Sophie: Hi, I’m Sophie-Marie Odum, Lifestyle Magazine’s editor.
Sam: And I am Samantha Renke broadcaster and disability rights campaigner.
Welcome to Motability Lifestyle Pod. In this podcast, we invite our friends from the disability community into our studio for a conversation about how we can all live our best life.
And I think we need a little bit of that in our lives at the moment, don’t we, particularly when we are navigating such a frustrating and complex disabling world.
Sophie: Today we are joined by Paralympian athlete James Freeman, who represented Britain at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics and he juggles racing with working as a diversity and inclusion consultant, he has a thing or two to say about the power of changing your mindset.
Sam: And the sun is out. And you know what that means?
People are jetting off on holiday. We look at accessibility and travel and there are reasons to [00:01:00] be cheerful here. Plus, our resident car expert, Matt Lizzimore, will make us wiser about hybrid cars. And then of course we will end, which is my personal favorite, with gadgets. What, what’s on the market. Hi, Sam.
Hello lovely Sophie, how have you been?
Sophie: I’m good, thank you. How are you?
Sam: I’m good. Apart from being a little bit sweaty derriere. I think my other fellow wheelchair users will absolutely sympathise. When the sun comes out, as a true Brit, I like to complain just as much as when it’s raining outside. But being a full-time wheelchair user means that you did get a little bit of a sweaty bottom situation going on. But apart from that, I am. I’m good. I am good. What is new in your world?
Sophie: I’m good. Thank you. Also been very hot and also complaining about the heat, but then complain when it rains as well, um, very much looking forward to an upcoming holiday, [00:02:00] going to Mexico. 10 hours on a flight though with two young kids.
yes. Ummm…
Sam: I have two young cats, probably not the same. However, I feel your pain because I can only imagine the unpredictability of travelling with children. When you have a disability, you have got to plan for every eventuality.
Sophie: Talking about travel, you heard about what’s going on with the Rights on Flights campaign?
Sam: This has been something that I have been obviously, you know, tracking and, and keeping abreast of for months and months.
A lot of my dear friends, are very much forefront of the, the the change and lobbying and really fighting that fight. And it’s one of those bittersweet moments because you think, why on earth is it taking so long for this to happen? you know? And I think we have that beautiful motto amongst the disability community. Nothing about us without us. And I think one of the reasons why we are so far behind in aviation, um, and uh, innovation [00:03:00] is because that’s a, that’s a tongue twister, isn’t it?
Aviation innovation. It’s because disabled people have not been brought to the table. We have not been included in the design process. Hopefully now things are changing because for me, as a physically disabled woman who struggles to go anywhere independently, if I’m honest, it really saddens me that I cannot go on a flight independently. I have to always be with somebody and I am, I feel actually quite liberated that the tide is turning for, for the good. So yeah. Absolutely. Embrace it. A little bit sad that it’s taken so long.
Sophie: It’s, from what I was reading as well, the, the planned reforms mean that, you know, the civil aviation authorities to be able to issue financial penalties to airlines who fail to, you know, meet their obligations to disabled travellers.
So that means that there’ll no longer be a cap on compensation for wheelchairs or mobility aids that are damaged on domestic UK flights. And they’re working towards [00:04:00] international flights as well. So, really, cause I know at the moment there’s just sort of like, you know, if a wheelchair gets broken on a flight, there’s no
you know, come back from that. They can just sort of be like, okay, well, What can we do? And there’s nothing, there’s nothing that’s done. So that’s really good to hear. Have you got any travels this, this summer?
Sam: Alas no, I have not been on holiday for maybe four years. And that is mostly because: a) finding somebody to go on holiday with.
When you get to my age and you are single and you’re a cat lady and even your gay friends have taken off, how dare you? Um, it’s quite difficult to find people to go on holiday with. Um, that’s called quite a violin moment there, isn’t there? Should we get one into the studio? Um, but I am, I’m actually renovating a bungalow at the moment, so um, that’s gotta be my main focus and I think once I’m settled, I will be a girl about town and I’ll be flying here, there, and everywhere.
I have a question for you. Are you [00:05:00] a beach person, a city dweller, or one of those really annoying people that climbs mountains and pretend that’s a holiday when everyone knows it really isn’t?
Sophie: A hundred percent beach. I’m a beach bum. I love just relaxing on the beach. What about you?
Sam: No, because you just get sand everywhere, like literally washing sand out of all your nooks and crannies. Don’t tell me it doesn’t happen to you, because it, you know, when you’re on a beach holiday, you’ve literally showered and then the next day it’s like, where is this sand coming from?
It’s just never ending. On a serious note, apart from the annoying sand, being in a wheelchair on a beach. Nightmare! I think you have to kind of be dragged backwards and it feels very much Indiana Jones being sucked into, you know, quick sand. And then if you need a toilet, I have been known to dig a little hole in the sand because getting you back off the beach [00:06:00] is another fiasco. So no, I am,
I’m very much a city dweller. That’s my preferred way to vacate.
Sophie: But I have some news, Sam, that might change your mind..
There’s been some news recently announced that there’s a new initiative to make 287 beaches in Greece totally accessible.
So they’re hoping that 220 beaches will be ready by the summer by installing something called a seat track system, which is a fixed track mechanism involving a remote control operated chair that can be moved in and out of the sea. Yes, you can go and enjoy the beach.
Sam: With my Piña Colada, yes?
Sophie: Exactly. Of course, of course.
And also it goes beyond Greece. They’re hoping to, um, have installed these mechanisms across Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, and later across Croatia, Spain, UK, UAE, USA, and Turkey all this year.
Sam: I think the question is, however, which will sway me, will I still get two cabana boys[00:07:00] feeding me grapes and making sure I don’t get overheated?
If that’s, if that’s part of the package, then I am all for it. Does it say that in the little article there?
Sophie: but I can do some more research for you.
Sam: Can you, can you, can you get on the phone to Greece and be like, yeah.
Sophie: I’ll try. Perfect.
Sam: Perfect.
[music transition]
Sophie: Okay, so now it’s time to introduce our guest. I’m very pleased to say we are now joined by the wonderful James Freeman. James is a professional athlete. He’s currently third in the world for the 100m wheelchair racing and the European record holder for the 800 meters. He also works as a diversity and inclusion expert.
Guest interview
Sam: now before I welcome our next amazing guest, you may have noticed that the sound might be a little bit different, but all will become very, very clear. Do not worry, just go with it. Close your eyes and meditate and listen to our wonderful [00:08:00] next guest, James.
A huge welcome to Motability Lifestyle Pod. What an absolute delight it is to have you. Now, we very nearly didn’t have you, but before we, we talk a little bit more about that. I have to say, I’m always rather fascinated, um, when I get to talk to a real-life Paralympian because
in 2012, when of course we know that was very much a turning point for the Paralympics. Yeah. The Paralympics were going for quite some time, but I think, you know, um, channel four really invested in the, the, you know, the superhuman advertisement. And it was, for the first time I would say that, you know, non-disabled people were taking notice of the Paralympics and it was so phenomenally popular.
Now, that was the same year I actually moved from quaint little rural Leyland in [00:09:00] Lancashire. Give it up for Leyland, massive. And I moved to the big smoke and every single time that I went out independently and I got into a black cab, so an accessible cab.
without fail, without fail, James, the taxi driver.And I can’t do a cockney accent, so just bear with, bear with me. They went: “are you one of them paralympians?”, and I would always reply: “if you call drinking copious amounts of alcohol a paralympic sport then yes”. And it became a little bit of a running joke. But we can all really sympathise with that because actually society pigeonholes disabled people into two categories.
You are either this object of inspiration, a Paralympian, or you’re kind of not, and you’re kind of all the really negative tropes that that are perpetuated, often by the media, you know, that you are, you know, a bit lazy or you’re a benefits scrounger. So I just, [00:10:00] I really find it fascinating, like you must get that as well.
Like: “are you a Paralympian?” And how do you approach that and what do you say?
James: I mean, it is quite easy for me now cause I can say: “yes I am”. Um, but I think it, it goes to your point of, you know, if you are an active, independent, person with a disability, everyone assumes that you’re a Paralympian. One question that I get asked a lot, which sort of is starting to grate on me slightly is: “are you going to the next one?”
Um, ” did you win a medal?” You know, um, uh, “Please don’t end up like that Oscar Pistorius fella” that’s the one I’ve got asked to read most recently. Um, so there, there, there was that. I think to, to your point though, I think people just, you know, it always comes from a good place, um, once you take it as sort of…
take the emotion out of it and maybe take, take your sort of pride out of it a little bit. They just wanna be more curious about, about your situation. So to those people who, [00:11:00] who aren’t necessarily Paralympians just say: “well, no, I’m not a Paralympian, but I do do this. Or I, I am active in this area, or I do other things.”
Because as you say, like when it comes to inspiration for disability in the media, it’s always about sport or someone’s, you know, come back from war, uh, you know, a war-like area or, or been injured or you know, overcome something when really, I think I speak for most disabled people when I say, we just wanna be treated like regular people.
and I think, for me, it’s, it’s just that understanding that education piece. And if you are having that conversation with someone, you’re being, you’re educating, you are not coming at them from a place of aggression. So if you come at them with the same sort of energy that you think they’re coming at you with no one’s talking.
So then No one’s really understanding what the other’s going through. So I’d say just hold composure. Just just take a breath and think they don’t know any better. So I’m now gonna now kind of have that [00:12:00] conversation to maybe educate them so if they meet someone else like me, then I can make that experience better for that person.
Sam: Mm, absolutely. And you, you kind of, you know, hit the nail on the head there that, you know, irrespective of who we are, we all have our dreams and we all have aspirations and some of us wanna be Paralympians and some of us are quite happy to be a cat mum and eat a lot of chocolate and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer on repeat.
But I think, you know, take us back cuz obviously you had the bug, obviously you had that kind of fire in your belly that said, this is something that I want to do. So let’s hear a little bit about you know, little James and, and, and, or were you little James when you, you know, got on this Paralympian trajectory to stardom.
James: I think one thing about me is, is I’m definitely an underdog. A lot of, some people come into wheelchair racing and they like immediately get snatched up cuz like they’re prospects. Um, you know, your [00:13:00] Hannah Cockrofts, your Dave Weirs, your, your Marcel Hugs, you know me, it’s been a 13 year journey.
Uh, I, I got into racing, uh, because of a haircut. Would you believe? My mum was looking for me to do something at the age of 14. And fourteen’s quite a challenging age for everybody. And I was already doing horse riding and I was like: “Ugh, horse riding’s not cool anymore”. Full disclosure, horse riding is very cool.
I was just a very angsty teenager. Lot of Linkin Park, lot of you know, stuff like that. So I was like, “oh, I don’t wanna do horse run anymore”. My mum was like, “Okay, but you gotta go and find another sport cuz you can’t just stay here and play Xbox all evening.”
You’ve gotta do something active. My mum’s hairdresser knew, knew someone who was, wheelchair racing. And this is before 2012. This is before the big boom of Paralympics. And my mum was like, “You’re gonna go down. You’re gonna try wheelchair racing.” And I went down and, you know, I was the only person in the wheelchair that I really [00:14:00] knew in, in like, from, from where I was from.
I went down to this, to this track in, in, in Kingston, and there was all these older guys that, they all sat in their wheelchairs. Some of them were driving and they had, you know, houses and, and relationships and some of had jobs. It’s things that I never really considered, like growing up.
So, you know, a 14-year-old James started there and I, I, I still haven’t quite left yet. Um, And it certainly has been a journey. You know, I, And I was very, I was very blessed cuz not everyone can do it full-time. You know, I had a lot of financial backing from, from friends and family so that I could do it full-time. Uh, and then, the rest is history.
Sam: Tell us more, a little bit about the feelings and, and the energy that goes along with, you know, going to Tokyo, for example. I, I can only imagine getting that phone call and thinking, “Gosh, It’s actually happening now”, but also, you know, just travelling, being in a different environment, being in a space that [00:15:00] is unfamiliar, but also having that camaraderie and that solidarity with other, you know, deaf, disabled and neurodivergent individuals.
Walk us through it, you know, what does that actually feel like?
James: Uh, so fun fact, I was the last person to get picked for the team. I’d already gone and competed for GB at the Europeans in Poland, the European, uh, athletics meet and, um, you know, everyone in the space.
So when everyone starts getting selected, like you kind of figure it out quite quickly cuz they post about it on social media and like the first round happened didn’t make it. I thought, okay, second round what happened? I might make it still didn’t make it. At this point I’m like crying in the shower, like some sort of black and white existential movie, like some sort of rocky montage was about to happen.
And then my dad comes into the bathroom. He’s like, “First of all, why are you crying? Stop crying. No one’s told you you’re not going yet. No one’s told you you’re not going to Tokyo. So just just wait for someone to tell you you’re not going.” And I got a phone call from the head of GB at the time, Paula Dunn. [00:16:00] And she was like, “Hi James, how are you?” And I was like, “I’m fine”. And she was like, cause it’s either gonna go one way or the other way.
It’s either good news or bad news. And she literally just said, “Oh, by the way, it’s um, it’s good news. We’ll be expecting you in here three weeks time. You can tell your coach, but don’t tell anyone else. Bye.” And then that was it. And then I basically just had a bit of a breakdown cause it had been like, 13 years finally achieved the dream of going to a Paralympics.
Obviously going to a Paralympics with Hannah and, and with Dave and, and, and all these other para… Richard Whitehead.
It’s a bit like going to like the, the playoff with Michael Jordan. It’s a bit like going and, and playing football with, with, uh, Messi or, or Ronaldo. It’s a bit like, oh wow, I’m going and, on the same stage as these people, which is, quite incredible really.
Um, Tokyo and Japan in general. I’ve never seen a country so different from the UK. Everything they do, the whole culture, the, the way they live, it’s, it’s just really different to ours
Sophie: When you mentioned just there that Japan is different, [00:17:00] is it in terms of how, can you just elaborate a little
James: They, they just, their culture is all about respect, I think. And, you know, their, they’re, they’re really friendly people,
It’s just incredible. They like you know, you’re very much a guest in their country.
I think the real bummer is everyone was like, oh, how was Japan? And I was like, well, I saw some of it from a bus and I got to go around an athletics track and I got to go around a Paralympic village.
And that was fun. But everyone’s like, oh, did you see like, you know, the cherry blossom fields? Did you see any of the, the hot, hot springs? No. No, I didn’t do any of that, um, you know, I mean, people always ask me what was village like? Oh, it is like a hotel, but also like a block of flats. So GB has this like massive building and all these GB athletes stay in there.
I think we were behind America. Um, and I think we were just ahead of France, so I mean, that, that, that might say something for the, for the, for the medal table as
Sam: know, I know that during the time, obviously because of Covid restrictions, there were some [00:18:00] Paralympians who unfortunately had to leave early because they didn’t have the right support in place because it was so strict. And I guess, you know, when you are in a foreign environment where perhaps your needs aren’t being met as they would be back at home, that can be incredibly intimidating.
And I know that, you know, through the work that you do as an incredible sports person, you know, you have actually, for your own lived experience, now gone into the DE and I space, which is absolutely wonderful. So diversity, inclusion, uh, uh, equality, which is absolutely my sphere.
That’s, that’s my, that’s my happy place. Do you think that, you know, travelling the world and having all these wonderful opportunities, but equally seeing how disability not only is viewed in other countries because let’s face it you know, the UK is very much forward thinking when we’re looking at diversity across the board. [00:19:00] Unfortunately not everywhere is like that.
Is that what prompted you to, to, you know, transfer those skills and you know, do the work that you do now?
James: I dunno if it was the main motivator. I’ll tell you a story kind of to your point there is we got on the bus to when we were in the village and when you got on the bus to the village. Anyone can get on any bus. So when we were in the training camp, it was all GB people on the same bus.
But when you go to the village, people from different nations, they go on the bus and you get chatting to people. And there was a javelin thrower or, or some sort of thrower. And he was from, I think, I think he was from Nigeria and you know, his chair was literally like a hospital chair.
It was very much like, you know, the kind of standard ones you get and like parts of it were falling off. And me, me, me and my mate very naively said, well, why don’t you just get another chair? And he was like, well, I can’t because we literally found this chair and it’s the only chair I’ve had. It’s the only chair that fits me, and we don’t have the funding where I’m from.
And then that makes you think, oh God, [00:20:00] like yeah, we, we are, we’re so lucky in the UK. The UK definitely has, you know, some, some growing to do itself. But I think in terms of the, the stuff I saw there, there was one guy I saw. His whole navigation, he was just on a skateboard the whole time. He was missing, let’s say like his legs and you know, I think we asked him, do you have a wheelchair? No, I have a skateboard. So I think when you go and, do these international tournaments and you go and meet athletes from other countries, you really start to understand like, yes, the UK’s not perfect, but compared to a lot of other, other places, we really do have it quite good. Um, and it really is talked about.
You know, we met some people, out in Tokyo. The Paralympic coverage just wasn’t even covered in their, in their country. You know, their friends and family had to watch it on a, on a live stream, uh, in a different language, you know, just so they could watch their family and, but on, in the Paralympic Games. When it comes to kind of why I decided to get into kind of the D [00:21:00] and I space, I think, you know, I had already kind of started doing it, when I went to university. I was like the disability officer of my university. So you kind of manage everything that goes on in the student union and like you kind of do things like that. I’ve always had a passion for making disabled people’s lives that little bit easier and better.
I come from a background of parents and, and family and friends that say you can do anything. You know, you shouldn’t be restricted by anything. But for a lot of people that’s not the case. And I just, you know, I, I wanna portray the message that if I can do it. if I can have a job and I can live on my own and I can go to Paralympics and I can have a fairly independent life, then anyone can.
And I think that that’s not something that’s portrayed a lot in the media. That’s not, kind of when, when, when, when we’re speaking about disabled people, we’re often used as sympathy pieces. You know, when I was at school it was very much, oh, we’ll try and get James five GCSEs, but we don’t know.
And, you know, he could live at university, but it’s could be [00:22:00] really hard and he might not be able to do it. So like, if he wants to go home, like don’t, like don’t shoot him down about it. But my parents very much threw me in the deep end in in, respect of, you know, give it your best go if you’ve tried your best.
and it’s still not enough, then that’s fine. Like at least you did your best, but you’re not gonna like not try because you have those options available to you. And I think, you know, It just takes somebody, just one person to be like, well, actually no, you can do these things. This is how I do it. And again, it’s about that listening piece.
So I meet loads of people in my, in my D and I work that, you know, they might, they might be neurodiverse. I need nothing about neurodiversity before I start working in the space. Not really. And I’ve learned so much in the last two years. And again, I didn’t learn it from pretending or making it out that I knew better or, or, or trying to cover up for fear of offending someone. It literally is just as simple as, I don’t know what your life [00:23:00] is like. Can you just give me a bit of insight into that? Once you get that empathy piece and you kind of get, build that rapport with a client or someone in the space, then you can have that wider conversation. I think the, the, the trouble is, so many people are so uh, worried about offending someone. Oh, what if I say the wrong thing? What if I do this? What if I do that? Well, I guarantee you the result will be worse if you just assume. The best thing I have is I go to offices and they, they ask me, James, like, how accessible is this office? Like, what could be doing better? The, the best thing you can say to me is, “we don’t have anything in place.
That’s why you’re here. Um, we’re gonna be honest with you, we don’t have a disabled toilet. We don’t have any, you know, uh, braille around the office. We don’t have anything. Um, you know, in terms of wheelchair access,” cuz at least you’re being honest. The, the worst one is when they go, “oh yeah, we’ve got everything. We, we’ve sorted everything. You know, we, we couldn’t be more inclusive”. And then you turn up and then you realize, actually, yeah, you could. And even the most inclusive places, there’s always [00:24:00] room for growth. So no one is ever gonna be a hundred percent right all the time because disability is such a broad spectrum.
What I go through will be different to what someone else goes through in a wheelchair or, or who has CP, you know? Um, I think that once we have those, you know, tougher conversations, we can, we, we can really move forward.
Sam: And your, your optimism is infectious and clearly has got you so much, you know, afforded you so much success. But as we know, life can throw curve balls at you. And I know that Sophie wants to ask you a little bit more about what happened the other day and why, why we are not in the studio together, alas.
Um, but yeah, things, things don’t always go to plan, do they, James?
James: Yeah. Let’s be quite blunt with each other here. Having a disability is hard, right? I would never say it’s not hard. You know, I, I, I have a very good life. I have a very good quality of life, but, you know, would I rather not be disabled? [00:25:00] Sure. I’m proud of my disability and don’t hide it. I’m, you know, July is disability pride month and I’m proud of my disability.
But, you know, I wouldn’t wish this on anybody. You know, it sucks a lot of the time. Um, so, you know, I was supposed to come down and, and, and do this. Kind of work at the Haymarket office ready to go, ordered the cab all good to go, And I live in a, I live in a block of flats and, and, um, you have to take the lift down.
I live on the fourth floor. You take a lift down to kind of get to the main foyer so you can like leave. And, um, I just got to the, to the foyer and I clicked the button and it opened a bit. I kind of went in a little bit and then someone was like, oh no, it’s broken. You should leave it. Get out. So I got out and then it just, it just would not open again.
It, it just wouldn’t open. So I kind of stuck at the, at the top of the stairs. Cause not only did I miss the appointment, which, which is something that really frustrated me, but forward thinking, like, how am I gonna get out of my building? Like, what if there’s a fire? [00:26:00] Like, you know what, what, you know what if I need to go and get some food or you know, someone needs me for something else, I could, but it’d be, you know, you’d be throwing yourself down the stairs and that’s often not ideal. Um, but, uh, I think for me, You know, I think a lot of disabled people, they get a lot of flack saying like, oh, your, your needs are too much, or You’re always so tired, or, you know, yeah. You, you know, sometimes, you know, I, I think you could be doing better just moaning, but you have to understand that for a lot of disabled people, you have to think of a backup plan to your backup plan, to your backup plan.
There needs to be forward thinking for everything. Because there’s so many things that are out of our control as disabled people. The amount of times I’ve wanted to go and meet someone, but I can’t because, you know, the, the, the ramp wasn’t working on this bus or, or, or, or, or the lift wasn’t working at, at this station, or, you know, and I think I would feel better about it if the workers behind all that, especially public [00:27:00] transport, were just a bit more honest about it.
Like I go to say, you know, Euston Station and they’re like, oh, did you book beforehand? Now I did for a lot of them, but begs the question, why do I have to do that? Nobody else has to do that. Why do I have to do that? And I was like, well, you know, because we could help you out better if you call up beforehand.
Yeah, I understand that. But like, you know what? If you wanna do … something spontaneous, I can’t say to a friend, let’s go to Brighton for the day. That’s just not gonna happen. Nobody else has to deal with and. Able bodied people will, you know, I think I, I’ve got some great allyship in my, in my corner. My, my, my, my friends, my family, they’re great allies and they’re, they’re, they’re really supportive, but they’ll never get it.
They’ll never fully understand. And I think that’s where people get defensive, is that, or: “I’m not ableist, you know, I, I, I, I would never say that” no one’s saying you are ableist, but you know, you don’t know. So instead of
assuming, just, just listen.
Sophie: How do you deal with [00:28:00] those frustrations, James? Like for example, with what happened on Friday, and like you said, you can’t just be spontaneous and go out and meet friends. How do you manage those
frustrations because you, you do seem like a very positive person and obviously in your work as well and you know, do you practice what you preach?
James: I, I, I think so. Yeah. I think when it, when it comes to my lift breaking, for example, and then my sister came over and she kind of helped me down the stairs. Uh, and then we went to the concierge. The, the important thing is you, the, there’s no point getting upset with the workers. If a lift breaks down, it’s not their fault.
Right. And I think, again, if you if you go at it from a place of emotion and you’re looking for someone to blame and they’re the first person available. If you come at it from that aggression, they’re gonna respond with that same energy and then again, nothing gets resolved. But for me it’s the most prominent with visible is that from an early age, you’re gonna get questioned.
So I think from an early age, you you kind of learn things. And I’m not gonna lie, [00:29:00] sometimes I will snap at people if I’m having a bad day, Like if someone’s like visibly like frustrated, oh no, the lift doesn’t work, put yourself in that person’s shoes for a while. How I’ve been to many restaurants and, and, and bars where people are like, oh, we don’t have any access. And sometimes you don’t wanna swallow that.
Why don’t you have any access? I’ll give you one example. Back when I was, um, you know, in my student days, not so much now, but we went on a bar crawl, me and my friends and, um, went to this bar, and, and this guy was like, Nope, um, can’t you can’t come in in. There’s no access. My friends got very, very defensive of me. “Why? Why can’t we just carry him in? He’ll be fine with it.” And I would be fine with my friends carrying me and that’s different, but, the best thing that happened was another bouncer walked over to this bouncer that that was getting, you know, kind of questioned and said: “just carry him in. But what about health and safety? Yeah, but think about it like, you know, just, just, just, just be a bit [00:30:00] empathetic. Like if you were in my position, how would you feel? Now you’re not gonna be pleased about it.” I think that empathy piece is really important for me, and I think that just take a breath. if you are dealing with someone who is a bouncer and who doesn’t have.
The answers, they don’t have the answers. It’s not their fault. They’re having probably a long night and you’ve got a group of people and you know you don’t have the answer they want, so they’ve come at you. So it’s just about all taking a breath. It’s not this guy’s fault, right? That the place he works doesn’t have any access. Is there any alternatives? No, would you be willing to carry me in? No. Can I talk to someone else so that I can just inform them about what they could do to kind of make it a more inclusive space for everybody? And then you move on and you might go to another, another bar instead. It’s not the bar you wanted to go to, but unfortunately that’s life
Sophie: How do you go about living your best life and encouraging others to do so? Like what does that mean?
James: for me. Growing up, I didn’t know anyone else [00:31:00] like me. Not really, you know. And, you know, I I, I go down to, to to, to the track where I train and we got a lot of new young talent coming in and I think you guys are so lucky because you are, you know, you get to, you get to race with David Weir and you get to see these like older, you know, independent people living their life.
Growing up I didn’t have that. So I think, you know, If I met me as a younger person, I think the younger me would be quite impressed. You know, I live my own life, I’m a Paralympian now. I’ve got tattoos. You know, I think my younger self would think I was pretty cool.
Um, and I think that living your best life is just about taking one day at a time. Not every day is gonna be a good day, you know? Uh, you’re gonna get pains in your legs, you know, it might be snowing and it might be hard to get outside. But I [00:32:00] think my mum gave me the best advice when it comes to this.
She said to me, James, you’re not special. And I went, what do you mean I’m not special? Of course I’m special. No, you’re not special. No one’s special. Everyone goes through challenges, everyone goes through strife, okay, I’ve had my moan now, and I usually have, when I have a bad day, I say to myself, I’ve got today to be upset about it, but tomorrow I’ve gotta move on. And my dad who, who, who is very much into his wildlife and his David Attenborough stuff and all things nature documentaries.
He said to me, James, did you know that sharks only move in one direction? They only ever move forward. They never move backwards. Cuz if they move in a different direction, that means they’re gonna die. Right? So take that metaphor for a second and, really run with it. Be that shark always move forward, never back.
Because if you dwell on what’s not right, you’re not looking at what is good. You know, you’re not looking at that bigger picture. You could dwell on this little thing like, oh, the, the ramp’s not working. [00:33:00] And yeah, that’s a frustration for me. It’s a frustration for most disabled people. But that’s the thing.
It happens to all disabled people. It’s not just you. You are not special.
Sam: and that’s a beautiful sentiment and message to end this wonderful, um, interview with you. We can’t thank you enough, so much
food for thought. But before we do wrap up, we have a little bit of a tradition going on and we would love for you to ask a question, any question that we can give to our next guest. Given that we do not know who that might be?
James: Oh, sure. Um, have you had any crazy stories regarding your disability?
Sam: Oh wow. That was a, okay. Yeah, that, that’s a, that’s a heavy, well I was gonna be thinking what’s your favourite ice cream? But hey, let’s just deep dive right into there. James, from um, both Sophie and I. Thank you ever so much. I didn’t really like this shark analogy cuz I’m petrified of sharks, but I understood what you were [00:34:00] trying to say there.
Um, keep doing what you are doing. You are an absolute role model. You are incredible, and thank you so much for joining us today.
James: Thank you for your time. Absolute pleasure.
Car chat with Matt
Sophie: Okay. So we’re coming to the end of the episode, but before we go, we have one more guest lined up.
Sam: I feel like we need a drum roll here. Of course. It’s time for car chat with Matt
Sophie: Hello.
Hi guys how are we doing?
Matt: Good, thank you Very well.
Sophie: Just to introduce this bit, each episode, we end by asking our in-house expert Matt Lizzimore to enlighten us about all things cars. So welcome back, Matt. What have you got to tell us today
Matt: Today we’re gonna have a little chat about hybrid cars. Um, they’re, they’re very useful in that they can save you fuel, which saves you money and you can spend it on far more interesting things than trips to the petrol station. Um, but they are quite complicated.
There’s, there’s a few different types and traditionally the industry has done quite a bad job of explaining what they are, [00:35:00] and it’s not always obvious. So I thought I’d try and explain what the different types of hybrid car are in a way that’s easy for everyone to sort of understand. And then we can sort of from there see what car would suit what type of person and what car you get the most benefit. Um, so shall I jump straight in.
Sam: Yes. Well before you do actually, because this is really, really interesting because I. Um,of course I’m a car adv, you know, like an expert. Of course. I’m, um, not, but I was under the impression that a hybrid was essentially electric, you know, and you kind of had that small finite window of being able to use like, for 60 miles and then you had to go and charge it somewhere.
And I, my mum, God bless her, my mum’s, my mum’s German with this Lancashire twang accent. So you can imagine when she goes off on one, it’s just like a comedy sketch. Like, “I’m not gonna get one of those hybrid cars,”
you know, all irate.And I think a lot of people are very, very much in the same boat. They are terrified that, oh my goodness, if we are not [00:36:00] going to charge this car and we get stuck on the M6, what do we do? But that is not the case, is it Matt?
Matt: Not entirely, no. So, so there are, so here we go, right? There are hybrids that you can plug in. But you don’t have to, but you wouldn’t be getting the major benefit from them if you didn’t. So, ultimately a hybrid car is effectively just a car with like a petrol or diesel engine, and it gets some help from a battery and electric motor.
The difference between the different types of hybrid is just effectively about how big that battery is and how far you can drive on electric
Sam: So it’s always about size, isn’t it?
Matt: That is. So there’s, of the three types of hybrid, I think the one you are sort of referring to or when we talk about plugging in, is the plug-in hybrid.
So if you imagine them on a scale that’s at the furthest end, that’s like the most hybrid of the free hybrids, if you will. So it’s got the biggest battery. So what that means is if you can plug in, ideally you’d wanna plug it in at home, otherwise it wouldn’t be, it wouldn’t be very convenient for you
Sam:. Is it la creme de la creme?
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s say that. Let’s say that. And so with a plug-in hybrid, you could go, that it obviously varies by [00:37:00] model, but in theory you could go around 30 miles on one charge just purely on electric without the petrol engine kicking in at all.
Sam: That doesn’t sound like very far.
Matt: It’s Not very far, but if you think of how most people use a car, most journeys in the UK are under 20 miles. Most people do less than 20 miles a day. So if you were to think of it that way, you’ve got battery power to drive you everywhere for your sort of pop into the shops
Sam: or getting your egg McMuffin, McDonald’s on a, you know, on a Sunday when
Matt: when you, you know, you’re hungover, you wanna
Sam: go to the drive (thru) Absolutely. We’ve all been there.
Matt: Exactly, exactly. So you know, you’ve got the battery powers take you to short journeys and the benefit of that is if you charge at home, it’s gonna be cheaper to drive on battery power than it is to put petrol in your car. But if you do wanna go on a long journey, you’ve got that petrol engine to sort of take you the rest of the way.
So for all intents and purposes, the petrol engine works like an ordinary car. You just take it to the station, fill it with petrol, and you know, you can drive three, 400 miles or whatever.
Sam: I feel like I have had a light bulb moment, actually, and I guess this is why we [00:38:00] bring you in cause here to, um, make things bit clearer.
Were you under the same illusion about hybrid? I think they hyped it up, didn’t they? And they’re like, you know, it’s gonna, it’s a new way. And, and where I live in central London, um, it’s got, we have a lot of the, the plug-in.
Yes points and I’m always like cursing at them because they always get in the way of me, you know, in my power wheelchair and I’m, you know, kind of like, you darn cars are your pumps, you know?
Um, so yeah, that is, that’s really interesting. And that makes so much more ergonomic sense, doesn’t it? Yeah. Because like you said, people do on the whole do shorter, shorter trips.
Matt: That’s the thing. I think people do get hung up a lot on, on range numbers, especially with, I’m not gonna delve into electric cars now, but it’s one of the things people worry about with like fully electric cars that don’t have any sort of engine is you worry about the range, but in reality, something like nine, I think it’s over 99% of journeys are under a hundred miles in the UK at least.
Um, so yeah. You’ve got that, that’s plug-in hybrid is kind of the [00:39:00] most hybrid, but for obviously a lot of people you either can’t plug-in at home or, or you just simply are unable to for various reasons. It’s not always easy to plug those cars in. Um, the chargers can be quite heavy and it can be quite fiddly and cumbersome.
So, if you can’t plug-in, there’s two other types of hybrids that you don’t need to plug-in at all. So we’ll go, we’ll go to the complete opposite end of the scale now. We’ve got mild hybrid, so that’s your kind of entry level. I think it’s, I’ve been unnecessarily confusing to actually call that hybrid, because it, it’s actually very different to the other two. There’s not actually that much electrical assistance going on really.
It’s just a petrol car and all it really does is when you are rolling up to the traffic lights or a roundabout, for example, the engine just turns off. And then the, the energy that the car recovers while you’re slowing down is just used to start the engine up again and give you a little bit of assistance as you’re pulling away.
And that’s kind of all it does. It’s not, there’s not much more to, you can’t drive on electric power alone in a mild hybrid. It is just there literally to try and keep the engine off for longer periods to save a [00:40:00] bit of fuel and just help the engine get
Sam: again. That’s going to make that so much easier and, and, and cost effective as well.
Sophie: And for environment.
Matt: Exactly. And yeah, and anything that saves you fuel, saves you money as well. Yeah. And as you said, the environment. less, less, less, fuel emissions.Yeah,
Sam: Exactly.
Matt: So there’s that. Um, so I guess that brings us to, to the middle, the, the, the regular hybrid. So this was like the original hybrid, which is still the kind of middle ground. This was the, the what sort of started it all. Um, they’re often referred to now as self-charging hybrids. So if you see that, of course they are banded around, they call them self-charging, which kind of differentiates it a bit from plugin or mild.
So you don’t have to plug in a self-charging hybrid, but it has got a bigger battery and a bigger motor than the mild hybrid. So what that means is when you’re slow slowing down, again, sort of similar principle to the mild hybrid, when you’re slowing down and coming to traffic lights or a roundabout or whatever, um, instead of that energy being wasted, it’s put back into the battery so it charges up.
So, whenever you’re slowing down [00:41:00] that battery charges itself. With energy that would normally be wasted as say, heat from the brakes and that kind of thing. Um, and what it can then do is if you’re driving at slow speed, say around a car park, or if you are cruising, at 30,
Sam: I was gonna say cruising,
Matt: just cruising,
Sam: [sings] cruising down the highway.
Matt: It’s exactly that. If you are cruising, it can often be done just on the battery power alone. And, uh, we’re not talking far. You can’t drive, say, more than a mile or two on, on electric alone. Um, but generally it, it’s not really there to drive long distances on electric.
It’s more that the car just manages it itself and switches between the two, and it just does it in the way that’s gonna save you the most fuel. Um, so they’ve, and there’s other benefits to them as well actually. The, the benefit of having an electric motor is they’re very good at getting you off the line.
So if you need to nip into a gap in town or a busy roundabout, Um, the sort of electric motor in a hybrid and, and again, a plug-in hybrid, they just sort of give you a little boost off the line. So they’re quite good. If you want, if you do a lot of town driving and uh Yeah. A town,
Sophie: what if you’re going into Central London? It’s a hybrid. Do you have to pay congestion charge on a hybrid?
Matt: You do have to pay congestion charge on a [00:42:00] hybrid. Um, it’s fully electrics are free. Although I’d have to check that. I’ve got a feeling they might even be nipping that in the bud now.
Sophie: I have another question as well. With the whole 2030 legislation coming up, where no more petrol cars will be sold. Can you still buy hybrids or will it only be…
Matt:
so the, the current plan is no to self-charging hybrids and mild hybrids. But in theory, yes. To plug-in hybrids. I believe that’s only for an additional five years. So that is that. This is obviously changing sort of all the time, but my understanding is the current plan is 2030, no more regular petrol diesel or regular hybrids, and then plug-in hybrids will remain until 2035, and then at that point it’s just electric.
Sam: I wanna get down to the most important section of today’s episode. I wanna know what rubbish I can buy to put in my car to make me feel better about [00:43:00] myself. So it is gadget time?
Matt: Yeah. Gadget of the week. we found. What we found this week.
Okay. All right. This, this is a slightly unusual one that, that, that, that doesn’t sound super exciting on the face of it, but I’m a bit of a clean freak with my car.
I like my car to be clean, um, and my partner does not. Um, so we share a car and whenever I get in it, there’s either a like jam on the steering wheel or, or crossaint crumbs in the cup holders and that kind of thing. Um, so one of my favourite things is there’s this putty that you can buy this way.
Sam: Well, like, like when you were a kid, like the stuff you threw at wall pretty, much. Yeah.
Matt: It’s that. I mean it’s, I think it’s still really popular kids. Sophie, you have, you have, you have children of an age that, that, that we play toys have same putty anything Slime. Slime seems to be slim. Super popular. Yeah. Um, yeah. So it’s effectively this kind of slime putty kind of thing. Um, but it’s basically fantastic for just cleaning all the sort of nooks and crannies and crevices in your car.
And you basically just kind of roll it around and it picks up all the crumbs.
Sam: But then what do you, do? You throw it away [00:44:00] afterwards or can you re-use it?
Matt: Yeah, you can, it seems to go on for quite a while. I put it back in its little tub, but it, it seems to be fine.
Sophie: Oh, that’s been really helpful Matt. I feel like I’ve learned something new. Thank you
[Music transition]
Sam: And that’s it. for this episode of The Motability Lifestyle Pod. It has indeed been fun. Thanks to our guest, James Freeman and Matt Lizzimore
Thanks to our producer Joleen Goffin at Rethink Audio and to our editorial assistant Lucie Rhodes at Wonderly.
Sophie: We hope you like this episode, and if you do, tell all your friends and please leave us a review.
And if you want to see some behind the scenes content, be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok. Or if you want to watch the full video, please watch it on YouTube. These can all be found at Motability _lifestyle_mag.
Finally, if you want more information about the Motability Scheme, go to motability.co.uk. Or if you want to learn more about Motability, the charity, visit motability.org.uk.
[00:45:00] And that’s it. I’m Sophie- Marie Odum.
Sam: I’m Samantha Renke. See you in two weeks.
Sophie: Bye.
