Tanni's lifetime road to disabled equality
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 15 November 2023
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Multiple gold medal-winning Paralympic wheelchair athlete Tanni Grey-Thompson examines 50 years of changing attitudes to disability around the world. When Tanni was a child in the 1970s in Wales becoming an athlete with spina bifida was far from guaranteed. There was no support for her parents bringing up a disabled child and education for children with disabilities was minimal.
Over the years Tanni has suffered discrimination including when she was pregnant being offered a termination. She meets others who have had similar journeys in India, Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria, Brazil and New Zealand.
In India she meets Abha Khetarpal, and both reflect on several shared experiences. They both had scoliosis and use a wheelchair and faced early challenges at school - Abha having to be home schooled.
Meanwhile Lois Auta in Nigeria also uses a wheelchair. She was born in 1980 and tells Tanni how she managed to challenge the status quo and stand for parliament. ‘Disability is seen in our country as something that happens through witch craft," she says. Lois, who now acts as an advocate for women with disabilities says those prejudices still exist.
She meets BBC war correspondent Frank Gardner who tells her how he adapted to becoming disabled after being injured during his work in a war zone in the Middle East.
Producer: Ashley Byrne A Made in Manchester production for BBC World Service
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Sport, but not as you know it. |
| 0:03.0 | Yes, you're good enough. |
| 0:05.0 | We wish we could take you, but you're a girl. |
| 0:08.0 | Amazing sports stories from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:11.0 | The rules were holding her back. So she would have to rewrite them. |
| 0:15.8 | Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. I'm Tanny Gray Thompson. You might know me as an 11-time gold medal winning Paralympian. |
| 0:28.2 | Over my career I broke 35 world records, but when I was born in Wales in the United Kingdom in 1969, the world |
| 0:36.8 | for anyone considered disabled was a very different place. |
| 0:41.3 | Things have improved a lot for disabled people in many parts of the world, but there |
| 0:45.2 | are still some shockingly bad practices and the fight against prejudice and discrimination, |
| 0:50.8 | and four rights and representation is far from over. |
| 0:54.4 | In this program I'm going to chart some of that journey for me and others with similar experiences |
| 1:00.3 | and along the way I'll be asking what still needs to be done to achieve real equality. |
| 1:06.0 | You're listening to the documentary Tanny's Lifetime Road to Disabled Equality |
| 1:11.0 | from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:15.0 | Once upon a time the world regarded the handicapped child as a social outcast, |
| 1:22.0 | a beggar dependent on occasional charity. |
| 1:25.8 | The mentally disabled were called mad. |
| 1:28.6 | I'm looking through some BBC archive of experiences of disabled people before I was born here in the UK. |
| 1:35.0 | We fit stuff at this great big island gates and this dreadful ball. |
| 1:40.0 | The most of it was here that kind of gold writing and a paint with tealing. |
| 1:47.0 | It says it's called for Disabled Girls. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.