Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Judy Murray
Episode Date: January 20, 2020Emily and Judy take Judy's father's black retriever, Penny, out for a walk on the grounds's of Andy Murray's Cromlix Hotel in Perthshire. They discuss Judy's childhood, competitiveness and what her st...int on Strictly Come Dancing did for her. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Just going to let Penny back in the car because I think...
Penny, you're going back in the car?
I think she's neckered.
Have you lost your tennis ball?
Where's your tennis ball?
This week on Walking the Door, I travelled up to Perthshire in Scotland
to go for a walk with legendary tennis coach,
strictly come dancing favourite, and oh yes, mother to a tennis player you might have heard all,
Andy Murray.
Judy Murray invited me to stay for the night in the Cromlix Hotel near Dunblain,
which is owned by Andy himself and it's absolutely.
beautiful. Frankly, they had me a dog friendly. Judy brought along her dad's dog, a black
retriever called Penny. She was adorable. And Judy was a fascinating walking companion. We chatted
about the competitive family spirit instilled in her by her dad actually. The moment that she
first really noticed that Andy had inherited that unusually strong will to compete and what it felt
like to be scrutinized suddenly as a female public figure. And also coping after the tragedy
have done blame. Judy was such lovely company. Can I say she was always my favourite on Striply?
And I really respected how she's managed to give her children both roots and wings.
I really hope you enjoy my chat with Judy and do go and visit Cromlix. Ray and I are moving in.
Sorry, Andy. We'll just have to deal with it. Enough of me. Here's Judy.
That wasn't me talking to Judy. Although she does look gorgeous, can I say.
She is. She's a black retriever, which is quite unusual. And she's a black retriever.
She loves a tennis ball.
She's a very brand friendly, Murray family friendly dog.
I mean, she turned up with the ball in her mouth.
I'm so excited.
I'm with someone I've been a huge fan of for a long time.
The very wonderful Judy Murray.
And we're at the Promlix Hotel, which is breathtakingly beautiful.
And is it fair to say it's a Murray family business, Judy?
Yeah it is. It's Andy's hotel and we've had it for about five and a half years.
Yeah. There's a chapel here. It's so lovely and it's dog friendly. Can I just say if you've got a dog?
My dog has been, there's a Rue restaurant here, isn't there?
Yeah. Yeah. There was a dog menu.
Well, Al Bar Roo comes up here quite regularly to train the staff, to change the menus and so forth.
And when he comes up, he always brings his dog.
and he's got a chocolate brown Labrador.
And so he's, the dog always stays with him.
So we are very much a dog friendly hotel in every sense.
Can you introduce me to your dog formally?
Because we met, she, I should say, came bounding towards me with a tennis ball in her mouth.
Of course.
Oh, what's her name again?
Penny.
Penny.
Because she's black, Penny Black.
Yeah, my mum and dad thought that was terribly clever.
I'm not so sure.
But yeah, she's a great dog.
She needs a lot of walking and my dad is quite infirm now.
So coming up here where there's acres of woodland, there's a fishing loch, you know, there's gorgeous paths and he brings the ball or he picks up sticks and she kind of exercises herself a lot because she will chase.
She's eight.
She's not a lady your age, but we're in the feminist days now, it's okay.
She's eight. She looks good on it.
She does, doesn't she?
I had one person on my podcast and I said, they said, oh, I said, how old your dog?
said four and I said oh she looks a bit older and it took him a few minutes and he said I'm kind of offended that you said my dog looked at all
that's quite funny isn't it I mean yeah well you think about that with age of the dog it was brilliant so this is your land
yeah so no one can tell us if penny does a poo I'm afraid you're just going to have to accept it this is judy's manner
so tell me about when you were growing up I know Andy's got
I think he's got border terriers, is that right?
Yeah, Andy has two border terriers.
Yeah.
Maggie and Rusty.
I think Maggie's about 11 now.
She's actually Kim's dog, Kim got her for her 21st birthday from her parents.
And Rusty came along, they got Rusty about three years, three years later.
Yeah.
And I had always grown up with big dogs.
We always had golden retrievers.
So I thought they're not proper dogs because they're too small.
And I absolutely love them now.
them now. I adore them. They're fantastic little characters so they go absolutely nuts when
I go to visit because I always take them for a walk and I think dogs always sense when people
are comfortable with them and they equate me with taking them for a walk. This is so stuck. Judy's
looking at it like yeah this is Scotland. Get over it. Yeah it's when it's your backyard you're kind
of used to it and well you describe this to me because this to me is paradise. Yeah we're just on a little
a little walk to the fishing loch, which obviously is on the estate of the hotel. And it's beautifully
peaceful. It's, you know, there are times when we have swans and baby swans on it and the swans
get very protective when the dog is around. But Penny loves the water. So chucking the ball into
the water, she will exhaust herself chasing after it. So she's going to go in? Yeah, she'll go in
and she would do this for hours and hours and hours.
She absolutely loves swimming.
And we've got a beautiful day for it because it's nice and crisp.
Funny.
So when she comes out of the water and shakes herself,
you need to keep a respectable distance, otherwise you get soaked.
But you know what I've noticed, Judy, since I've become a dog owner,
is that I've got far less concerned, which has been a positive thing, I think,
about for example mud on my clothes or do you know what i mean i just i just think um i went to
dinner recently and everyone said what's that musty smell and then i realized it was me because i had
lamb treats in my bag for my dog and they leaked oh gosh design the handbag
oh wow henny is that nice did you enjoy that she loves it and she will take the ball
and she'll carry it until she's ready to put it down and when she puts it down
that means she's ready for you to throw it again so she's very much in charge of
her walk aren't you aren't you Penny oh there's the swans so there's swans down
there so we need to go up this penny okay this way oh this way so we need to
avoid the swans yeah they'll get they'll get very protective of the dog being in
the in the water so you when you were growing up
You didn't grow up too far from here, did you?
No, we're just a few miles away in Dumblain.
And Cromlecks, the hotel would be the special place in the area that you'd go for, you know, an occasion.
So Jamie was married here in the chapel here and my mum and dad had their silver wedding, their golden wedding,
my twin nieces were christened in the chapel.
So, you know.
To be honest, you just got this place because you didn't bother to hire anyway for these family occasions.
I know your game.
Yeah, well, it had been at a hotel for, I think, the best part, maybe a little bit more than 30 years.
And then the owners who owned the whole estate, you know, it was a family estate, they didn't want to run it as a hotel.
They didn't want to lease it as a hotel anymore.
And they hadn't invested in it for quite a long time.
So it's becoming a bit tired and it needed a big sort of makeover.
And anyway, they put it on the market and Andy decided that he would like to buy it.
And I said, this is quite a funny story.
The guy, the agent who was in charge of selling it.
He came into my brother's optical practice in Dunblane and said,
gave his card in and said, just to let you know,
Cromlex is about to go on the market.
If the family's interested, you know, let us know before it goes on the market.
So my brother, I happened to see my brother that day and he gave me the card,
told me the story.
and I happened to be on the phone to Andy that night
and it'd be unusual for me to see my brother
you know during the day anyway
and actually also very unusual for Andy to phone
because like most boys you'll ping you a message or whatever
it's usually just phone if something's wrong
so I'm thinking what's the matter?
So I said oh by the way
Cromlex is going on the market
and he went oh I'd quite like to buy that
and I went what? And I went no you wouldn't
I said it's far too big and it's falling to bits
and said nobody lives in houses like that anymore.
And he goes, no, no, no, not to live there.
We could run it as a hotel.
And I went, we don't know anything about running hotels.
And he goes, no, but you could find out.
So suddenly we became you.
And he said, go and have a look at it, Mom.
Go and have a look at it.
Oh, wow.
And I came up to have a look at it.
And really the hotel was falling to bits.
So I completely did my best to put him off.
I said, no.
There's a, it needs far too much work.
It's freezing cold.
There's bats flying around.
in the library and I went no you definitely don't want and he was adamant that he
wanted to buy it so that that started us on a chain of finding somebody a management
company that managed these kind of country hotels and them letting us look at one
of their other hotels and showing us what it could look like if it was invested in
and blah blah blah and I went up to look at Inverlochie Castle Hotel and I was an
now, Judy, look, she's getting so like, Penny.
She's going, get on with it.
Somebody knew to throw the ball.
So, yeah, when I went up to Inverlochie Castle,
spent a couple of days up there,
I could see what Cromlecks could look like
if it was all renovated and done up.
And anyway, Andy decided to go for it.
Oh, well, I'm very glad you did.
I'm not moving out, by the way.
I'm here now.
Can I talk to you a bit about your childhood then?
Because you had dogs when you were younger,
With, is it Roy and Eileen? Have I got that right?
Shirley. Oh Shirley.
Yeah, she's actually Eileen Shirley.
Eileen Shirley, okay.
Shirley is what she's.
So Shirley and Roy, I love it.
I love those names.
They're very of an era, aren't they?
Yeah.
And your dad was an optician.
Yep.
And your mum, well, she ran a toy shop at one point.
She did, yeah.
They're very community people, my parents.
And so my dad had an optical practice,
his first optical practice was in Dumblaine in the High Street when I was about six.
Yeah.
And he kind of built a little business where he ended up with four shops in local towns.
So he did a really good job.
And my mom was, she basically looked after the three of us.
And then when we got to stage we were all a little bit older, maybe sort of high schoolish age.
My dad bought another shop in the high street.
and my mum and her friend ran it as a toy shop because she said Dumbly needs a toy shop.
She would never say, no, I'm sorry we don't stock that or we don't have that.
She'd say, oh, I can get that for you.
And she'd actually get in her car and drive to Sterling and buy it at Woolworths
and come back and sell it to them for no profit whatsoever just so that she was doing them a service.
It was interesting because your dad was a former footballer, wasn't he?
Yeah, he was, yeah.
And I was really fascinated by that idea of competitive,
and I mean that in a healthy sense, you know, not on a negative way,
but just that you had that.
I think that's very common in sort of sporting families,
that everything, whether it's a board game or it's, come on, let's have a good go at this, you know.
Yeah, definitely the competitive spirit in the family came down through my dad's side.
Yeah.
I mean, he was the bad loser type of competitor, which I am and which Andy also is.
is Jamie more, he's very competitive, but he's more like my, he's more like my mum.
My mum was one of these people who, you know, when I played tennis with her at the local
club, when I was little, I got the chance to play in the ladies' team, and a few times I got
to play with my mum.
Yeah.
And she would always say, oh, bad luck or, oh, good shot, you know, to the opposition, stuff
like that.
And I'd say, why do you keep saying good shot to them?
And she would say, well, she's just being very sporting and whatever.
And I would say, yeah, but you're just encouraging them to do it again.
So I was, without question, my father's daughter, I would never say good shot to anybody.
Were you aware of that with Andy, that perhaps he'd respond in a more similar fashion to you?
So, for example, would he be less likely to say good shot?
Yeah, oh yeah, very much so.
Yeah, I'm not so sure that Jamie did it either.
But I think, you know, when they were young, they always had each other to play with and to spar with.
And I think that, you know, for most of their childhood, of course, Jamie was a bit.
bigger and a bit stronger and of course I'd be bolder than Andy so he tended to win at most things and
you know I think I think having an older brother had a lot to do with Andy's kind of uber competitiveness
because he always just wanted to be Jamie Emily always that was all he ever wanted to do was
just beat Jamie at anything and it took quite a long time for him to be able to do that but you know
I remember the day after Andy won Wimbledon in 2013
I wish I could throw that in about my family members.
I'm so jealous of it.
It's quite a funny story.
That's why I'm throwing it in.
I'm so jealous.
Yeah.
Yeah, so we're round at Andy's house.
I'm just sitting on the sofa with the dogs watching the TV.
And Jamie came round and Jamie hadn't seen Andy, you know, like just on a one-to-one basis since he'd won.
Anyway, Jamie comes in the door and Andy goes,
game of table tennis
Jamie and I could tell by the way he said it
I could tell it so here we go again
and Jamie went yeah all right
so I was thinking oh no
and so they went out onto the patio
they start playing table tennis about five minutes later
they come back in and Jamie
chucks the table tennis back across the room
and he goes I'm never playing table tennis with him again
and Andy's standing at the door going oh go on Jamie
I'll play you with my left hand you know and it was like
I was just thinking he's just one Wimbledon
like, you know, first man for 70-odd years
to win Wimbledon.
And actually he's so happy
that he's just beating his brother at table tennis.
But you know, that's what's interesting, I think.
I wonder if that's something that's just common to all people
that, I suppose, want to excel, you know,
is it doesn't matter whether it's a table tennis game.
Yeah.
Do you think that's what it is?
It's kind of...
They like the challenge of competing.
And I think if you're a sports person,
you need to have that.
You need to enjoy that challenge.
because if you don't like that side of it,
you're never really going to buy into the life of it
and you're never really going to get to where your talent might allow you to go to.
So you absolutely have to enjoy competition.
And I think nowadays I see certainly in tennis,
and it's probably true in other sport,
there's far too much coaching now.
Coaching has become a thing
and kids get programmed into activity from a young age.
So you get more coaching than ever before
and less kids playing the game
because they don't go out and just learn for themselves and so forth.
And I find that really quite sad.
So I love the fact that, you know, when I talk to people about, you know, Jamie Andy, when they were small,
they were always inventing competitions and their own scoring systems and their own rules.
And then they would manipulate them, or Andy would usually manipulate them because he'd lost.
And he would manipulate them to try and help him to win the next day.
Yes, I love it when you see kids doing that saying, no, and sort of making up the rules.
Yes, because also they got very into, Andy and Jamie got very into,
to WWF, not the World Wildlife Fund in case anyone something.
I'm afraid it was the wrestling federation.
Yeah, they loved that.
You know, when they were, I don't know,
maybe somewhere between 10 and 10 and 12, 13, you know,
and it was such a big thing.
And Andy's favourite was always the rock,
and Jamie was stone cold Steve Austin.
Of course he was.
And they would replicate all these bouts or competitions
that they saw on the television
and they go up to their bedroom
and you know you'd hear this crashing and banging
from upstairs.
And one time I went up and the lampshade
was swinging from side to side
and there was a ladder, a step ladder in the corner
and there were two duvets on the floor
and there's, you know,
Jamie pinning Andy to the floor
and I went, what are you doing?
And they said, we're having a ladder fight
you know, like as if it was the most natural thing
in the world and I should know what it is.
and I went, what's a ladder fight?
Well, you wrestle, and then when somebody pins him,
you run up the ladder and you ring the bell.
I went, you haven't got a bell.
And then I realized that's why the lampshade was swinging.
But it was the creativity of, we want to do that,
and we make it, we create our own game with whatever we've got.
Your own childhood, I mean, you were clearly,
you grew up in a sporting family because of your dad, I suppose,
But do you think it was clear from an early age that you had ability at tennis or that you had passion for it as well?
Yeah, I think, you know, I was about 10 when I started.
You know, back then you played with wooden rackets and proper tennis balls and huge tennis court.
They were hard, Judy, wooden rackets, weren't they?
Yeah, well, they were quite heavy.
So you really had to be about 10 or 11 before you could get started.
And nowadays, you can start with mini rackets and sponge balls, so you can start much younger.
And, you know, I was fortunate that I had parents who played, so they got me started.
And then I kind of learned how to play the game by playing with the older kids at the club and then with the adults.
So I very much grew up in a sort of community club, community environment for both tennis and badminton.
Because you played badminton in the winter because there was no indoor tennis courts back then.
But it must have been also, you know, unusual round here, just in terms of the...
the weather and all that kind of stuff.
Tennis didn't have a tradition particularly, did it?
No, it was very much a minority sporting scholar.
It probably still is.
And rich people.
I don't know why, but I always associate tennis.
You know, you think of the football or the boxing pro
and you think, right, well, they can come from what we would have called
traditionally working class families, whereas tennis.
It was...
It was...
It's expensive.
One of those sports that people kind of, I think, see tennis, maybe in the same way as golf, difficult to do, difficult to access, time consuming and expensive.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, back then it wasn't expensive to join our little community club, and obviously nothing cost anything because there was no coaching.
You were just all the members of the club that taught you how to play.
You played with your dad and what was he, did he do the dad thing of saying, okay, I'll let you win?
No chance.
Never let you win anything.
I mean, when we used to play football in the back garden
with these kind of wooden goalposts that he had made himself,
and he, of course, was a very good footballer.
Yeah.
He never let me or my brothers.
Really?
He certainly would never let us win.
He very rarely even let us score anything past him.
You continued sort of playing tennis,
and you were really good at it, weren't you?
And then there was something I read about, again, in your book,
about how you had this trip,
and you lost all your purse
or your bag was stolen essentially, wasn't it?
Yeah, when I left school, when I finished school,
I'd made this deal with my dad that if I got the grades that I needed to go to university,
that I could take a year to play tennis, to see how good I could become.
I was one of the best juniors in Britain at that time.
I was maybe about number eight in Britain,
which wasn't bad considering we had no infrastructure in Scotland
and you pretty much had to learn for yourself.
And were your parents encouraging of that?
Did they say, right, you're good at this, you need to pursue it?
Yeah, they wanted me to have a go at it.
But the reality of it was, you know, you really have to go on your own
and you have to go to the continent.
And this is, you know, my dad ran his own business,
my mom had my two brothers to look after.
So I went by myself, which, of course, back then,
you were very disconnected, planes fly.
lights, etc. wasn't really such a big thing back then. There wasn't internet, there wasn't
ATM machines, there wasn't mobile phones. So, you know, it was very much you in the phone
box with the reverse the charges international dialing. You just hoped someone was in, yeah,
I remember doing that. Although I wasn't saying, I'm taking part in an international tennis
tournament. I was saying I need money for cigarettes and beer. Yeah, yeah, each to their own.
Yeah, so I went to Barcelona. I was playing a competition in Barcelona.
and I'd gone from the hotel in the bus into the city to pick up money at the what was called the
post restaurant, it's more or less the post office. Yeah. But that's where you got money wired to.
Yes. So I picked it up and I was going back to the hotel in the bus and the bus was mobbed.
And when I got off the bus, I realized that my bag had been opened. It was just a kind of flat thing.
And I hadn't felt a thing other than what I thought was being jostled because I think when you come from a very
small place where there isn't really crime and you've not been exposed to anything. You're trusting
and then suddenly you're in a big city and you think, huh. And of course my purse was gone. And so
I remember sitting down on the pavement and I kept opening and closing my bag thinking one of these times
I'll open it and I'll actually be there. Yeah. And then when the reality sinks in, you have to go
into problem solving mode. Yeah. Which involves finding a policeman and then finding your way to the embassy
because it wasn't just my money.
It was my tickets and my passport.
It was kind of everything.
And you was how old, 16?
17.
17, God.
Yeah, but...
It's quite young to be dealing with that sort of level of stress.
How do you react in situations like that?
Did you have a meltdown or are you quite...
No, I'm quite good.
Did you cry?
No, well, there isn't any point in feeling sorry for yourself.
You just have to go into problem-solving mode.
Can you write that down on a post-it note and I'm going to stick it.
it above my desk every day because I need that duty yeah well what makes you cry like when
did you last cry would you say um you're more likely to cry at something happy to to be honest
really yeah do you cry when Andy won Wimbledon I think actually when he won in when he won in
Antwerp in October I had a little cry watching that because you know in January we all thought
it was going to, it could be the end of his career.
Yeah.
And really, you know, when you see what he's battled through to get himself back,
and then for him to actually go and win a tournament again was just remarkable.
And I wasn't there.
I was kind of following it online because I don't watch on the TV.
Do you know? Why not?
Well, I can't bear the commentators for a star.
They just drive me mad.
Awful.
So I either, and it's difficult to watch it on mute because you can't hear the ball.
being here. So...
Why do the commentators annoy you because they'll say things?
I suppose it's difficult. Not only are you feeling you're in mum role, but you're also as a
tennis expert and pro. You're thinking, no, you got that wrong, mate.
Yeah, you're talking rubbish. Don't you do criticise my boy?
Yeah. Penny, what have you done with the ball?
What does that mean? Can I say Penny began this walk looking like she'd just come out of
the Bond Street hairdressers. And now, I'm afraid,
It's gone a bit more, I don't know if anyone listening remembers The Cure,
their lead singer Robert Smith, who is a goth.
He had black, wild, crazy hair.
You look like a goff, Penny.
We don't want to be near.
She's just gone into the filthiest puddle to get the bottle,
and if she shakes herself anywhere near us, we're going to get really dirty.
I've woken up to worse, Judith.
Look at her, she's loving it.
Penny, you're beautiful, aren't you?
She's a great dog.
She's a great dog.
I'm interested to know that you, after, I mentioned this thing about the lost wallet and the passport,
and it felt to me that that was quite a significant incident for you because your dad sort of took a bit of a decision that this was stressful this career.
I think it, yeah, he said it's too dangerous.
You know, we can't come with you.
There was, you know, you're really having to travel on your own.
You're looking after yourself.
You're doing all your logistics.
You're handling the money.
you're coaching yourself, you're trying to learn for yourself.
And he just said, look, it's too dangerous, you're not doing it.
So he kind of took the decision for me.
But you're disappointed?
I think in a way I was.
But I think that that happening to me,
that whole opportunity to try it,
no infrastructure, no assistance, no support out with the family.
It actually, we're all products of our environment.
So that formed me for sure in later years when I got the opportunity to become the Scottish National Coach
because it was all about why shouldn't the Scottish kids.
Not something any of us can throw in.
But it's, you know, it's like, why shouldn't the Scottish kids have the opportunity?
And I think that my experience drove me to go, yeah, let's create something that if we get find talented kids
and they want to try and do it, that we actually have a program or a pathway that can support them.
to do it. And that was your journey, as it turned out, you know, and I think it's interesting how
you were at, you were sales, I love this fact about you, Jimmy Murray, you were a sweet saleswoman.
Absolutely. And you sold to it, it's my favourite sweet. Yeah, I did. I worked for a, I worked for a
company called, when I joined it, it was called Cavernum Confectionery and it had a whole portfolio
of different brands. Yeah. And then it was bought out and it became, changed its name,
it became called
Famous Names
Confectionary
so it had a number
of big brands in there
Chewitz was probably
its biggest one
and things like
Elizabeth Shawment Crisps
the liqueurs
the famous names
liqueur chocolates
white mice
Parkinson's
do you remember Parkinson's
bags of Parkinson's
or jars of Parkinson's
White mice
he looks like he's got
the proper
barber jacket
Yes absolutely
there's
I mean the estate
is probably
about 500 acres
we have the house
and we have
the school
which has five little houses on it and the staff stay in there.
It's like downtown abbey.
It's like being with the Dowellie.
I love it.
If I was you, I'd literally walk here every morning and go,
this is my land.
This is my land.
And that's where you met, when you were working as a sweet saleswoman,
you met Jamie and Andy's dad there.
Yeah, that's right.
He was an area manager for R.S. McColl's.
So I started out as a trainee sales rep and I worked my way up to become a national account manager
which basically meant that I handled the big chain stores like what was John Menzies, Woolworth
and that's what I was doing when I went back to work after I had Jamie and when I was just about to have Andy
I took a redundancy package because I didn't think I could do the job as too much travelling with
two kids that were 15 months apart.
But it was, you know, that was such a big thing.
You give up your job because your car goes with your job.
And suddenly you've got two little kids and you're kind of trapped because you can't go anywhere.
So it was a big life change.
And you started coaching again, didn't you?
Because that was obviously just a passion for you.
The tennis never left you, did it?
No, I feel like you were just always being drawn back to it.
I always played.
I went to Edinburgh University.
I did French and business studies.
I played tennis through university.
One of the big things I went to was the World Student Games in Bucharest in 1981 to play for Great Britain.
That was such a massive world event and that was just a great experience.
And I always played at a club in Glasgow once I got my first job and I was based in Glasgow.
So I was always involved in tennis.
But how I got into coaching was really, you know, when the boys were very small,
we moved back to Dumbly and to be closer to my family so that we had some practical help for my
parents in particular. And I went and rejoined the tennis club to keep myself a little bit active
and discovered that was, you know, still no coaches at the club, nobody really helping the
older kids that we had. And so I started to volunteer and I wasn't a coach. I had done a coaching
qualification before I went to uni as a means of making some pocket money on the weekends,
but I never actually used it because like most students, I found better things to do on the weekends.
So I started doing a couple of hours a week.
And as more and more parents asked me if their kids could join in,
I started to trade tennis sessions for childcare
because I wasn't charging anything.
And so I couldn't afford to pay for somebody to look after the kids.
And so I asked the parents to look after Angie and Jamie in the clubhouse.
Or we had a super park just beside the clubhouse.
with a duck pond. So that was kind of how I got started and I started to grow things at the
club you know from teams to competitions and and I started with a parent workforce.
Oh Penny I'm sorry but I keep going to throw the ball. This is when dogs are at their most
stupid when I love them. They think you've said Penny. And then she knows because it's not dropped.
I showed off because I was with Judy and I wanted to think I could throw the ball.
That was quite a nice underhand throw.
Oh my God. I'm actually going to cry with happiness.
I wanted to also, so around this time, it was clear that both your boys were passionate about sport in general, actually,
and just out, you tried to give them a sense of wanting to be sort of involved in outdoor activities and just throwing themselves into the world, I suppose.
That's how I perceived it.
I think it was just kind of like second nature to me
to want my kids to have the chance to try all sports
the same way that my parents had given to me and my brothers
and so when they were very small
they tried everything except I think skiing
which you know from time to time they will still
cast that up to me that they never got to try skiing
and I went well we don't live anywhere near any mountains
I'm sorry they're pushing their luck
because I tell the hard luck story
My mother never took us to Gestard.
Yeah, or Avi Moore even.
Was it clear to you when the boys were younger?
You know, you talk about this competitive streak,
and did Andy say something to you?
Like, I don't want to play you anymore.
I want to play.
We were playing on the courts at Dumb Lane,
and it was me and my mum, Andy and Jamie,
and Andy just chucked his racket down one time
and said,
I'm fed up playing.
with you and my grand and my brother,
and I want to play a proper game, you know,
because they knew how to keep the score.
How old was he then, though?
He was about five or six.
And, you know, proper balls playing on a big court.
I mean, you know, and he could control the ball well.
He could do little serves, he could keep the score.
So in his mind, he was ready to play what he saw on the TV.
Yeah.
And so, you know, and that's when I started to look at
Well, actually, the local leagues in our area are under 14s.
Yeah.
And there are no competitions.
There's under 12.
But what do you do when you're very little?
What are you playing?
And there wasn't anything back then.
So I started, I set up a competition for under 10s.
And I called up a few coaches that I knew around the country and said,
did you fancy bringing some of your kids to Dumblain for the day?
We'll have a great big fun tournament.
for under tens and all the older kids at our club kept the scores for them and everything
helped to organize all the parents the mums particularly were in the cafe and running treasure hunts
and all the things that so that the kids didn't get caught up with the winning and the losing
yeah that as soon as they finished whoever had kept the score for them took them off to play
water bomb fights or football or table tennis or dominoes or whatever so that the whole day was just a
great big fun day out because you've got your first experience of anything has to be enjoyable
and so often with kids when it comes to competition if it is a case of you lose you go home and that's
all you remember i lost i went home you know whereas this was come for the day you'll get lots of
little matches win or lose nobody really cares who's winning this is all about just learning how to
compete and and creating a fun environment and that's always been my thing that's always been my thing
with, and I think I learned it really from my own kids that if it's fun, they want to come
back or they want to do it again. And so my whole philosophy around coaching has been about
creating games and activities that do the teaching for you so that kids learn through play,
they learn naturally. And it's not, I mean, I learned so much from my children. The biggest thing
probably was that they actually don't want to listen to you and they certainly don't want to be
taught by you. But they do want to play with you. Yeah. So get out there and play.
Yeah, and be practical. I think when Andy first started, his profile started sort of, you know, going skyrocketing.
And suddenly you found yourself in the players box at Wimbledon, the family, you know, area.
And the eyes of the media were on you.
And there was a sort of narrative of you being competitive and pushy and photographs of you punching the air.
I think it was only one like you pointed out.
once about how it's because we're used to seeing women in a passive spectating role in sport
and would you have been treated in that way if you'd have been a dad punching the air?
Do you know what to me?
Yeah, yeah, I think for sure, you know, around that time in 2005 when I think the whole family
was sort of catapulted into the limelight, Andy obviously the most quite understandably and quite rightly,
but the rest of it's more as by accident or collateral damage.
I love that, collateral damage, that's exactly what it was.
You can use that on Andy when you're having an argument.
Collateral damage, I love that.
God, why did I never think of that over all these years?
That's your next book.
Collateral damage.
Yeah, so we were the collateral damage.
But, you know, because it was unexpected, he just turned 18,
he was in on a wild card and suddenly he's playing on Middle Saturday
in Wimbledon in front of James Bond.
I mean, for goodness sake, that was.
just such a huge thing for me.
Oh, Daniel or Sean?
Sean. Sean. I mean, Sean. Honestly, that was just...
You said that as if, don't say any other dirty words. It's Sean.
There is a Connery Suite, can I say. Yeah, there is.
In the...
Uh-huh. And a Ferguson suite. The two great white Scottish nights, Sir Alex and Sir Sean.
Oh, I thought it was Duncan.
Yeah, so, I mean, that third round that he played at Wimbledon that year, you know,
Sean Connery was sitting to my left in the royal box
and I just remember thinking I can't believe Andy's playing on the centre court
he's playing David Nalbandin who's number four in the world
and we never were expecting anything like this
and James Bond is watching and I was like oh this is just
whoever thought this would happen in their life
anyway you know but then you I had realised during the course of that week at Wimbledon
that the nature of tennis is such that if you have 20 25 seconds between each point
and you have 90 seconds at the end change
and it's on BBC
there's no ad breaks
so the commentators and the cameras
they need somewhere to go
so of course they go into the crowd and they go into the
player box a lot and they talk about the people in the player box
so we all found ourselves
being picked out
and speculated on because nobody
knew anything about us
and I realised from what I saw in the
papers that
the pictures that were
used of me were
almost all
ones where I was bearing my teeth or pumping my fist
and looking like some kind of
over-competitive nightmare parent
so I think the media painted me
in that way and I could completely
understand why anybody seeing those pictures
would think wow she's over the top
it's too much and it's like I'm only doing that if it's a really
great shot or a really great point or whatever
but you could be forgiven for thinking
I was doing it every single point from the
The way that it was portrayed.
I think, and I do link this to,
there was a controversy recently with the American women's football team
that they were accused of being unsportsmanlike
when they were seen celebrating goals.
And I do think, genuinely, that it's an unconscious bias
people have towards women celebrating themselves.
You know, the mother.
You're the mother in that role.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
And you have.
to play the role of the mother and the mother sits there and smiles and is passive.
Yeah. And I suppose I found that a bit sad that that's your son's victory and you can't
just be yourself, you know, and do react how you want. Did it make you think, right, I'd better not,
was it like a wake-up call in terms of how you should be in the box?
Well, I think you're right. I think, you know, I, it did, it did occur to me that if I was the
father of sons or even the father of daughters or the mother of daughters that you
wouldn't have been picked out in the same way. I think there was a lot to do with the fact that
I had sons and I was a woman so it was almost like something wrong with being a
competitive woman or a woman involved in coaching at the top level of sport.
Oh Penny there's a van coming. Let's move over Penny. Let's go over here Penny.
Let's just say something about this because this is like a great big old tin shed.
And when I came all those years ago to look at the place and look around the grounds and everything,
and they took me to see the fishing loch.
And this stored farm machinery.
And they said, this used to be the indoor tennis court.
And I said, you are kidding me.
There was an indoor tennis court in there.
All those years that we were growing up down there and playing in the snow and the rain and everything.
And that was there.
And when he opened the door of it, you could see the lines.
Of course, it's full of machinery.
But the lines are all old and all the rest of them.
I was going, oh my word, I would have given anything for a cover over something.
If I had known that was there.
And that was a little bit of a sign for me.
I was thinking, that's a sign that's going to indoor tennis school.
So anyway, it's just a shabry.
Andy, Andy, we're buying it.
You don't believe this.
It's got a little bit of.
One thing that I've been conscious of since just the 24 hours I've been here,
getting the cab from the station and chatting to people,
there seems a lot of affection for the mum.
and that's not always the case, you know, when someone does that well.
And I really got the impression that something one of the drivers said to me yesterday,
which hadn't really occurred to me before, which I found quite touching,
was the idea that obviously people associated Dunblane with something tragic
and that you'd sort of turned that narrative around a bit.
People don't think of Dunblane to do with a tragedy now,
and I wonder whether that had been part of Andy's idea with this place as well.
Yeah, I think it's, I think that the success that the boys have had over the years
has brought a massive excitement and pride to the town.
And, you know, it is lovely that people associate and Blaine with something really positive.
And following you do.
Yeah, we go down here.
Yeah, good.
Now this could be the postman.
It is the postman.
Oh, hello postman.
I think that's, you know, when you're out, you're walking in the middle of nowhere
and you see the postman, you realize the, you know, like my brother's a postman,
but you realize, you know, it's not all just about the big cities.
That's a big thing to have to drive out into the country to deliver the mail.
Is your brother still a postman?
Yeah, he is.
You see, if I was your brother, I'd have said, come on.
Give us the money, Jude.
I don't have to go even up work.
He was a golf pro actually, and he worked in America for a number of years at a big club over there.
And then he decided to come back with his wife because my mom and dad were getting a bit older.
He wanted to spend more time with them.
He'd been away for a long time.
And, you know, he came back over here and discovered that, you know, jobs in golf over here are quite difficult now.
Yeah.
Because, you know, you don't get so much now 12 months of the year jobs.
Look at Penny. She looks like so dramatic. It's like Heathcliff on the malls she looks like.
You seem quite a resilient person, Judy. You've had to go through a lot. I think your attitude has always been right.
You pick yourself up, you move on, you know, you deal with it. And I felt when you're spoken about Dunblane, you've been very dignified about it.
And I can't, I can't believe what you went through. And I can't believe how strong and how you cope with that.
But I think that's the same. It feels like a resilient.
you've sort of given your boys in a way.
Yeah, maybe I think, you know, like I said before,
we are all products of our environment.
You're so much shaped by the people that are around you,
the opportunities that you have,
the experiences that you gain over the years.
They all shape you in some way.
Yeah.
And I think that, you know,
when the tragedy happened in Dumblain,
of course, was the most,
incredible shock to all of us and so difficult to comprehend and how on earth did something like that
happen in our little town but you know I had I had friends who lost their children and you know
for me it was like you've got a grab life you never know what's around the corner I was so
fortunate to have my kids um I bet you never forgot that moment when they said they're okay oh no and
And then you felt like you're so relieved because we were hours before we knew what had happened.
So we're all of us, all the parents at the school gates, not knowing.
And then you feel guilt because so it was, I mean, it was 1996.
There's a long, long time ago now.
Nobody ever forgets it.
But without question, it shaped all of us who were involved with it.
But, you know, for me, it was about creating opportunities initially for the local kids
and then for the Scottish kids.
And just if you wanted to do something,
just go after it.
Just go after it because you literally don't know
which we're in the corner.
So I was fascinated by the fact that it wasn't that long after that
that Andy and Jamie both had opportunities
to go away from home.
Yeah.
And a lot of parents would have been forgiven
for being protective then and for saying,
no, you're staying here.
And I thought it was incredible.
that you did the opposite.
What do you think, what allowed you to be able to let them go, as it were?
Well, I think that it is the opportunity and it's being able to take advantage of the opportunities
or when they present themselves.
And, you know, I think with the tennis world, you kind of get used to your kids,
particularly when you're in Scotland, tennis is a British sport.
So, you know, from the time that they got involved in G.B. training camps or representative trips, you have long distances to travel and you have to, you get used to letting them go with other coaches and taking advantage of these opportunities. So, you know, in that sense, it was, you know, if you get the opportunity and it's what you want to do, you go and you go and try it. You know, if it doesn't work out, you come back or you stop doing it. But, you know, I think when, Jay,
He went down south to train when he was 12.
He went to Cambridge, didn't he?
Yeah, and that turned out to not be a good experience for him.
I think that everything that we were promised about that move didn't materialise,
and that was very disappointing to me.
And it really kind of taught me not to trust what anybody says they're going to do for your child.
You will always be the person who has their best interest at heart,
and will care for them and look after them through the good times.
the good times, they're not so good time, it's the unconditional thing.
So I learned a lot from that experience.
And when Andy went to Barcelona, he was 15.
And he had made up his mind because of a conversation with Rafa Nadal at a junior tournament.
That was his mate, wasn't he?
Yeah.
And it was Raffa who told him all about his training regime in Miorca
and hitting with Carlos Moya, who was world number one at the time
and training on clay and sunshine and not going to school.
Thanks, Raffa.
Do you know how much this is going to bloody cost me?
We owe Raffa a lot, because Andy came back from.
that trip that he was on that Raffa was on and said,
you know, I need to do more, I'm not doing enough,
I've just got you and my brother at the university
and we need to do a little bit more.
Oh, jeedy.
So I was like, okay, okay.
It's like, I don't want to pray against you and grime.
So, but what I'm saying is a lot of parents,
understandably, especially given what you've been through,
would have felt the need to cloister their kids away
and protect them.
and say you're not leaving my sight again.
And I think there is, I know we would have been forgiven for doing that,
but ultimately I suppose that would have been more about you than your kids, wouldn't it?
And actually, I just think that's quite extraordinarily selfless
and forward thinking of you to think actually the best gift I can give them
is to allow them to experience life, essentially, not be frightened of it, you know.
Yeah, but it is that thing, isn't it?
you give them wings so they can fly.
And, you know, that's what we should do with our kids.
I mean, the world nowadays, so many parents are just overprotective.
And it's like you're...
Do you think so?
Oh, gosh, yeah, absolutely.
Oh, yeah, totally.
I mean, we all learn from our mistakes,
but so often we're not letting kids make mistakes.
We're not letting them fall.
Don't go there, you might slip.
Don't do it.
If they slip, they won't do it again.
They won't go on that icy bit again.
You know, it's like, just going to let Penny back in the car.
Penny, you're going back in the car?
I think she's knackered.
Have you lost your tennis ball?
Where's your tennis ball?
How did that happen?
Come on.
We put Penny in the car.
I'm just going to open the window for her
because she gets all sweaty
and this is my dad's car and it's like...
I love your dad's car.
This is Judy's fine.
Can I just say...
I'm not sure we're good at Kobe.
That's the only sport I can do, Judy.
I don't think this is too good at the moment.
It's too bumpy.
And there's a giant...
set as well, which I love.
And I understand.
So I know also people always talk to you about,
this makes me laugh, your reaction.
I mean, we were talking earlier about the sort of, you know,
you being portrayed as this super competitive mom.
But actually what's so funny is I like it whenever
Andy's interviewed and he says, oh, sometimes I have to say
to my mom, don't do that, don't react like that.
And you said some hilarious things about Andy and Jamie's
grandparents, your parents, Roy and Shirley.
because they do things like hand out shortbread during...
They do.
Matches.
Yeah, my mum always brings shortbread to the Davis Cup.
If she comes down for a Wimbledon final, she'll always bring a tin of shortbread.
And, you know, there was one, the Wimbledon final against Rownich in 2016.
And Andy went two sets up.
And they, obviously, my parents started to visibly relax and think that that was it.
Jobs almost done.
and they started handing around the tin of shortbread
and it came my way via my brother
and I just looked at him with my death stare
and said this is not a picnic
it's not over yet
I mean I've been through so many years of it
it's never over till the last point
you never know what's going to happen and you never relax
don't you oh God no never
but you also realise that
your family and friends don't go through it in the same way
that you do so they don't feel it in the same way and that's not their fault that's just the way that
they are but I'm in a nightmare watching because nobody wants to sit beside me I don't speak to
anybody I'll tut at you if you comment or tut or shake your head if you're chewing gum or
crisps or you're sniffing or I just everything annoys me so it's like just don't sit beside me
so I don't want to sit beside anybody and nobody wants to sit beside me although you I think I saw you I went to
the 2012
I remember seeing you milling around and you were so sort of charming to people and polite.
And that was obviously, that was beforehand.
I don't know what happened afterwards because that was the year Andy narrowly missed out on it,
which was devastating.
And he showed a real vulnerability, I thought.
And actually I noticed that that must be hard for you sometimes as a mum.
There was a press conference he did recently.
And, you know, when he was being asked about whether he hadn't decided whether he was going to be a.
able to carry on because of this debilitating injury.
And I started crying when I was watching this documentary.
There was a press conference.
All these journalists were sitting there.
Andy just welled up and had to leave.
He was crying.
And I sort of thought, I just want someone to go over and put an arm around him.
Why are you just looking at him?
It was like, do you find that hard as a mum?
Well, those are really difficult situations because he, you know, he has to deal with them.
They're incredibly tough.
I mean, all tennis players have to give press conference.
differences win or lose after every match or else you get fined.
So you kind of get used to doing it.
Yeah, and the tough, it's, of course, they're easy to do when you win.
And when you've lost something major or, you know, something in really tough conditions,
the last thing you want to do is be grilled by journalists on how you feel and what went wrong and all this sort of stuff.
You just want to go away and be on your own.
Yeah.
And so it's really tough and that's when, you know, the emotional support that you get from family and friends,
that's when things like that kick in in the tough times.
Yeah.
Because your team are always, they're employees.
And it's not quite the same.
You know, whereas like that 2012 final, you know,
I'm sitting watching from the player box
and you just want to go down there
and just make this stop.
Just get him off there.
And yeah, the same at the press conference,
I wasn't there.
You know, it's just his team that was there.
And I thought, this is incredibly tough for him.
He is realizing this could be the end of his.
career this is like awful for him somebody help him you know going and you know a huge
credit to him you know he went off he composed himself and he went back in and he
dealt with it and then he came back out and he fought he fought his match and then he
tried to find a solution again you know a kind of last chance to solution to the
to hopefully solve the injury problem I mean he's got just the most
incredible resilience and determination to get the best out of himself
Well, talking which I want to talk to you finally about your strictly appearance,
because I thought that was a real rebirth of Judy that,
because I feel we've talked about this earlier,
this slight way you'd been portrayed a bit in the press,
I feel as the kind of pushy, competitive, you know, mother.
And actually, I was thinking, it was interesting,
I was thinking before you arrived to her,
I thought it's like people only ever saw you at very heightened moments of stress
in your life. So it's a bit like if you only saw someone the 10 minutes before they went into a job
interview or before, well, they were waiting for their wife to give birth, you'd think, oh my God,
they're so stressed. And I loved Strictly because I felt it gave you a chance just to show the
playful side of view, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it was a great thing for me. I mean, one of the best
experiences in my life without question. And it was so great to do something for myself. I've been such a
long time since I'd done anything for me that wasn't tennis related or something to do with
the boys careers and I absolutely loved it you know just the chance to step into somebody else's
world see how one of your favourite programs on the TV was made and be part of it and learn a new
skill meet so many different people from completely different walks of life that you never would
have got to know in that way you might have met them to say hello hello at something but you know
when you stay in something like that for a reasonable amount of time you make some really
great friends and that's been one of the best things for me about I made some great friends from
that experience but it was um I hadn't really quite in my excitement to want to do it for the fun of
it I hadn't quite figured on the terror of performing something that you're rubbish at in front of a
live audience and you got to blackpool jury I'm not having that no I know I know I mean
girl eight weeks come on yeah and you know every week we would be bottom second bottom or third
bottom and Anton would kind of nudge me when we were upstairs in the clodatorium and say they got it
upside down again partner what did the boys say when you said you were going to do it well they were
they I think that I was so excited about the opportunity but you know like with everything in our lives
everything that we do kind of impacts on each other so I thought right to think look I'm going to run this
past. Yeah, I'll ask them what they think and so I took the easy option and I asked Jamie first.
And he said, oh, Mom, he said, you'll love that. You love strictly. Do it. You'll have a great
time. Bless him. And then I said to Andy and he went, he looked at me for a few seconds and then he went,
oh my God, you'll be rubbish. And the funny thing was they were both right because I loved it and
I was rubbish and I didn't care. I didn't care and people used to say to me all the time
you know what was it like when Craig was like being really nasty to you and and I said you know
because I watched the program for so long if Craig had said something nice to me I would have felt
short changed so I said I just saw all this part of the show and I knew I was rubbish I didn't
it didn't bother me somebody saying that and for me it was all about the fun I wasn't doing it for any
other reason so I loved every minute of it and I had the best partner for me I had
the best partner because he just he just made me laugh all day long and approached it he always
struck me i think if i ever went on that i'd like him because it's approaching it with wanting
with a playfulness you know i also thought it was lovely just seeing you because i also got a bit upset
when i read about how just when you first started um having to do those sort of hello
Good morning.
Hi.
Judy's greeting the guests.
It's a little down to an Abbey moment.
I thought the staff would be all lined up to meet her this morning.
But no, you said, there was a story you mentioned,
and I felt really pissed off on your behalf,
which was when you were going up to accept an award for Andy early in his career.
And a comic, there was a stand-up,
and he said something about your outfit, didn't it?
Yeah. What did he say? You'd hit back at him or something.
Yeah, it was the Scottish Sports Awards and it was 2004, so it was the year that Andy won the US Open Juniors.
So these awards were in December. I'd never been at an awards thing in my life before.
And Andy was doing his off-season, I think in South Africa that year, and he wasn't around.
And my common sense was saying somebody needs to go and pick it up on his behalf.
You don't just say thanks very much and not turn up.
So I went and I went with my dad and I didn't understand that it was a black tie event and therefore
you know everybody was in the dicky bows and the long dresses and the loads of bling and
Diamante and all the rest of it and we had had no money in those days and I didn't even own a dress
so I had gone out and I had a kind of mid-length denim skirt that I had and I went out and I bought a jacket
and I remember it very clearly because it was a kind of a green cord short jacket,
Marks and Spencers, and it was 2999, which at the time was a fortune to me.
And I was wearing a pair of black boots that weren't particularly new.
And I remember walking into this thing and realizing I was completely underdressed
and it completely had no clue.
And then I thought, okay, well, I'm here, we need to get on with it.
And Andy's Award was in the second part of the show,
which gave me the whole first part of the show to study what was going on,
to know where I had to walk up to.
and by that stage I had got a feel for what the presenter, who was a comedian, the way that he was talking to the guests.
And it was predominantly a male audience because it's sport.
And I thought, you know, he's taking the Mickey out of most people.
I've realised that he's a Motherwell fan.
I'm realizing that there are a huge football crowd in here.
And when I went up to get it, I thought he's bound to say to me, when's he going to win Wimbledon?
Because that's what everybody is saying to me since he won the junior US.
and so I went up and of course that was the first thing that he said he said well never mind this he said never mind the US Open juniors when's he going to win Wimbledon and I was ready and I said well I think he has more chance of winning Wimbledon than mother well do of winning the UEFA cup and everybody started laughing and of course it was a mistake because he sort of looked me up and down and said could you not have bought you something decent to wear then and I just wanted to die I just wanted to get me off here and I'm never coming to anything like this again
again because it was you know 500 people in the room heavyweight Scottish
sports people and he made me feel like so small and you know one of the biggest
things for me in my line of work coaching and teaching is you know the importance
of making people feel good about themselves whatever age stage background they are
if you make them feel good about themselves you you know you can get a change in
behaviour you can get a change in performance but you know that's the best
thing you can do but if you make someone feel bad about it
themselves and I just I wanted to get off and then you know you had to go off me to get
pictures taken and I went back to the table and I said to my dad I just want to go home I just
want to go back and he said you're going to have to wait until the end and we did and
you know from that moment on it it made me question everything about I never want to
go anywhere where I will be judged on my appearance and I still am a bit like that I'm
a bit better at it now strictly actually helped me a lot with your confidence yeah
with the confidence but also understanding how to dress because the makeup and the
wardrobe and the hair
hear people, they showed you how to get the best out of yourself. I mean, they could transform
you because they knew what they were doing. And I learned a lot from that about what colours
suited me, what cuts, what shapes, what lengths, how to use makeup better, not that I wear makeup
very often, and that helped me a lot, but that cut incredibly deep with me. And it's also another
reminder of how easily women are judged by what they look like in a way that men aren't. And
And so, you know, when I do a lot of work on women in sport and women in leadership and empowering women and motivational talks now,
and I never ever thought I'd be able to do anything like that.
And, you know, when I do it, I talk about that.
You know, the minute we step up, we have to be excellent because we are so quickly judged that unless we're excellent in our field,
you're too easily shot down if you make one little mistake in a way that guys often aren't, you know.
So I feel what happened there is that you were being punished.
because you got a laugh at his.
Because you fought back.
Yeah.
And I think what is meant to happen in that situation
is you're meant to play the role.
Let's have a laugh at the mum.
Yeah.
And then you came back and he didn't like it.
So what he decided to do was reduce you
by just focusing on how you looked.
Yeah.
And it's so interesting because you couldn't say that to a man
because they all wear the same thing.
But it's that thing of being on display.
And what makes me so happy is that man sitting at home
probably in a track suit with stains on it,
watching you on Strictly in all your sequins,
owning it like a boss.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I think also it's,
those moments are interesting
because you could have hidden away after that
and that tells me a lot about you
that I wonder if you stored that away
and I think that competitive Murray spirit comes out
which is, I'll show you.
Yeah, I think it's like everything
It's, you know, you learn from everything and I'm still like that.
I mean, I did a talk yesterday, a speaking gig for a company and because it was a business.
And I stayed and spoke to them afterwards and I said, did you get out of it?
What you wanted?
It was an in-conversation thing, which is a nice thing to do.
Your personality can come across more.
You can tell your stories.
You can have fun.
But I'm so used to speaking to sports audiences or coaches and whatever.
And I know what I'm speaking about is of interest.
to them on a business level of course tennis is a business and they were they seemed to be so thrilled
with with with what I had done and I was saying you know have you got is there anything I could
have done better and they were like no you know but that's me I always I mean even when I do tennis
sessions I still I'll go back in the car and I'll think I forgot to do that I could have done that
I'm always evaluating what I've done and looking for how I can do better and Andy and Jamie are exactly
They're exactly like that.
They analyze everything to death.
But I think it's just the way that we've always been.
I've had to learn everything for myself
because there was never anybody to learn from in the tennis world
because nobody had done anything like that up here.
So it was always go out and find out for yourself,
find people to learn from and do it your own way.
And I think a lot of that experience for me
has formed what I now do,
which is I teach people how to teach tennis,
I coach coaches how to coach better.
I share everything that I learned over 30 or so years of coaching
by helping to build a bigger workforce
but particularly a female workforce
because there was never anybody to encourage me,
support me, open doors for me.
I had to do it all myself
and now I try to do that for other women
so it's the product of your environment thing again
and it's also the giving back
because for me it's a huge thing
that we should all give back
to something that has given us so much.
I am a supporter of women
and I you know having come from
being you know quite shy never want to put my hand up or never want to speak up don't ask me sing in front of the class
you know it never would have done anything like that and I can go and stand in front of thousands of people and talk you know present or
and I don't even think about it now I don't get nervous about it because I've done it a lot but to get to that stage you need to first
step out of your comfort zone and going to do strictly was stepping out of your comfort zone it certainly was on the Saturday night when you had to perform it
The rest of it was all great fun, but the comfort zone on a Saturday night was terrifying.
And it only last 90 seconds, but I did that with the speaking thing.
In 2010, I did my first speaking thing in front of a thousand coaches in Mexico.
Terrified. Three days, hardly slept.
Just nausea, awful.
And after I'd finished, I don't think it was all that good, but I survived it.
You get a confidence from surviving.
Such a morrie.
I could have done better.
I could have done better.
I know I could have done better.
I know I could have done better.
I bet Andy was saying that after he won Wimbledon.
He was probably worrying about shock.
in like...
Look, it's my family.
Who's this?
This is my brother, Neil.
Hello, brother Neil.
And my sister-in-law, Tracy.
Well, no, Keith's the golfer.
Oh, is Keith the golfer?
Hello, I'm Emily.
So tell me something about Judy as a child, please.
Oh, help.
He can't remember.
He's too young.
I was 20 years younger than that.
She stood up for you whenever your brother was going.
That's right, yeah.
Did she?
Neil was the youngest.
That's where she found the first fight.
Would you describe her as a strong woman?
Yes.
And particularly strong when she's belt on the back of her cast with her tennis racket.
That was a strong movement.
Oh, it's so nice to meet you.
Do you know, if you could arrange for me to maybe live here, I'd be really grateful.
I don't want to go back.
I love to.
I'm obsessed with her.
And I'd like the little lodge.
Okay, right.
Just as you come there.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, the gatehouse here.
They've been well with eviction super.
I think nice.
Your family just probably.
You've got, your family's very important,
too, Judy. I can tell.
Yeah, well, they, Neil and Tracy and the twins,
they have a little cockapoo called Connie.
So Connie and Penny come and walk up here together with my dad
when they're working.
So they come up, walk the dog, a beautiful day,
walk the dog, go in, bacon, roll coffee,
or scones in coffee, they make wonderful homemade scones.
So it's just nice, and it's quiet.
It's quiet in camp, it's quite.
small hotel so I've made I've joked about the downtown abbey thing but can I say you turned
up in your dad's car yeah which is lovely but it's not like a big old range reds not good no and it's
covered in dog hair and sheets there I'm going to know and I love that because it just seems like
um I realize now having met you maybe what the secrets of this whole family success is which is
it's sort of just not buying into all that world in a way.
Do you know what I mean?
It's just a job.
Yeah.
You do your best.
And you just, we've all just had to learn to adapt.
Our world has had to change around us because of what the boys have done and the successes
that they've had.
And you either, I think you either shut yourself away from it or you adapt to it.
And I think, I mean, that's, that's what we have.
all done but we've none of us have lost our roots no chance and he still sulked when judy takes him on a
shopping trip to my handbag i saw that on your instagram but you know what he in least he came with me
was he was he'll just sitting down going to hurry up you know but you know it was great because
i said do you want to come to the silk market and he went not really where was this this was
Beijing in Beijing and it was lovely so you know we went
and it's so often you go to tennis tournaments
and you see the hotel, the airport and the tennis centre
and actually there's so much to see in the cities
but you need to make the effort to go and do it
and I think a lot of the players don't make the effort
and they'll look back and they'll go and visit at all these countries
I never saw anything so you know I was there
and I said do you fancy coming to the silk market with me
and he was quite funny he just said well not really
and then he went well what is it
and when I explained to him what it was he went
oh right then and actually he was really interested because once he got into the haggling
he was loving it because it was a competition I can imagine was he haggling at the
soap board oh yeah he was absolutely loving it you know and they're saying you know
whatever this bag is it's it's however much and he said no I'm not sure no I'll leave it
we'll go and see if we can find it somewhere else no no no no no you know and then he'd come
back and he's got well maybe 800 this is Chinese money not pounds and then he goes
I think it's probably worth about four and they go oh no no no no no
I lose money on four. You give me five. You give me, I'll give you four, fifty. He was loving it.
You know, he was just thriving on the challenge and the wanting to win, of course, or rather than not wanting to lose, probably.
Did you get the bag, Judy? Yeah, we got the bag.
That's your Christmas present. He'll think that's done now. Your mom's taken care of.
Judy, I cannot tell you how I've loved meeting you, but I've also loved this experience of being at Cromlix, and it's a really beautiful place.
It's just there's something very special about this place.
Well you've got a gorgeous day to see it because the sun's shining.
I mean the last three days has been absolutely pouring with rain, horrific, windy as well.
And you know, I mean this is Scotland at its finest.
We've got the chickens down there are cockadoodling for you and yeah, I mean it's gorgeous and we're very, very lucky.
Judy, can I give you a half please?
Of course, of course.
Thanks for coming up.
Thank you so much and we should say bye Penny.
Is Penny sleeping it off?
She will be, she's just sitting with, stay, Benny.
Please don't take me out again. I'm neckered.
I really hope you enjoyed listening to that.
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