Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded on.
Speaker 2: You know this is a No Filter podcast.
Speaker 1: I wanted to share that story on the fact that
Speaker 1: me and Rosie had two quadriplegics having the best sex
Speaker 1: of our life, so there is hope that you haven't
Speaker 1: lost that sexual relationship.
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Katelinebrook and welcome to No Filter. At just
Speaker 3: twenty five years old, David Holmes was living the dream.
Speaker 3: He was working on the biggest film franchise in the world,
Speaker 3: out partying and fully immersed in a life of sex,
Speaker 3: drugs and rock and roll. A former gymnast turned stunt man,
Speaker 3: David was Daniel Radcliffe's stunt double in all the Harry
Speaker 3: Potter films, literally going up alongside the cast, almost like
Speaker 3: a big brother to a group of preteens who would
Speaker 3: go on to become global stars. But while rehearsing a
Speaker 3: stunt for the final Harry Potter film, a move he'd
Speaker 3: done many times before, something went terribly wrong. David was
Speaker 3: flung into a wall and broke his neck. He remembers
Speaker 3: the sound, the feeling, and staying completely conscious as emergency
Speaker 3: services arrived. He now refers to his injury as the
Speaker 3: gift that keeps on taking Over fifteen years later, David
Speaker 3: has the use of only one arm, but as you'll
Speaker 3: hear in this conversation, he doesn't see himself as a victim. Life,
Speaker 3: he says, guarantees nothing. It's what you do with what
Speaker 3: you've got that counts, and David is doing a lot,
Speaker 3: from writing a novel to producing a documentary with his
Speaker 3: friend Daniel Radcliffe, hosting a podcast, advocating for disability rights,
Speaker 3: and yes, having the best sex of his life. This
Speaker 3: man truly has no filter and why should he. From
Speaker 3: the moment this conversation began, I was laughing because David
Speaker 3: Holmes is someone who brings a spark of silliness and
Speaker 3: honesty to every moment. Hello, Kay, I didn't realize that
Speaker 3: the extension of your skills had now spread to doing
Speaker 3: acting and a little falsetto.
Speaker 1: You'd be surprised what I've managed to achieve in my
Speaker 1: life despite the fact of the barriers that are in
Speaker 1: front of me. I've got very secret projects that I
Speaker 1: can't publicly announce, but it involves acting and really very much.
Speaker 3: So man, Yeah, well, you know, your talents not really
Speaker 3: that secret, given that you have written a book. You
Speaker 3: have written a book, The Boy Who Lived When Magic
Speaker 3: and Reality Collide My story, which is an extraordinary story,
Speaker 3: and a docco The Boy Who Lived. Now the journey, right,
Speaker 3: what a journey, an epic one, an odyssey really. But
Speaker 3: I've got to tell you I had an extraordinary day
Speaker 3: with you that, of course you on the other side
Speaker 3: of the world would have been unaware of. But I
Speaker 3: watched the documentary about you with my son. I've got
Speaker 3: three sons, like your mum. I've got three sons, and
Speaker 3: my number two son is seventeen. Yeah, Ok, the same
Speaker 3: age that you were when you started being the stunt
Speaker 3: double for Daniel Radcliffe in the Harry Potter movies. And
Speaker 3: so we were this dooco together and you know, with
Speaker 3: a seventeen year old, you just don't know a teenage boy,
Speaker 3: You don't know what they're thinking. He didn't peel off
Speaker 3: at any point during it. Yeah, he's stayed fixed with it.
Speaker 3: I mean we all were. It's extraordinary. And at the
Speaker 3: end he stood up and he went hmm, legend our
Speaker 3: blessed and walked out of the room.
Speaker 2: Oh, blessed. Yeah, that's whole.
Speaker 3: How's that?
Speaker 1: But to know that in a society where young men
Speaker 1: are trying to navigate what it is like masculinity and
Speaker 1: to be a man, to know that for your son
Speaker 1: at that moment there that I showed him certain aspects
Speaker 1: of my life and my journey through the documentary that
Speaker 1: might help him get a grip of that.
Speaker 2: What a gift day is.
Speaker 1: So I'm very grateful to share my story to the
Speaker 1: journey that I've had because if it hasn't knock on
Speaker 1: effect for so many others, then it's start a good thing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Well, it's also very appealing, I think because because you're
Speaker 3: a stuntman, ye and outside of on a film set,
Speaker 3: aside from either movie, there's the movie stars. We get that,
Speaker 3: But then if you're going to go for who the
Speaker 3: next alpha men are on a film set, it's the stunties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the director's assistant directors that we're all
Speaker 1: justling for, like our mark.
Speaker 2: On the creative experience.
Speaker 1: But some performers get to be the young sum heroes
Speaker 1: and tell the story with their physicality and to make
Speaker 1: the impossible possible, and for many years I did that,
Speaker 1: and then it's you know, it's part of who I
Speaker 1: was as a child, and it's part of who I
Speaker 1: am now as an adult. Despite the fact I'm now quadriplegic,
Speaker 1: I still perform stunts something last year I set my
Speaker 1: head on fire, right, and every day I get wonderful
Speaker 1: messages just like what you had with your son, where
Speaker 1: people saying this, you know, really helped me gain perspective
Speaker 1: and understanding on the journey that I'm on and some
Speaker 1: of the difficulty or the trauma that I've navigating.
Speaker 3: So well. It's such an interesting thing because you yourself,
Speaker 3: i'man aside from the accident and who physically you are
Speaker 3: compared to who you were, you know at the start.
Speaker 3: I think that there's many lessons that can be learnt,
Speaker 3: that can be extrapolated to different circumstances that aren't necessarily
Speaker 3: to do with physicality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, life's hard for all of us.
Speaker 3: This life is hard.
Speaker 1: Broken neck or no broken neck, it's hot. We're given
Speaker 1: this lesson, like this gift, and then you have to
Speaker 1: understand it's a lesson of loss. I learned that lesson
Speaker 1: the hardest way at twenty five with my accident, and
Speaker 1: I continue to have to navigate that lesson now with
Speaker 1: changing in neurology, or elderly dogs that are just shitting
Speaker 1: everywhere in my house, or you know, seeing my parents'
Speaker 1: age and stuff like that. So it's I learned that
Speaker 1: lesson at twenty five and it made me make my
Speaker 1: peace with the facts.
Speaker 2: It teaches you gratude. All right.
Speaker 1: I am here today now where I'm going to be
Speaker 1: in ten years time in my body, I can't tell you.
Speaker 1: No one can tell you that. You can't tell me
Speaker 1: with yours. But with what I'm going through, with the changes,
Speaker 1: with the journey, with what I've lost, it forces me
Speaker 1: to be here now, to like take in the day
Speaker 1: and it's a really crappy gray day in England, but
Speaker 1: still the world presents gifts. Spring has happened, there's leaves
Speaker 1: on the true I've had a visit by a greenwood
Speaker 1: paper in my garden today. I've got I've made a
Speaker 1: really good show on the steam room. I've done toilet routine,
Speaker 1: which as a quadriplegic is very hard to navigate. Can
Speaker 1: I be really crude in this podcast?
Speaker 3: Please? You can be what however you are no filter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no filter? Right, so are you ready for this strapping? Okay, So,
Speaker 1: as I go into detail in the book, I can't
Speaker 1: have control of my bower routine. Yes, so my routine
Speaker 1: involves in certain responsibitories in my house. Now I have
Speaker 1: no act to do that. So that means I've had
Speaker 1: more hands up my ass than the cast of the Muppets.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you soon learn to think. All right, that's
Speaker 1: just a process. That's what we got doing. Once that's done.
Speaker 1: At the start, it's horrifying, it's really bad, it's degrading,
Speaker 1: it's all of those things. And anyone who goes through
Speaker 1: medical issues will navigate this at some stage.
Speaker 2: And when you get older, you're going to navigate this.
Speaker 3: And there is a handing over of things that we
Speaker 3: consider to be innate sort of rights, like the right
Speaker 3: to autonomy or the right to privacy over our bodies.
Speaker 3: And of course you forfeited that in a really sudden way.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always say to people, never neglect the fact you're
Speaker 1: sitting on a socially conscious asshole, because it tells you
Speaker 1: when it needs to part, and mine doesn't. So I've
Speaker 1: crapped myself everywhere top of Mountains film premieres. You name
Speaker 1: it at about accident, and it never gets easier, but
Speaker 1: if you can find the joy and humor after it,
Speaker 1: it gets a little bit more digestible.
Speaker 2: So I always just laugh at myself. Shit happens to us.
Speaker 3: So this accident that you refer to that will be
Speaker 3: discussing happen in two thousand and nine. So you've lived
Speaker 3: in this new incarnation of your body, yeah, for quite
Speaker 3: some time. But before then you describe yourself as arrogant
Speaker 3: and self centered and a bit of a knob. And
Speaker 3: so this was when you were like flying high as
Speaker 3: a Stundy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The ego is so easy to creep in when your
Speaker 1: number one s on call sheet, working on the biggest
Speaker 1: kids franchise, driving a fast Mercedes, and you know, prowling
Speaker 1: for sexual partners.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? I say prouding, that's not
Speaker 2: that's the work, you.
Speaker 3: Know, She's a different word. Yeah, but yes, you were
Speaker 3: enjoying the array of gifts that life has to offer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I had a lot, and I was enjoying
Speaker 1: a lot and whether if that was you know, sex,
Speaker 1: drugs and sausage rolls.
Speaker 2: I've consumed them all.
Speaker 1: And it's it was that was me then, and that
Speaker 1: was me at the height of where I was with
Speaker 1: the success that I was given. But that success wasn't
Speaker 1: just handed out for free. There were years of gymnastics
Speaker 1: and hurt and pain and turmoil and bullying that got
Speaker 1: me to that point of success.
Speaker 3: The bullying. The bullying is interesting. Was the bullying because
Speaker 3: of your height?
Speaker 1: Or yeah, man, you've been in society we screw small men,
Speaker 1: We give small men a bad wrapping life, and it's
Speaker 1: that we're off on us foot. But mac milligates it right.
Speaker 1: Why would you want to look down on people your
Speaker 1: whole life? Looking up to people is the way like
Speaker 1: aspiring looking up like never never being ashamed of your
Speaker 1: height or your stature, or your social position or your wealth,
Speaker 1: like because if you've got something to look up to,
Speaker 1: whether that's physically or mentally, it gives you aspirations for
Speaker 1: your life and it gives you a grounding to say,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to be there or I want
Speaker 1: to And I'm not saying like extended my legs and
Speaker 1: get taller. I'm saying right that the humbling experience of
Speaker 1: what it is to be smaller, to have people call
Speaker 1: you half prime and ditch and all that lot and
Speaker 1: some minute breaks. But for me, I learned to embrace
Speaker 1: it and then eventually use it, and it turned me
Speaker 1: into it very successful young man as a gymnast.
Speaker 3: Incredibly because you're are you five foot two?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Five foot two one in three quarters, but I
Speaker 1: take five foot right. Picking yourself up that extra each
Speaker 1: always makes a difference, you know.
Speaker 3: So I've heard.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing with that turned out actually to
Speaker 3: be to your advantage because when you first met Daniel Radcliffe,
Speaker 3: he was eleven and it started filming the Harry Potter films.
Speaker 3: You were seventeen. But you could be a perfect stunt
Speaker 3: double for him because you had that physicality, not just
Speaker 3: that all of the kids.
Speaker 1: In the first two films, I'm the Hermione when the
Speaker 1: troll smashes through the bathroom doors.
Speaker 2: I am the.
Speaker 1: Ron sitting on the back of the horses. He gets
Speaker 1: hit on the chest piece. I am the Malfoy in
Speaker 1: the quidditch match, flying off with his broom. I am
Speaker 1: the Malfoy flying on the table. And Harry Potter two
Speaker 1: in the dueling sequence, there was I doubled pretty much
Speaker 1: most of the young cars Neville in the first two films,
Speaker 1: and then all of Dale grew up, and then Dan.
Speaker 1: Thankfully he's only grew to five foot five. So Harry
Speaker 1: lifts in my shoes. I could stay it's stunt double yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right. And then you So during the course of
Speaker 3: those movies, you became incredibly close.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just pe teacher.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So twice three times a week he comes to the
Speaker 1: stunt department. We'd shut the doors and we do things
Speaker 1: that were giving Insurance Company an absolute heart attack. I'd
Speaker 1: get him doing some sorts off and trampoline, jumping off
Speaker 1: a pork cabin, swinging swords around, doing judo, keeping fit, exercise.
Speaker 1: It was all part of being a gymnast growing up,
Speaker 1: having coaches in plant, their coaching and their physical gifts
Speaker 1: to me, learning how to be a good gymnast. I
Speaker 1: was able to just do that for Dank, and now
Speaker 1: whenever I see his body in a film or a
Speaker 1: TV program, or if I see him do something that's
Speaker 1: a sun element, I'm always very proud that I contributed
Speaker 1: to that, to the man that he is on camera now.
Speaker 1: And I'd like to say, and I'm sure I'm not overreaching.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he would say that I contributed to the
Speaker 1: man that he is in life as well, which.
Speaker 3: Is well, he does say that, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's a good things. You got to watch him grow
Speaker 1: up on the camera. I got to watch him grow
Speaker 1: as a human being, and I could not be proud
Speaker 1: of who he is, whether that is his willingness to
Speaker 1: stand up for what he believes in over certain issues,
Speaker 1: or seeing him as a younger father and how the
Speaker 1: joy that brings to his life. He's a great human
Speaker 1: being and will sacrifice his life to make sure other
Speaker 1: people stay employed. You know, Like recently he was on
Speaker 1: a Broadway show and it was going to close down
Speaker 1: and he's looking around and if he was to leave
Speaker 1: his contract. They asked for an extension, and he looked
Speaker 1: around and he's like, well, if I don't do the extension,
Speaker 1: then all these people become unemployed. So he went back
Speaker 1: and he'd done eight extra shows a week for three months.
Speaker 1: You know, Like that's commitment to others, not commitment to himself.
Speaker 1: So that's the mark of who he is.
Speaker 3: And you know him very well because the reading your book,
Speaker 3: it really imparted a lovely sense of course, we all
Speaker 3: know the Harry Potter movies. But for you guys, it
Speaker 3: was almost like an annual summer camp. Yeah, because you
Speaker 3: saw each other every year for ten years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. There was the longest break between the
Speaker 2: films was maybe.
Speaker 1: Four arms in total, So we were always interacting with
Speaker 1: each other and we were able to because it was
Speaker 1: Hogwarts Express was a runaway train after the second film.
Speaker 2: It was just massive.
Speaker 1: And I think keeping the continuity of crew helps keep
Speaker 1: those young adults in an environment where they felt safe
Speaker 1: to explore becoming better actors, that felt safe to grow
Speaker 1: up without the prime eyes. And I'm a bit nervous
Speaker 1: because they're redoing it now, and then the young cast
Speaker 1: members are also now exposed to social media and the
Speaker 1: damage that that is doing to our society. Now.
Speaker 2: I use it as a tool like it's a worktool,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I use it to help promote an image of disability
Speaker 1: that doesn't frame us as a victive. For young people
Speaker 1: who are very impressionable that trying to work out who
Speaker 1: they are. I think it's very damaging to be able
Speaker 1: to click a button and put a filter on and
Speaker 1: change your face.
Speaker 3: After this short break, David tells me what he remembers
Speaker 3: about the day of his accident. Don't go anywhere well, interestingly,
Speaker 3: because your physical body was your ultimate work tool, and
Speaker 3: you sustained so many injuries as stunties do in the
Speaker 3: course of your work. Before I'm going to call it
Speaker 3: a fateful day. How do you think of that day
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine, You know, the day that sent.
Speaker 1: Me down with different roads, that put me on a
Speaker 1: different path. And it's a day that's hard. You know,
Speaker 1: every time the analysty comes around, it's always that very
Speaker 1: soon I'm going to be in a.
Speaker 2: Wheelchair longer than i was on legs, you know, that's.
Speaker 1: Always or when look, you know, time passing is hard,
Speaker 1: and I try to enjoy the passing of time as
Speaker 1: best I can. But at the same time, when you're
Speaker 1: going through physical changes like I am, it is some
Speaker 1: of those important data are quite difficult to navigate.
Speaker 3: When is when is the anniversary days?
Speaker 2: Right towards the end of January.
Speaker 1: I don't say it because yes, yeah, funny enough, it's
Speaker 1: just certain aspects of my life, like Wikipedia's got my
Speaker 1: birthday wrong and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: It puts me down as forty three. I'm actually forty one.
Speaker 2: So and also now I'm a public person.
Speaker 1: There is just a few vula benities that are trying
Speaker 1: to protect myself from.
Speaker 3: And how do you recall the events of that day.
Speaker 2: Fully conscious throughout the whole thing? I remember it. I
Speaker 2: know the noise.
Speaker 1: What noise makes when your neck breaks, I know is
Speaker 1: that I recover of breath. I sometimes relimit with posed
Speaker 1: to make stress when a falling asleep. So funny enough,
Speaker 1: I listen to podcasts when I'm falling asleep. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that was something that I learned in hospital as I'm
Speaker 1: slipping into sleep that I can go for pts and
Speaker 1: relive that moment, like we live the plug socket that
Speaker 1: was looking at to fix my eyeline and you know
Speaker 1: the noise of the wire.
Speaker 2: Pulling and all that lot.
Speaker 1: So I just find a coping strategy and know how
Speaker 1: to use it.
Speaker 3: For those who don't know, you were doing a stunt
Speaker 3: that involved you being on a wire and then fired
Speaker 3: pulled rapidly towards the wall, and you'd rehearsed at the
Speaker 3: day before.
Speaker 2: Yeah you got it. Yeah, so we was doing Harry
Speaker 2: battling the Guini and for the snake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so as we as we should have been doing
Speaker 1: as some performers. In the Harry Potter series, we saw
Speaker 1: so many spelled reactions that were used by a wire
Speaker 1: and it's our job to always try and push the
Speaker 1: boundaries of the action. And as the film's got more
Speaker 1: intense and more serious and what, we were always trying
Speaker 1: to make the spells a bit more serious, reactive, speedy
Speaker 1: out and all that lot.
Speaker 3: And you succeeded, by the way, because those movies, I
Speaker 3: think changed changed the way movie making is told with
Speaker 3: any element of magic.
Speaker 1: Very few franchises continue to hold their own as they
Speaker 1: progress through each different film, and Harry Pottery is one
Speaker 1: of those things.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: Raised the day before, and then the suggestion was made
Speaker 1: short in the distance and to put a slack line
Speaker 1: in so the snatch off the floor was too quick.
Speaker 1: That was two vital mistakes that sent me into a
Speaker 1: wall SINNI mile an hour on my chest folding into
Speaker 1: my nose that my spinalcle separated at the C six
Speaker 1: c cent vertebrae, just at the bottom of your neck
Speaker 1: before your thought rack starts. And I was instantly paralyzed
Speaker 1: from that moment. And I knew that I'd done it.
Speaker 1: I knew what a boken. Brain felt like and I
Speaker 1: felt my whole body, and once I'd recovered my breath,
Speaker 1: I kept consciousness, made some very good, smart suggestions about
Speaker 1: making sure a camera was safe, that I had the
Speaker 1: footage because I knew Health and Safety would have to
Speaker 1: review that, and then told my best mates don't call
Speaker 1: my mum to worry her, and then slipped into unconsciousness.
Speaker 1: And then you come back to consciousness again. And then
Speaker 1: it was the full rig more of a slow ambulance,
Speaker 1: and I always gutted. I was then putting a helicopter,
Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, the rigmar of snow ambulance, one
Speaker 1: hospital and then onto the spinal lord. And then a
Speaker 1: couple of days later, I woke up and some nurse
Speaker 1: was rolling me over, saying you need to evacuate out
Speaker 1: your bows.
Speaker 2: And then I realized I don't fill my arn, you know.
Speaker 2: When she was telling me what you doing, I was.
Speaker 1: Like, ah, and I'll feel that so and then you
Speaker 1: have to learn to rebuild your up. And it's when
Speaker 1: everything's taken away like that. It starts from scratch, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you're stripped back to how you are as Otoba,
Speaker 1: so vulnerable, so needy, so you know, people needed to
Speaker 1: feed me, people needed to dress me, wash me, you
Speaker 1: name it. So and then grueling rehabilitation. And I'm thankful
Speaker 1: for the gifts of gymnastics and my physical prowess to
Speaker 1: understand that nothing's gained without hard work. So I worked
Speaker 1: tirelessly at the hospital to try and regain as much
Speaker 1: function as possible above my level injury. And then just
Speaker 1: before discharge, I had developed a spinal series, which is
Speaker 1: why I'm going through changes now, which.
Speaker 3: Which is apparently quite rare.
Speaker 1: Very rare, Yeah, very rare, right in the beginning. So
Speaker 1: it's assists within this final called that mine actually board
Speaker 1: up to the C one vertebrae because it was it
Speaker 1: was just growing so quick, and that's the problem with
Speaker 1: where I was so healthy and fear so many white
Speaker 1: blood cells went to the area to sort the bruising out,
Speaker 1: and they were they were trapped in so it was
Speaker 1: a it was one of those things that doctor says,
Speaker 1: if you don't go surging, now you're going to die.
Speaker 1: It's going to stop your breathing. So big surgery, and
Speaker 1: then I had to redo my rehabilitation again.
Speaker 2: So bad hard luck on top of bad hard luck.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and that's now because it goes up to
Speaker 1: C one that's where independent breathing, speech and swallow is.
Speaker 1: So as I get older, there's a good chance that
Speaker 1: I won't be able to keep hold of those things.
Speaker 3: So the cyst I gather can't be removed, and it's
Speaker 3: kind of like waiting for you, like Voldemort.
Speaker 2: You got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's inside my spinal cord. He's got a
Speaker 1: shunk that's draining the pressure. If that shump blocks, and
Speaker 1: it's back into the surgery again. And I two ninety
Speaker 1: went from out a surgery to see if I can
Speaker 1: check the status of the the pressure of the cysts,
Speaker 1: shave back some scar tissue, and then I had some
Speaker 1: really bad complications that it killed me. In twenty ninety,
Speaker 1: was fighting for my life for surgeries, another little brain surgery,
Speaker 1: and then came out and just about recovered to get
Speaker 1: on a plane to go to Thailand. Got to Thailand,
Speaker 1: and then COVID happened. And then when I was in Thailand,
Speaker 1: I realized, hang on a minute, I'm still going through changes.
Speaker 1: That surgery didn't work, so I had that to deal with,
Speaker 1: and then COVID, and as a vulnerable individual, I was
Speaker 1: asking myself is my last worthit? When I have to
Speaker 1: risk covers to come to work. You know, like a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the same spectrum, we're doing that,
Speaker 1: which is not a nice place to be. Could have
Speaker 1: done with a bit more support from our governments and
Speaker 1: all that lot. But I was very grateful at one
Speaker 1: of my best friends with me and look after me,
Speaker 1: and we just got through it like weel did.
Speaker 3: It is extraordinary, both in the book and in the
Speaker 3: documentary and just speaking to you now that when I
Speaker 3: think there's a great physical trauma or a great loss
Speaker 3: of any kind, or a debilitating condition, and this is
Speaker 3: really spoken about, I think people like to have this
Speaker 3: idea that people are just kind of like peacefully wasting
Speaker 3: away or whatever. But often there's a lot of bitterness,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of anger, there's a lot of resentment.
Speaker 3: But you seem to have consciously made the decision to
Speaker 3: focus on the positives.
Speaker 1: Well, what's worse than breaking your neck, It is in
Speaker 1: your pain, in your loved one's eyes. What's worse than
Speaker 1: getting a diagnosis is having to tell your family and
Speaker 1: holding on to those emotions, those vacuous emotions, you actually
Speaker 1: hurt yourself the most first. So if you can go, okay,
Speaker 1: that's you have to let go of the things I
Speaker 1: can't got, you know what I mean. Like I'm not religious,
Speaker 1: my dad is. But there's a prayer there. I will
Speaker 1: always say.
Speaker 2: It's a good prayer, and it's God grant me the
Speaker 2: grace to accept the things that I can't control, embrace
Speaker 2: the things that I can. And I think that's a
Speaker 2: really nice way of just going.
Speaker 1: You know, life is going to happen, and asteroids could
Speaker 1: come and fucking wipe us out right now, we have
Speaker 1: no control over that.
Speaker 3: I hope. I hope not not before our interview.
Speaker 2: No fingers crossed, not now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yeah, if I saw one, I might
Speaker 1: be sticking my hands down my shorts just so in
Speaker 1: case my body's you know, like the blokes in Pompeii's Yeah,
Speaker 1: I masturbated in.
Speaker 2: Lying on his side. That's the guy I want to be.
Speaker 3: They got they got done instantly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, done instantly. But his body was preserved in that position.
Speaker 1: So he's just lying on his side, having a way
Speaker 1: because like, yeah, wicked. No dignity, Yeah no, there's no dignit.
Speaker 1: He was final point injury, not just like living with
Speaker 1: like with the barroutines addressing there's the other. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you now, I'm in a relationship and my
Speaker 1: girlfriends are four quadriplegic, so she's got less function than
Speaker 1: I have. But we don't connect over our injuries. We
Speaker 1: connect over our love for each other and how shared
Speaker 1: experience of being loved by great families and friends and
Speaker 1: committed care teams. How did you?
Speaker 3: How did you meet?
Speaker 1: She owns the property that I rented in Spain, and
Speaker 1: she was emailing me quite a few times about my requirements,
Speaker 1: and it was very just email exchanges, and then it
Speaker 1: went to voice notes, just going back. Do you know
Speaker 1: it's how being disabled them it's the other? And then
Speaker 1: she'd never stayed at anyone else's house after a hospital
Speaker 1: discharge because she went to a mom and dad's house
Speaker 1: and she couldn't and she had her accident in the
Speaker 1: same year as me, and I said, well, I built
Speaker 1: this house and I can accommodate for you here and
Speaker 1: your care team, and next time you're in London, why
Speaker 1: don't you come and see my house? Because I knew
Speaker 1: that she was building her own property up in Sheffield,
Speaker 1: which is you know, three hundred miles away annoying me.
Speaker 1: And because this house is a smart home, all the
Speaker 1: doors are controlled, all the lights to controlled, the TV,
Speaker 1: everything by by boys and thirteen years ago. I'm very,
Speaker 1: very independent in this property, like to the degree that
Speaker 1: I'm probably more able in this environment than most people
Speaker 1: that are able bodied, just because I know how to
Speaker 1: navigate it and control it with the technology.
Speaker 3: I must sound very admiring of the fact that you
Speaker 3: get technology to work for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And I wanted her to incorporate those things in her
Speaker 1: life because I know what it does for me, and
Speaker 1: I would want every person.
Speaker 2: In with his final cord injury to have an environment.
Speaker 1: Like this, because the most the saving thing about and
Speaker 1: being a wol Che user is the environment you interact with,
Speaker 1: you know, like so in here, it's not like that.
Speaker 2: So she came down. She was going to a gas
Speaker 2: like Anthont gig in London, and she stayed the night
Speaker 2: for the first night.
Speaker 1: And her function is she can bring her arm to here,
Speaker 1: but she hasn't got the shoulder function to lift it
Speaker 1: out right.
Speaker 2: So we was outside sitting in the sun.
Speaker 1: In my garden and the wind blew her hair in
Speaker 1: her face, and I saw her trying to blow it
Speaker 1: out and I was like, do you want me to
Speaker 1: get that for you? And as I brushed the hair
Speaker 1: out of face, I was like, we're really beautiful. And
Speaker 1: then you know, I went to a place in Spain.
Speaker 1: She I had a week where there was space at
Speaker 1: the end, and obviously it's her house, and I was like,
Speaker 1: why don't you come out for that last week and
Speaker 1: we can get a bit of time together. And then
Speaker 1: I just looked at her, was like the world's unfair
Speaker 1: in it, but if we were able bodied people, we'd
Speaker 1: be doing something very different right now. And she's really
Speaker 1: really shy, like shocking me shy. She could barely look
Speaker 1: up look at me. She just she raised her eyes,
Speaker 1: she looked at me and she gave me a nude
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, it's on. And then we've
Speaker 1: been able to achieve connection despite what we can't feel,
Speaker 1: what we can feel is phenomenal. What we can embrace
Speaker 1: and what you know, it takes a team of people
Speaker 1: for us to another couple the kiss together, but it
Speaker 1: makes it mean more when we have to work so.
Speaker 3: Hard for it.
Speaker 1: You know, our shared life experience, when we go on
Speaker 1: holiday together it means more because we have to work
Speaker 1: harder for it. And then, you know, every orgasm that
Speaker 1: we both give each other it means more because we're
Speaker 1: having an orgasm below our level of injuries, something that
Speaker 1: most people say it's unachievable. I'm like, no, I don't
Speaker 1: accept that reality. So yeah, I'm a prime numbers man.
Speaker 1: I ain't happy until she said at least eleven, maybe thirty.
Speaker 1: But I tell you a really funny story. And she
Speaker 1: doesn't mind me saying this. Asked her for a permission.
Speaker 3: What's her name? By the way, her name is Rosy Rosie.
Speaker 1: But anyway, this is a great story. So we was
Speaker 1: in Thailand two years ago and we got both got
Speaker 1: hoisted on a couch. We're watching a film together. We've
Speaker 1: already had our first kiss. We're sitting under the couch
Speaker 1: and we used our phones to call people. So do
Speaker 1: we Yeah, but we have to use voice control to
Speaker 1: ask someone to come and help us.
Speaker 3: Okay, yes.
Speaker 1: So her phone's on the armrest next to her, My
Speaker 1: phone's on my leg next to me, and I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there and she's got a skirl and I've got a
Speaker 1: carecter cut and nickers off because they were just getting
Speaker 1: in the way, and I was just fuck it on
Speaker 1: going for it. So I leant over to perform our sex,
Speaker 1: not realizing half an hour later that both her phone
Speaker 1: is falling off the sofa and down by the cushions,
Speaker 1: and my phone is falling down by the cushions. So
Speaker 1: I've only got one arm, like with half a muscle
Speaker 1: on it. So now I realized that I'm stuck. So
Speaker 1: my first portal call is but we've got to call someone.
Speaker 1: We were laughing about it. It's funny, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Stuck, so we go like, hey, Siri, Like so we're
Speaker 2: asking Siri, and it's not hearing us.
Speaker 3: Oh all right, because it's smothered in the cushions.
Speaker 2: Because it's smiling in the cushions. So now I was
Speaker 2: stuck on my partner like.
Speaker 1: This, oh, trying like literal we breatheing through her never
Speaker 1: regions like a scuba diver while simultaneously trying to shout
Speaker 1: from my phone. And we were stuck there for like
Speaker 1: forty five minutes before or just one of our candygivers
Speaker 1: just open the door upstairs, like you guys are. Rose
Speaker 1: is softly spoken, and she was like no kind of
Speaker 1: needs to help when they come down and rescue me.
Speaker 1: And as I was pulled up by the candgiver that
Speaker 1: all I said was tell missus Huggs, he died the
Speaker 1: way he wanted to.
Speaker 3: You know that we find.
Speaker 2: Ourselves in situations like that all the time.
Speaker 1: Now we can ever make light of it and embrace
Speaker 1: it as a comedic moment, or we can let it
Speaker 1: really break us down and dehumanize us. And I refuse
Speaker 1: to not find shit funny because everything in life is
Speaker 1: laughable because if you don't, you forget it.
Speaker 3: That reminds me of something that you said when you
Speaker 3: said after the accident to your family and your friends,
Speaker 3: try and hope for me to be happy like I am, ye,
Speaker 3: happy like you want me to be, which was so
Speaker 3: powerful for people at many levels in how we love people.
Speaker 1: Everybody looks at my story and goes, eat a musk's
Speaker 1: going to get you walking again, you know, or you know,
Speaker 1: let's we're going to end paralysis and all that. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, great, we should pursue that because it's
Speaker 1: like a life changing, life sentencing thing. But we should
Speaker 1: also try and accept and push for a society that
Speaker 1: does see me and accept me for who I am,
Speaker 1: because regardless of spinal cord injury being fixable or not,
Speaker 1: there will always be children born into wheelchairs. There will
Speaker 1: always be elderly people needing wheelchairs to navigate society you
Speaker 1: know yourself, including disability is not if, but when for
Speaker 1: all of us. And we're all focusing on these silly
Speaker 1: little issues right now that talk about very important for
Speaker 1: marginalized people in society. But my community is the ones
Speaker 1: that you know governments always think less than. And I
Speaker 1: will say to everyone, if you are able to live
Speaker 1: like this, then you are more that because you are
Speaker 1: a great problem solver. You've been able to navigate great
Speaker 1: difficulty and you've still been able to remember that their
Speaker 1: happiness can be found leaving in the darkest of places.
Speaker 3: You know, because you had always lived a life that
Speaker 3: was characterized by is it a lack of fear that
Speaker 3: a stuntman has? No?
Speaker 2: Not at all?
Speaker 1: I thought, is it it was the ability to embrace
Speaker 1: the fear and overcome it.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 1: It's definitely the ability to say, all right, that's scary,
Speaker 1: but I'm confident enough in who I am and my
Speaker 1: ability and my conviction to be able to achieve the impossible.
Speaker 1: Now that goes the same for gymnastics, Formula one drivers,
Speaker 1: anybody that has to navigate something that's quite sketchy, even
Speaker 1: people in Australia that get in the water with a
Speaker 1: sharp you know, you know you're getting in and you know, oh,
Speaker 1: there could be could be the day that I lose,
Speaker 1: But you still get in because the ocean is a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing and you know you can't compartmentalize the risk
Speaker 1: and you take navigated, calculating risks to achieve.
Speaker 2: You know, the storytelling process.
Speaker 1: So I take great comfort in the fact that despite
Speaker 1: where I am in my life because of Harry Potter,
Speaker 1: my contribution to those films brings comfort and joy to
Speaker 1: people every.
Speaker 2: Single day around the world.
Speaker 1: There are kids in conflict zones right now, petrified their
Speaker 1: part of their parents. Put Harry Potter on a own
Speaker 1: in front of them and it helps them escape their reality.
Speaker 1: There are people struggling with mental health issues right now
Speaker 1: that are always like turning to those films to help
Speaker 1: them get through a tough time.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm very very grateful.
Speaker 1: That I was able to contribute to that fact for
Speaker 1: tons and tons of people, and say with this podcast
Speaker 1: now right I get to share my perspective and hopefully
Speaker 1: someone goes, you know what you know that's helped me
Speaker 1: today and wicked, I think you came for that and
Speaker 1: for me and the people that helped love me to
Speaker 1: being the person I am.
Speaker 3: That's not all of my conversation with David Holmes coming up.
Speaker 3: We talk about the close and enduring bond that David
Speaker 3: has with Daniel Radcliffe and Tom Felton. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: At what point did you and I don't imagine it
Speaker 3: was a critical defining moment. I imagine that it was
Speaker 3: maybe a gradual realization, But at what point did you
Speaker 3: realize that your approach to physical fear you would now
Speaker 3: have to turn into a different approach for your life
Speaker 3: as you now know us.
Speaker 2: I think that's a gradual process that's always tested.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, someone asked me on social media
Speaker 1: recently or I put up a post about me being
Speaker 1: in a Liz Holy film and it just got picked
Speaker 1: up by just like the land of misogyny on social
Speaker 1: media and someone I was trying to defend it. I
Speaker 1: was like, come on, can we just be a little
Speaker 1: bit respectful? You know, we've all got wives or partners
Speaker 1: or sisters or daughters in our life. And just think
Speaker 1: if someone was talking about your loved one like that,
Speaker 1: and then all the boys that were saying all these
Speaker 1: several things jumped on top of and someone said you
Speaker 1: knew here. I was like, Well, to be honest, I'm
Speaker 1: a new person every day.
Speaker 2: We all are.
Speaker 1: Every single day the sun comes up, We've got the
Speaker 1: opportunity to be a new person. And I feel that
Speaker 1: in society where we've championed the rights of others and
Speaker 1: women especially, we should always realize that when one gains
Speaker 1: another one doesn't have to lose another, one doesn't.
Speaker 2: Have to be threatened, you know.
Speaker 1: And there's a team of young men right now, I
Speaker 1: say team, there's a generation of young men right now
Speaker 1: that are looking to outside sources to try and work
Speaker 1: out what it is to be a map. So I
Speaker 1: would always say that conviction of who you are comes
Speaker 1: from accountability. Are you accountable for who you are to
Speaker 1: this day? Are we accountable?
Speaker 3: On? This conversation interesting because I know Daniel Radcliffe and
Speaker 3: Tom Felton described you as an older brother to them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Dan Radcliffe said, an older brother that had spent his
Speaker 3: whole life wanting and then when you had the accident,
Speaker 3: because you had that physical sort of prowess and superiority
Speaker 3: taken away from you, how did that relationship change because
Speaker 3: there's such deep affection and love there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they were young to have to see me like
Speaker 1: that with wied in me and stuff hanging out my
Speaker 1: nose and you know, even some stage's fire for breath,
Speaker 1: and they were my bedside between breaks and filming, and
Speaker 1: they kept it together and they for me being brave
Speaker 1: for them on camera all those years and help giving
Speaker 1: them the some of the foundation on what it's like
Speaker 1: to be a little bit older and to have a
Speaker 1: little bit of success or whatever it is. They got
Speaker 1: the opportunity to flip that and be braave for me,
Speaker 1: and I look back on top of that while still
Speaker 1: navigating the pressures of finishing off the biggest film franchise
Speaker 1: in history. Well yeah, so, yeah, So I'm very grateful
Speaker 1: for who they are that day and this day. They
Speaker 1: are amazing human beings that carry the torch of what
Speaker 1: they were part of and will do for the rest
Speaker 1: of their life.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because you're talking about people who had a
Speaker 3: constancy to them and showed bravery for you as you
Speaker 3: said when you needed it, as you had tried to
Speaker 3: show in your role for them. But watching the DOCI
Speaker 3: entry in particular, what I was so struck by was
Speaker 3: the relationship with you and Greg Powell, who got you
Speaker 3: into who was a father figure to you when you
Speaker 3: were a young stunty, who.
Speaker 2: Was my film father.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he was one of the men, like my
Speaker 1: gymnastics coaches, that helped me and loved me to be
Speaker 1: the man that I am. And despite the fact and
Speaker 1: our relationship like had what happened to me in it,
Speaker 1: I still love him like deaddy and look up to
Speaker 1: him and aspire.
Speaker 2: To always make him proud.
Speaker 1: And there are worse things to have in your life
Speaker 1: than good men that will always.
Speaker 2: Have your back, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: It was it was knowing what the nature of your
Speaker 3: relationship had been, and how paternal and beautiful and us
Speaker 3: it was how he guided you through those stunts and
Speaker 3: had such a deep love for you. And then he
Speaker 3: said he was the last person to hold you when
Speaker 3: you could walk, and he was the first person to
Speaker 3: hold you when you couldn't walk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, messed up so and.
Speaker 3: He can't he can't handle it though.
Speaker 1: No, I know, because that's that generation of men that
Speaker 1: would bottle up emotion instead of being able to articulate it.
Speaker 1: And as we are, I mean, there's a push now
Speaker 1: for that idea of masculinity to come back a little bit.
Speaker 3: And there is a point of Gars smoking. He's a
Speaker 3: cigar smoker.
Speaker 1: The Gars smoking, tony soprano, bad boy, gangster because of
Speaker 1: his background. You know, his dad was a you know,
Speaker 1: an unlicensed boxer and then licensed boxer and then celebrity.
Speaker 2: He's some man and navigated some of the criminal.
Speaker 1: Underworld in London and all of those things that make
Speaker 1: him the man that he is and the life lessons
Speaker 1: that make him the man that he is. But I
Speaker 1: always take it back to we're all children, ones, right,
Speaker 1: And if Greg and me were in a playground and
Speaker 1: he accidentally knocked me over and I was crying and
Speaker 1: then he got upset and me getting upset, then I
Speaker 1: would want to comfort that child, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: so we will remember that we're all babies.
Speaker 3: Ones. I find that your capacity to understand that incredible.
Speaker 3: Thanks me, I really do, because it seems sometimes that
Speaker 3: I think when you're in the situation that you're in,
Speaker 3: aw I had a son who was bravely ill with leukemia,
Speaker 3: and sometimes you find yourself cast in the role of
Speaker 3: not only having to deal with the shiitthand that you've
Speaker 3: been dealt, but also comforting the people around you. How
Speaker 3: is that pressure?
Speaker 1: It's can either embrace or you can try and run
Speaker 1: away from it very head in this ad. But the
Speaker 1: problem is still going to be that, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, there's only so much avoidance. We will
Speaker 1: go for our life trying to run away from pain,
Speaker 1: but it's inevitable if your archae or not.
Speaker 2: So you can.
Speaker 1: Share your see others share your pain and come to
Speaker 1: an understanding that you can work as a team to
Speaker 1: get through it. Or you can't take someone's pain away
Speaker 1: from them, but you can be there for them when
Speaker 1: they're going through it, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: your son, you couldn't take that away from it. You know,
Speaker 1: you are fighting your own voldemont in your family, your
Speaker 1: own demon, and you couldn't stot it.
Speaker 2: But you could just be.
Speaker 1: And like as a mum should I say, it's your job,
Speaker 1: It's not, it's you. It's your blessing.
Speaker 2: That's what it is.
Speaker 1: It's your blessing to be able to do that. It's
Speaker 1: a blessing to be able to hold someone's hand when
Speaker 1: they're going through something.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's a really painful blessing.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, But nothing's free in life, right, nothing? No,
Speaker 1: nothing's for free. No, not in any like there's no
Speaker 1: free mills. You know, we sit there reading stories about
Speaker 1: horrendous things on these digital devices, going oh, that's shocking,
Speaker 1: And then you've got realized that the digital device that's
Speaker 1: in your hand is built and mind through people that
Speaker 1: are working in horendous circumstances.
Speaker 2: So you know, there's always a contradiction. Nothing is for free.
Speaker 3: How futuristically do you think for yourself?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: Try not to. I have to because I have to
Speaker 2: navigate my life with.
Speaker 1: A relationship with my partner and hurricane teams and just
Speaker 1: trying to get together in a relationship that's three hundred
Speaker 1: miles apart, and booking podcasts and writing books and going
Speaker 1: on holiday and so I have to try and playing
Speaker 1: ahead as much as possible. But the more you put
Speaker 1: in front of it, the more present you can be
Speaker 1: in the moment, you know what I mean. So this morning,
Speaker 1: whilst I was playing puppeteer on the toilet sea while
Speaker 1: playing with the puppet. I should say I was just
Speaker 1: having to think of what did I want to share
Speaker 1: with you today. You know this is a no filter podcast.
Speaker 1: I wanted to share that story on the fact that
Speaker 1: me and Rosie had two quadriplegics having the best sex life,
Speaker 1: So there is hope that you haven't lost that sexual relationship.
Speaker 3: Do you feel differently us having this conversation now than
Speaker 3: you would have had before you met Rosie because there
Speaker 3: was a period in your life that was yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely yeah. I didn't think that was on my journey.
Speaker 1: I didn't think that sharing life and love outside of
Speaker 1: my support network and friends was on my journey. But
Speaker 1: in that song that I recommend to your lovely producer, Grace,
Speaker 1: the song was by k Tempest and the song is
Speaker 1: called Grace, and in it there's a line that said,
Speaker 1: when I stopped looking for me, I found you, and
Speaker 1: that for us, the two of us, we're constantly looking
Speaker 1: for ourselves with living with a spinal cord injury. How
Speaker 1: am I going to get through the hudhips today? How
Speaker 1: am I going to navigate? Someone get me out of it?
Speaker 1: Someone else with me goes toilet, someone helping me eat someone.
Speaker 2: You know. But when you yield to all of that,
Speaker 2: and yield to those pressures and yield to who am
Speaker 2: I now? I've got a broken neck and my listener.
Speaker 2: When you just let go of all that, then you
Speaker 2: can embrace the gift of life. So the gift of
Speaker 2: my life now is my rosing, and I'm very very grateful.
Speaker 2: I love it dearly, and despite how hard it is
Speaker 2: for both of us, it's the most beautiful spiritual thing
Speaker 2: that I've experienced. And I grew up in a church
Speaker 2: and my dad's a Baptist, so a Baptist minister, not
Speaker 2: a full time minister. He's just a deacon.
Speaker 1: So he has faith and he turns the scripture to
Speaker 1: help him navigate his mental health. I have to hold
Speaker 1: my breath underwater and do meditation for as long as possible.
Speaker 3: Are you vevim halffing? Ah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I do, because breaming speed swallows on my radar.
Speaker 1: I'm not just going to sit in that that happen.
Speaker 1: So I do breath work, breathwork in a fifty degree
Speaker 1: stem room every morning and every evening, and then in
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, my physio turns up and I'm going to
Speaker 1: sit at the bottom of my swimming pool. I sit
Speaker 1: on a scuba bowl, and I will breathe and then
Speaker 1: hold my breath for as long as physically possible. Now,
Speaker 1: being that I have no intercostal muscles whatsoever, and I
Speaker 1: only breathe from my diaphragm, you might be amazed that
Speaker 1: my record's four minutes and twenty five seconds.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because my brains.
Speaker 3: I am amazed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my brain is. Part of my brain's going you're
Speaker 2: not breathing, You're not breathing, you're not breathing, And the
Speaker 2: other part of me goes, I got you. You know,
Speaker 2: you know I got this.
Speaker 3: That's the stunt man.
Speaker 2: That's the stummail.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Today, I'm aiming to get past four minutes, and there
Speaker 1: is not a world record set for a quintia bleeding,
Speaker 1: So I think I'm going to push.
Speaker 2: For a world record this year.
Speaker 3: There's always a goal.
Speaker 2: At least that one. Yeah, at least give someone something
Speaker 2: to aim for. That's like me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Dave Holmes, Yeah, thank you for sharing yourself so much.
Speaker 3: I think you've really taken no filter to another definition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, man, it's yeah, we get one chance.
Speaker 1: In life to and the best thing he's sharing, I think,
Speaker 1: to share the experience of being a dumb monkey on
Speaker 1: a rock, spinning through space with a load of other
Speaker 1: dumb monkeys on a rock, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's like I get.
Speaker 1: To do that with a broken neck, and there'll be
Speaker 1: a generation of people behind me that have a spinal
Speaker 1: cord injury that will be like that lost little boy
Speaker 1: that I was in hospital feeling like hope is all gone.
Speaker 1: And then maybe, just maybe they might find my journey
Speaker 1: in my story and it might give them hope.
Speaker 3: So you're not only the boy who lived, You're the
Speaker 3: boy who.
Speaker 1: Is living always yeah, always yeah, embrace the day, Carpe
Speaker 1: dim and all that jazz, yeah and all else fowls.
Speaker 1: You could just row a few fucks to the wind,
Speaker 1: and you know what I mean, Yeah, what are you
Speaker 1: going to do? Is the pride of our life?
Speaker 2: Why you're just going to take it and get the
Speaker 2: best out of it.
Speaker 3: My son was right, You're a legend.
Speaker 2: Oh, thanks very much.
Speaker 3: I don't know what I thought I was expecting before
Speaker 3: I spoke to David Holmes. When you know that you're
Speaker 3: going to meet someone whose life has been identified by
Speaker 3: their physical prowess, and they've had it all taken away
Speaker 3: from them. It would be easy to expect a person
Speaker 3: who is dour, or embittered or angry, and David Holmes
Speaker 3: is none of those. He's uplifting, he brings joy. He's
Speaker 3: quite brilliant, and if you'd like to read David's book
Speaker 3: or watch his documentary, we pop links in the show notes.
Speaker 3: The executive producer of No Filter is Nama Brown and
Speaker 3: the senior producer is Grace Rufree. Audio production is by
Speaker 3: Jacob Brown and I'm your host, Kate Lanebrook. Thank you
Speaker 3: for listening.