Steve Thompson on his early-onset dementia, his new book and how rugby changed his life
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Channel 4 News
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2022
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Steve Thompson is a former England rugby player and he played in every England match during the 2003 Rugby World Cup.
But today, age 43, Steve remembers nothing about that final. And in 2020 he was diagnosed with early-onset dementia - and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
In today’s episode Krishnan talks to him about his diagnosis, the impact it’s had on his mental health and his memoir, ‘Unforgettable’.
if you have been affected by any of the issues covered in that report, you can find a range of places to seek help by visiting channel4.com/support
Produced by: Joe Lord-Jones and Freya Pickford
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome two ways to change the world. I'm Krishnan Girimurthy and this is the |
| 0:05.0 | podcast in which we talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their lives and |
| 0:09.3 | the events that have helped shape them. My guest this week is a rugby player. Steve Thompson |
| 0:14.6 | was one of the stars of the England World Cup winning team of 2003. He spent a lifetime |
| 0:22.3 | in rugby for England and the British and Irish Lions. But in 2020 he revealed that he had |
| 0:29.6 | been diagnosed with early onset dementia and another condition called CET which is thought to |
| 0:36.8 | be related to trauma and injuries and he's now written an extraordinary book called Unforgettable |
| 0:44.2 | which is part memoir and parts. Steve's thoughts on rugby and how the game could be made safer. |
| 0:52.3 | And the first thing to say Steve is thank you so much indeed for doing this. The book is |
| 0:56.9 | gripping from the very beginning. Thank you very much for having me on. |
| 1:01.7 | Yes if someone I wanted to do for the kids and then I came up with the idea of obviously there's |
| 1:08.1 | big periods of my life that are missing especially my 20s just out there which was |
| 1:12.7 | considerable part of my rugby career. He goes to ice that I've done it with who helped me |
| 1:17.2 | John Woodhouse was just phenomenal. I've been asked to do books in the past and I've never been |
| 1:21.7 | interested. I sat down with him and it was just incredible from the first minute he just seemed |
| 1:28.0 | to get me and we still see now we go out for lunch every every week and it's become a bit of a |
| 1:34.1 | therapy session as well for I think both of us. We sort of just clicked and he just understood the |
| 1:39.2 | situation straight away and it's just someone that's in my life now and I think that's why it comes |
| 1:46.0 | over in the book how well we got on together. So in terms of the process I mean you piece together |
| 1:53.4 | your own history by talking to other people who are there. Yeah and they had inputs you know Louis |
| 1:59.6 | Moody Ben Cohen old coaches best friends and that's what's been happening really since you know I've |
| 2:07.8 | started to realise that all that sort of time has gone you know I sort of asked what went on my |
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