Tanni on track for The Lords

Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson is one of the country’s most influential women in sport today with a slew of Paralympic gold medals as well as an MBE, an OBE and a DBE to her name and she’s about to become a Baroness with the power to vote and lobby in the House of Lords – but what Lara Masters really wants to know is; what is she going to wear

I bought a lovely green jacket to go to the House to receive my peerage – only afterwards did I realise it’s going to clash with the traditional ermine-trimmed, crimson velvet cape I’m renting for the occasion – but I really like the jacket so I’m going to wear it anyway and just close the cape around it for the ceremony!”

Dame Tanni acknowledges that colour co-ordinating has never been her strong point. As a teenager in the 80s, she would buy vibrant floral curtains from charity shops and use her sewing machine to turn them into trousers and skirts as well as embroidering jackets with colourful patterns and emblems.

At university, she saw no problem with wearing ten colours at once even when fellow-students asked her if she really wanted to go out like that?!

However the Cardiff-born Paralympic star discovered that gold goes with everything when she started her sports career, accumulating a staggering 11 gold medals in five Paralympics. Perhaps the only person who was happy to see Tanni give up competitive sports was eight-year-old daughter Carys who thinks athletics is “boring” as “Mammy just goes round in circles”.

Nowadays, soon-to-be Baroness Tanni is constantly in demand for her expertise promoting sports education with emphasis on disability equality and she’s devised a cunning way to avoid those earlier wardrobe faux-pas.

“My work wardrobe is entirely black; I’m always travelling, packing and re-packing and it’s too much hassle thinking about what goes with what so I take a few pairs of trousers, some polo-necks, a long fitted dress and some boots – all in black – and a big bag full of colourful, chunky jewellery. Then I just have to think about what colour accessories I fancy wearing to each engagement – pink, purple, silver with cubic zirconium squares – I love sparkle and none of my jewellery’s very expensive. Recently a woman asked me where I got one of my necklaces from – she wouldn’t believe that it was £5 from Asda!

“When I’m not working I wear a lot of sports gear and jeans. I love jeans. My husband keeps threatening to count how many pairs I’ve got. I love shoes too, although unfortunately I can’t wear heels as I’m quite flat-footed and my ankles roll over, but I’ve got quite a collection of flat shoes which my husband did count the other day – apparently I have 48 pairs – but if I manage to find shoes I like that fit and don’t slide off my foot-plates I’ll get the same pair in black, red, blue and silver!”

Even a superstar like Tanni has the same problems as many other disabled people when trying to find clothes to fit her shape and she’s not exempt from body-image niggles either; “I’m a size 8 lower body but 14-16 upper body so I often have to get my clothes altered to fit me properly. I don’t like the scars on my back so always cover those up and I’m bigger than I’d like at the moment. Although I push about six miles a day in my chair, I used to do 120 miles every week when I was training and could eat whatever I wanted. These days it’s hard to eat really healthily because with travelling so much I end up eating lots of sandwiches and wraps but I try and be disciplined; I love crisps – I could happily eat them all day long – but I don’t and I don’t drink.”

A little probing reveals that Tanni’s abstaining is less down to discipline and more due to a low tolerance for alcohol – the last time she had more than a glass of wine was two years ago when she got very drunk at a parent-teacher meeting!

Reassuring as it is for us to have a teetotaler shaping our legislation in the House, I don’t think anyone doubts that our champion Dame is match-fit and will be an exemplary peer and in her new role, she certainly won’t be going round in circles!