be quite easy to overlook. It's really going around in my head as well, the idea of, like, if, you know, someone in your family's gone through something, how to get it right with not mollycoddling them the other side of it yeah i'm still wondering how how i would go about that if i was in your mum's shoes if i'm honest i'm not i'm not sure i'd be very good at that i feel like i'd do what your mum and dad did and just go you're really amazing and give yourself a lot of i mean there's nothing wrong with doing that i mean you can do that but just make sure that you integrate that child in make sure

that they're they're doing swimming make sure that they're doing things where their scars might be on display um because that that helps there might be might be some, which is what I had when I was swimming. But it was only a little bit. And, you know, I think that if you can just keep getting them involved in sports and stuff like that and not be scared to not, like, wrap them up and go, oh, no, they can't do that. But the other children can. Just make sure that they're doing the things too yeah because otherwise you get your own bully in your head you don't even need external people do you're doing it to yourself um and i mean we haven't really spoken too much about swimming that's a big part of your

life isn't it yeah yeah um yeah i started swimming probably when i went into secondary school actually my dad got me into swimming um and I wasn't too happy because I don't like the swimming costumes that were like super low at the back like the big you know those ones that drop right yeah yeah and um and my sister Sheila again she always come to my rescue whenever anyone was talking behind my back she would always be the person that would be like shut up don't talk to me i get the impression you wouldn't want to cross and then um you know like at the end of a a gala at the end of a race she'll be there holding the towel and if she wasn't i'd i wouldn't get out the pole oh wow yeah that's amazing so yeah she was she was always really good but um yeah i felt like

swimming was always a little bit of uh an acting role for me you know i had to always think out my path of going into the changing room, making sure everyone had left and gone into the pool. And then I'll quickly run out, run past the spectators, make sure they can't see me and they're looking somewhere else, quickly run, jump into the pool, and that was it. And once I was in the pool and under the water, I was absolutely fine. And you said you wouldn't want to win as well. Yeah, I didn't want to be seen.

I just didn't feel confident enough. It was that old confidence being in secondary school and taking it into swimming. I just didn't want people to see me up on the restroom getting the medals and going, oh, that's the girl with scars. Because that's what people do. They label people that look different. And instead of saying, oh, that's Sally, you know, Sharon's sister

or something like that, they'll be like, oh, that's the girl with scars. Oh, that's the girl that has all the spots on her face. You know, it's just not nice. And with sort of present day, what's it like now you're a grandma? How are you known? Are you granny, are you grandma? Grand. Or are you nan? Your mum was nan, wasn't she?

She's nan to your kids. So you've carried that one on. Yeah. Because you feel like you've got very different, I mean, everybody says it's very different being a grandparent rather than being a parent anyway. Yeah. Can you sort of sense that they're getting this version of you

that's this different version to what your kids had because of where you're at now with yourself? Yeah, yeah. So the boy's name's Avery he's he's five and um I'll get him to say things like I am powerful I'm strong and I am brave and I'm I said to him to say I am beautiful and he says no I am handsome I'm not beautiful girls are beautiful I'm like okay um but they see they see things like they see me on the tv the other day and and well he was at school but his sister who's to Amelia

she um my daughter took a picture of her standing in front of like next to the telly and and there's me doing this like in my bikini on telly and she's just like um biggest smile on her face because and when she sees me she's just like nanny mac nanny mac and they all call me nanny mac so it's really lovely but um yeah they they're so loving yeah yeah well i can there's love laced throughout everything you've talked about but do you think like the you that had just had the babies and was still feeling so horrific and really went through you know what sounds like a very tricky time very you know sort of rock bottom yeah do you think what would she have thought of where you're at now do you think yeah I don't I don't know like I just um I can't imagine I just

can't imagine I don't think it was even when things changed and for so late in my life you know um but it's never too late I still feel young and I still feel like I can achieve anything and I will keep achieving and I still will keep doing these things but I can never imagine that any of this would be happening no no and I totally agree with you about there's it's never too late and actually I think the whole there's so much drama in this the journey you've taken that almost has imbued you with this sort of extra energy in a way yeah you know for something to have this big epiphany and go like yeah I'm gonna i'm gonna seize all that yeah you know and then it's just actually when you say about what you say to your grandkids about i'm powerful i'm strong and i was

thinking maybe that's the tangent isn't it with with kids maybe we should be sort of pushing that rather than the sort of yeah special aspect it's the kind of yeah there's a that you know the words on your award warrior I think that's like that's a very cool word isn't it being a warrior yeah it sounds like you have the ability to really react to different things that's a cool thing to be and it's something that I do all the time on social media and just encourage people to to know that they are that they they can be strong and they can be brave and all of that you know because i feel like they they just feel like again there's not enough representation of bodies like theirs and

and they just feel like they don't fit into society and i'm here to say yeah you do you know so is that what you want to keep pursuing is this like yeah that's the fire in your belly yeah absolutely just continues and yeah because I'm I'm like achieving so much now that I could never imagine you know from from being that that um young adult that went to university decided actually I'm going to go to university I'm gonna I'm gonna be um I'm gonna start a business and like literally probably about a few months in I flunk out of it because um I just I just can't stand up and do a presentation give a presentation in front of the class but now I'll go out and push myself to do talks um you know I spoke to 1,000 people wow in Alexandra Palace yeah wow that's amazing so so yeah I push myself to do as much as possible that I feel like I couldn't achieve but I'm going to change that now and and show people that you know I couldn't do that

but I'm doing it now yeah and I think sometimes it shows you as well that actually that without sounding sort of trite the all of that it's so much of it lies within yourself and the dialogue you give yourself because like that guy on the sun lounger the way you thought he was you know he had all that aggression towards it and if you're always pushing that out there it actually creates a bit of a force field around you and yeah most people are just kind of getting on with what they're doing yeah and if they are looking or doing the wrong thing then yeah they're you know yeah and this is the thing you know like something that I say to people now that is um don't always um think that people thinking badly of of you because in your head you're thinking the worst,

but in actual fact they might not even notice or they might even be thinking, well, actually, oh, such a shame. They might be pitying. It could be anything. They might be going, oh, look at that girl. She's so brave. You don't know what's going on in other people's heads yeah and we we don't know and um i think it's really important to just give other people a chance and don't don't point

the finger at them because we don't want them pointing the finger at us yeah absolutely it's projection isn't it as well dealing with yeah yeah your internal things and yeah not pushing it out there oh well i think i have no doubt that you're going to do some amazing things as well i feel like there's just so much positivity coming off everything you're talking about and and and also the new generation your kids and the grand babies and all the things they're going to take on as well but it's really lovely thank you so much and give my regards to Sheila yeah actually I'm your mum with a bucket of them all actually quite a lot of formidable women in your family I'm not going to cross them oh thank you so much yeah that's Yeah, that's a really special story.

And thank you, honestly, for being so honest about everything you've been through as well. That's really, that's very brave. Yeah. Yeah, incredible. Thank you. So that was Sylvia. Must confess, I got teary quite a few times when I was talking to her what an amazing woman and I think she's overcome way more than she realizes because obviously she had her own battles with her relationship with her body but some of us never go through that

level of trauma and still never reach that level of being able to love yourself in that way so I hope well I know for me it's given me that next boost and just being a bit more forgiving of myself and keeping an eye on people I love and making sure they're feeling more forgiving it reminded me a little bit of a conversation I had back in the first series with a woman called Yvonne Telford, who spoke about being able to look in the mirror and say, I love you. It's a big deal. And at first it might sound a bit, a bit hippie, but it's actually not at all. It's not hippie at all. It's just about acceptance. And it's that RuPaul thing of, if you're not going to love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love anyone else? So let's start with that, guys.

Let's start with that. It's a good place to feel resolved. So thank you so much to Sylvia. Oh my God, my toddler is covered in mud at the bottom. He's been walking through puddles. I didn't realize quite how bad he'd made his little shoes and socks. It's a shame because he's dressed very cute today. I think I'm quite good at toddler fashion overall.

I can nail it. However, he's ruined it for me with the mud. So I'm quite good at toddler fashion overall. I can nail it. However, he's ruined it for me with the mud. So I'm going to go and have a word with him about that. He's just, he's let the aesthetic down. I don't mind him getting mucky, obviously, but this level of mud is an insult, quite frankly. Mickey, that's not our buggy done. That's not our buggy.

Oh, it's the same as yours, but it's not, it's not yours. Great. Anyway, this is fascinating, isn't it? All right. See you lots of love thanks to you thanks to sylvia thanks to claire jones who always produces with such finesse she's amazing thank you to ella may who does my beautiful beautiful artwork and thank you to my husband richard who is editing this for you now thanks darling i know you didn't mean to edit my podcast but you do a great job oh except for the sarah william one where you left in some mistakes and a person commented about it. But don't worry, we don't have to talk about that now. All right, see you next week. Bye. Thank you.