The Game Changers

Melanie Barratt: Breaking barriers in open water

• Sue Anstiss • Season 21 • Episode 5

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Paralympic champion turned open-water pioneer Melanie Barratt shares her extraordinary story of resilience, courage and reinvention. Born with severe visual impairment, Melanie rose to the top of British swimming before stepping away from elite competition to explore new challenges. 

In 2024, Melanie made history as the first blind woman to swim the English Channel solo - an achievement she says means even more to her than her Paralympic gold medals.

In this powerful conversation with Sue Anstiss, Melanie reflects on the joy of discovering water as a child, the pressures and triumphs of Atlanta and Sydney and why she walked away at the height of her career. She explains how open water swimming became her “happy place,” and why conquering the Channel was truly life-changing.

Melanie also talks about “blind pride,” her golden prosthetic eye and the importance of representation, as well as her current mission to make open water events more accessible for swimmers with disabilities. Her story is one of breaking barriers, redefining limits and finding empowerment in nature.

A conversation that will inspire us all to believe we can overcome fear and dive headfirst into whatever challenge calls us next.

Thank you to Sport England who support The Game Changers Podcast with a National Lottery award.

Find out more about The Game Changers podcast here: https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers

Hosted by Sue Anstiss
Produced by Sam Walker, What Goes On Media

A Fearless Women production

Melanie Barratt:

I think possibly people find this quite difficult to understand, but I'd always seen myself as almost like a second-class citizen as a disabled person, and I think because society, nobody ever said that to me, but society's kind of given me that impression that that's the way I should feel, and it felt normal to me that we should be treated this way, which in hindsight, after all these years, looking back on it, is just it's really not acceptable.

Sue Anstiss:

My guest on the Game Changers today is Melanie Barratt, a Paralympic champion and open water pioneer. Born with severe visual impairment, Melanie won multiple medals for Great Britain before taking on extraordinary challenges in open water. In 2024, she made history as the first blind woman to swim the English Channel solo, inspiring countless others with her resilience, courage, and determination to break barriers in sport. So, Melanie, how did you first discover your love for the water?

Melanie Barratt:

And that's going back a very long time. I can't remember any specific time in particular. Um I've always just enjoyed being in the water, and my parents used to take me swimming when I was really small. I think they were part and parcel of what really got me into swimming because they just instilled in me a joy of being in the water and being surrounded by water, and I didn't have any fear at all. I can remember standing on a diving board in the deep end of a pool when I must have been about two or three, and my dad had taken me and my brother swimming, and my mum was in the stands watching with my baby brother, and she said it was absolutely terrifying because she turned away and then looked back, and I stood on the diving board in over the deep end, and my dad was waiting underneath me. And I just jumped in, I was completely fearless, really. I didn't have any any kind of conception of what could happen or anything like that, so which is probably a good thing. And that just really made me love being in the water. I just I think because perhaps I've I've lost one sense and I've perhaps gained more from others, and I just love the feeling of the water around me and being supported by it, and that's just stayed with me all my life, really.

Sue Anstiss:

That's so lovely to hear, isn't it? And what does it bring to your life? You said that young stage is a very young child discovering it for the first time. But then was it just through swimming clubs and activity? What was that next stage?

Melanie Barratt:

Well, I think I always loved being in the water and playing in the water, but I I really couldn't swim very well until I went to Exil Grange in Coventry, which at the time was a special school for um blind and visually impaired people. And they had some support through British Blind Sports to encourage blind swimmers to um progress and developing confidence, and they had a pool there, and I I I trained with them a bit, and so I don't really I think don't really think I actually got into swimming properly until I was quite old for a swimmer, so at least ten. And it was only through British Blind Sports that I really realised that there was something out there for blind people to compete in. At the time, the Paralympics was really not well known at all. But we're talking sort of pre-Barcelona, I think, so that's definitely last century. So the Paralympics was still quite in its developmental stage, and I wasn't really very aware of it. But um the British Blind Sports had a real very good scheme to develop blind swimmers, and um they kind of took me under their their wing and helped me develop my technique and further my joy of being a swimmer, and then I I basically just went on to compete in different competitions around the country and and went from there really.

Sue Anstiss:

Are they still doing that work today, British Blind Sport, in terms of that work in communities to encourage more children to take up swimming? So today um British Mindsports are still around.

Melanie Barratt:

They're a really local charity to me actually. They live just well, live there, they're they're based just down the road from me. And they they are definitely really involved in sport, but in a slightly different way, because before lottery funding came into sports, British Mindsports were really heavily involved in grassroots development and and they took teams away to competitions internationally and had development weekends and really developed a good strong squad of blind swimmers. But then once lottery funding came in, they sort of lost the opportunity to do that, and so they now focus on more working liaising with schools and clubs and um families to help young children and also adults get access to sports more on a more local level, which I think is much more important than elite sport. While it's really good to develop elite sports, I think the the most important thing is make to make sure that blind people do have access to sports just the way everybody else does, and it it's you know, I think that's a lot more important than than elite sport.

Sue Anstiss:

Yeah, and sport for life too, isn't it, across the whole of of your life, as you say. Definitely. You talked about being a little late in terms of starting competitive swimming, but you were selected for your first international. I think you were 17. So what kind of motivated you to keep training and keep being involved in sport in that way?

Melanie Barratt:

So um I initially got into competitive swimming because one of my friends at Exil Grain, she she went to Barcelona at the Paralympics, and I was that really motivated me. I wanted to emulate her, and I kind of I guess she was like my my idol in a way, and I um I just wanted to be like you know, when you're younger you have these kind of feelings about other people in your year, and um I guess it kind of fired at my competitive spirit, and so I started training more enthusiastically, and British Bayern Sports helped me find a local club that I could swim with, and then I started to swim a bit more. And I've seen Barcelona Paralympics on the TV, so we're talking 99 1999 no 1992, so that is showing how old I am. Um, and so I'd seen it on the TV, only the small snippets that they showed because the coverage was really, really limited. But I'd seen how amazing it would be to go and swim in this international pool that after the Olympics had finished and kind of have the whole experience of swimming internationally. So that really fired me up, and I started to train a bit more, get up at crazy hours like swimmers do, which is actually 17 is actually really quite late for your first international as a swimmer in other sports. It's still really young, but swimmers they do start early. And I think in a way it was beneficial for me to start late because I knew it was what I wanted to do. My parents never pushed me to do it. It was something that I got out of bed in the morning at five o'clock to go, and I had to go and wake them up to take me training because that you know I wanted to go rather than they were forcing me to go, um, which I think is really important and it was my own motivation, and that came from like a kind of a a real deep desire to I don't know whether it's to prove something to myself or to um to strive to be the best in the sport or to strive to experience something incredible that I've seen on the TV. I I just have a real competitive streak, I think, which all all um sports people tend to have, but that's what made me get out of bed and go training. And then the more I did, the better I got, and the more I wanted to do, and the more competitions I went to, and it's kind of like a positive reinforcement thing. Success breeds success, as they say.

Sue Anstiss:

Indeed, indeed. So obviously you did progress from you say that kind of inspiration of Barcelona, and by '96 you were in Atlanta and then in Sydney in 2000. So some of your standout memories from from that time of competing at the Paralympics, what what were they?

Melanie Barratt:

Oh my gosh, there's so many memories. Um, so my first Paralympics was Atlanta, and for me, because it was my first Paralympics, I didn't really know what to expect. I was just so blown away by the fact that I was um on a world stage and I was competing against these people that I'd previously seen on the TV in Barcelona, and I was just like, gosh, they these are these are stars, these incredible sports people. It's it's just so amazing to be here in the Paralympics. But actually, in hindsight, Atlanta, it's you know, I don't really know how much to say about this because it could be quite controversial. Atlanta, um, it's I think in those days, that because like I said before, the Paralympics was really um not that well known, so they kind of took on the Paralympics because they had to, I think. That was the feeling that that I have. They closed down all of the Olympic village after the Olympics because you know the Olympic village had all um loads of facilities like um social areas and shopping areas and kind of mixed zones and loads of places where you can go meet people. I think it even had its own pool. And so I'd seen all this on the Olympics and thought this is what this is good about. I'm gonna have it's gonna be incredible. We went there and they'd basically just closed everything down apart from the living accommodation, which was student accommodation, and a big massive tent, which was where you went for your food. Um, and some evenings after finals we'd go back and the the food had stopped because it was quite late, so we'd have just have cereals. But I didn't really think anything of it at the time because I always kind of I I think possibly people find this quite difficult to understand, but I'd always seen myself as almost like a second-class citizen as a disabled person, and I think because society nobody ever said that to me, but society's kind of given me that impression that that's the way I should feel, and it felt normal to me that we should be treated this way, which in hindsight, after all these years, looking back on it, is just it's really not acceptable. But for me at the time, living that moment, I was just in the moment, like competing, and the competition was just incredible. Um, it was my first real experience of proper international racing and um the call-up room and um kind of walking out for your races with all the music playing and having being introduced to the crowd. It was it was nerve really, really nerve-wracking, but also incredibly exciting. Um, I wasn't expecting to do very well because there was a lot of competition and some people have won for many years. But I I was shocked everybody, including myself, by coming away with a gold in the 400 freestyle. And and I can still remember the shock that I felt because I in the pool I can't see well, in any water, I can't really see much under the water, definitely not in open water, but in the pool I can't really see anybody. Occasionally I can see people if they're in the lane right next to me, but um not really very reliably. So I had no idea where I was in this race until I got to the end and touched the wall, and the timekeeper told me, and I just could not believe it. I still I can still ha feel that feeling of disbelief and shock and and just that can't be true. Um, so that that's a real, a real big memory of mine. And then standing on the podium, which I'd dreamt of doing for months and months beforehand. I'd I'd I can remember lying on my bed dreaming of standing on the podium what it would feel like. And actually, it didn't really feel like I thought it would. It was all a bit surreal because it happened so quickly. Our National Anthony is actually really, really short, so um, it all happened really quickly. And then I came back from Atlanta completely motivated to to improve myself. Now I was like the the person to beat in the 400 freestyle, which is a lot more difficult than when you're looking towards somebody to to beat them, and that really got me motivated. And uh between Atlanta and Sydney, lottery funding came in, so I was able to train full-time. Um, and I moved to Bath and trained at the high performance centre in Bath, and there was a lot of training camps around the world, which was incredible, and then we went to Sydney, and Sydney was the they marketed it as the Games of the New Millennium, and for the Paralympics, I I think it was the games of the new generation because it was the first time that I think it actually was properly recognised by the Australian people anyway. They built the Olympic village with the Paralympics in mind, so they had um all of the houses were accessible with ramps and the the transport that went round the village was fully accessible, and they had kept all of the entertainment and the shopping, and the we had free hairdressing and uh had free nails, and it was very cool, and then the the venues were just incredible, and then the racing was really, really fast as well. So it was the amazing package, and obviously it was Australia, which was fantastic. We had thousands of people come to watch us swimming, and it but for me it was really stressful because I was expected to win. Um, and if I if I'd lost, it would have been something that I'd done wrong, really, in my training or my preparation or in the race, and it was a lot of pressure on me. And I don't I didn't enjoy it as much as I I should have done, but I I definitely, definitely enjoyed it once I finished and won my gold medal again. That was yeah, that was incredible. Overriding feeling of relief as well as joy, but it was an amazing, amazing feeling. And I also got a gold, I got a gold, silver, and bronze in Sydney, which was really nice because it meant that I had one of each, which is always very nice to show.

Sue Anstiss:

That's so interesting about the village, isn't it? I interviewed Sammy Kinghorn for the last series, and she talked about being in the village, it almost being like a utopia for somebody as a wheelchair athlete because of all the ramps accessibility. It's like almost the perfect city village that you would choose to live in in an extraordinary way. So it's lovely that you had that experience at at Sydney after Atlanta.

Melanie Barratt:

But I really feel for people who were kind of in the games running up to Sydney, and especially Atlanta, it was so inaccessible for people in wheelchairs. I mean, behind it, all it all looked really good on the TV, but the swimming pool, for example, behind the pool, there was this kind of a field that was the the wheelchairs had to get across to get access the the rear entrance to the pool, the athlete's entrance. And obviously, Atlanta, it was very stormy at times and it just flooded, and these poor wheelchairs had to try and get through this mud to get to their competition venue, and it it just wasn't really very thought out. So I do really feel for everybody that that were in the Paralympics up to that point, and you know, from Sydney onwards, I think it's got better and better, and I think it is that's the way it should be. And I'm I'm really incredibly happy that finally people have recognised that the Paralympians are, you know, we're athletes in their own right, and we're definitely not second-class citizens.

Sue Anstiss:

Absolutely, absolutely. And it was after Sydney, so interesting, yeah, kind of gold, silver, bronze. But you then stepped away from elite competition in the pool and almost at the height of your career, that must have been tough. So was it was it a tough decision to make at that time?

Melanie Barratt:

Uh no, not at all. I think although I'd, you know, achieved this amazing thing in Sydney, I'd I kind of felt like I'd it I'd I I didn't want any more stress. It was it was incredibly stressful. I mean, I enjoyed the training. I liked the I really enjoyed the training and the kind of something towards to aim towards and I I I enjoyed the kind of routine of training and but I didn't really didn't enjoy the pressure of the competition. And I think because because I was kind of the person to beat, it it it was really, really hard, and I I don't think mentally I was tough enough to cope with that and I struggle quite a lot with it. So I I I'd also decided that I wanted to study physiotherapy and I'd so that I had I applied for a place to study physio and I'd I got that and then I didn't want to kind of compromise either by doing poorly in physio and poorly in swimming because I couldn't commit as much time to it each as I wanted to, so I chose to do the physio and I was very happy to walk away from the pool to be honest. I thought I'd I'd done what I wanted to do and I'd I'd won quite a lot of races over the years and been around the world and I I didn't really think that anything could really better that. I wish I'd been able to compete in uh in London because that would have just been amazing, but it was it was too far into the distance for me. I was too old.

Sue Anstiss:

You mentioned that you you qualified as a physiotherapist and worked in the NHS and private practice for for 14 years, as you had your family too, but clearly you didn't stop all sports. So you went on to explore many sports tandem, cycling, rowing, judo, marathon running. What drew you to all those kind of new challenges?

Melanie Barratt:

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure why I keep trying to force myself well not force myself, but trying to explore all these different avenues. Um I'm not I think perhaps at the time I was trying to I don't know. I like having a challenge to work towards and um I like challenging myself and I don't know if I've I've always been trying to prove something to myself in various different sports. I did try in cycling to um to go to the Paralympics in cycling, I did tandem racing at the World Championships, but I I wasn't a good enough cyclist, and there's lots of other excuses I could use, but I think fundamentally I just wasn't good enough. Um you don't really use your your legs in the same way in the pool as you do on a bike, so that was that was um it was quite a painful experience cycling on the track. Um but it I you know I got to experience some fun things and I did enjoy it, but um I just wasn't good enough. And British cycling, if you if you're not gonna get a medal, they're not interested. And then I rowing, I just I think with rowing, I'd I'd I thought it looked like it was be great fun rowing on the river, being outside. Um, and I'd seen you know on the Olympics people rowing and it looked like it was good fun, but actually anybody who's tried rowing is really, really painful. And I wasn't very good at that either, because it's really down to timing. And I know that there are blind rowers, but it I couldn't really work out how to follow people in the boat without being able to see them very well. And I did I joined my local rowing club and I never really got the hang of it properly. I used to used to get tangled up because I couldn't see well their movements so well, so I I it just frustrated me a bit too much. But I I do really love all keeping fit and doing sport. I have to have that in my life. I think it's really important for my mental health, and I think lots of people would agree with that. It's it can have a huge impact on how you feel about yourself, and then also that rubs off on my family and my work, and I think it's really important for my family that I do a sport because if I if I don't exercise, then everybody knows about it. But in the background of everything that I've ever done, I I will always have gone to the pool and swam. Maybe just like a few times a week, but I will always swim because it's it's my happy place, and regardless of whether I'm compete and swimming to compete or to do anything, I have I swim because that's like it relaxes my body and my mind, and even if I was rowing or cycling, I would still be swimming. It's just my body needs needs to be in the water, really.

Sue Anstiss:

Really. And you also took on triathlon, so you won the world championships in 2008. And I guess that must have been, I believe, slightly frustrating because it wasn't yet a Paralympic sport. So do you think that would have been a route if if it had been?

Melanie Barratt:

I I think my world championship medal was actually quite good timing from a while. Um I'd I from one perspective anyway, it was kind of like when the sport was developing. Anybody who knows me well knows that my swimming's good, cycling was okay, but my running is really, really poor. So I was able to win that purely by being really good at the other two sports and then just hanging on for as long as I could on the run, which actually turned out to be good enough on the day, um, which was an incredible thing, you know, to achieve. And if it had been a year before or two years before London, then yeah, God, I would have loved to have gone and competed in the in the paratriathlon, but I had no idea it was going to be in the Paralympics, so obviously I I retired and I I think I had another baby after that. And after that I just I couldn't commit the time to triathlon training because obviously it's three sports, and plus I knew that my running just isn't up to it. I mean swimmers really don't make very good runners. So it's yeah, that was slightly frustrating. And I ha I've I mean over the past ten years or so I've often thought, well, you know, maybe I could get back into it, but then I go for a run and think, no, there's no chance. No way.

Sue Anstiss:

Your triathlon sounds much like mine. So I'm a strong I was a strong, not of anywhere near your level, but I was a strong swimmer, okay on the bike and just rubbish running, well, hanging on on the run, hoping people won't come past me. That's exactly the feeling.

Melanie Barratt:

Although tri triathlon did really kind of make me experience open water for the first time. Um, because triathlon, you tend to swim open water. There are some that you do in the pool, but mostly it's open water. Um, so I was paired with this lady. You have the same guide for the swim, the bike, and the run, and you're tied together at the leg for the swim. Um, so it was my first real experience of being in the open water, and I can I can still remember my my first time, and I was quite nervous because I thought, what about if I absolutely hate it? I had a wetsuit on, but I still felt absolutely freezing cold. But I really loved the feeling of do being outside, and it sort of felt almost like where we should swim, it's where should you know what swimming should be about. It's kind of comparing running on the treadmill to running outside. It it was just so amazing to be in the fresh air and feel the water outside and the different temperature and the smells and the kind of the the wind and the just being in nature. I didn't really like being tied to somebody, but that's obviously what the only method we had. She was a lot slower at swimming than me as well, which was really frustrating. So that was quite difficult. But it it really started to make me think, you know, I look I do actually really love being in open water, but I I don't like being tied to somebody, so it's I just don't know how I could ever do it. But that gave me like the sort of the thoughts in the back of my mind that maybe it's something I could do in the future.

Sue Anstiss:

And what was that step then? To be untethered, to can I be able to stay oriented? Because I guess it is the orientation and the sighting and so on that is the one of the main obstacles for you there.

Melanie Barratt:

So people who can s have um full sight, they can look into the distance when they're swimming and see maybe like a tree, or they can see the boys if it's a race, or some mark in the distance and swim towards it. I can't do that because I haven't got enough sight, so I'm completely blind in one eye. The other eye I can see sort of colours and shapes out of. So in the water I can't see anything. When I turn to breathe or look above the water, I can see kind of snippets of colours and shapes that I can sometimes make out to be objects, but usually in the glimpse that I get, it's just a blob. So for me to swim independently, it's it's really, really difficult, if not impossible. Uh, and I just thought for years that it would be impossible. And but at the same time, I was given a book by Lynn Cox, who is a really accomplished open water swimmer who swam all around the world, and she's um she swam the Bering Straits and the English Channel and loads of different amazing places in the Arctic. And it really inspired me, but I I just thought it's it's incre it would be incredible to to swim all these incredible places and explore by water. It must be amazing to swim from one country to the other. And I I was started to think like, how could I possibly do this? And I didn't want to be tied to anybody because I I just didn't want to feel like I was restricted by anybody or restricting them. If somebody's faster than me, then I would be restricting their swim. And also it would feel like I'm not doing it for myself, I'm not doing it on my own. So I needed to find a different way of being guided. My first open water event I entered back in 2021. So this is slightly embarrassing because everybody got into wild swimming during the lockdowns. But I took it upon myself to enter an event, and rather than entering like a short event, I went straight for 10 kilometres, which is the it's a marathon distance in swimming. And it was only when I looked at the how much how many lengths that would be in a pool that I realised actually that's a really long way, and I'm gonna need to try and train for it and not being allowed to swim outside on my own. Obviously, I did a lot of training in the pool. It's it's I think it's 400 lengths of a pool, is 10k. So I I did a lot of training in the pool, and then I went to the local river with my husband on a bright green kayak, and if he was next to me, I could turn my head and breathe and see if I saw a bright green blob next to me, I knew it was okay. So, with that training and that mindset, we went to do this 10k in a uh a Welsh lake, which was very grey and very, very cold, and it was a huge thing for me to do because I'd never done any event like this before. It was a long, long way, and I didn't know how it was going to work out with me being able to see Richard and whether I could follow him and whether he could I was relying on him to guide me as well, so he had to follow the course. I managed to complete it. It was incredibly challenging because it was a really windy day, so he was being blown about on his little kayak, and I was trying I was trying to see him and follow him. Sometimes a lot of the time I couldn't see where he was, I just had to keep swimming and hope that I'd catch this bright green blob in the distance, and he had to keep an eye on me, and it was it was really, really hard work because he couldn't talk to me. Eventually we managed to finish, and it was the most incredible feeling, really. It was I felt a real sense of achievement that I'd done this by myself, I'd solved this problem and managed to swim this in this lake by myself. And I've I can't remember where I came, I wasn't racing it. All I mean, the open water I just never race, I just do it to um as a personal kind of challenge, I guess. And it just gave me such a sense of satisfaction and empowerment that I've I've managed to solve this problem and swim independently, and um it was it was a great feeling, and it was really addictive, it made me really want to do more of it, but I knew there must be a better way of doing it because you know, and there must be a way of communicating. You people in the navy they they somehow communicate. So I I did a lot of research and I came up with like a radio system where somebody can have a radio and I have a bone conducting headset. So it effectively it's like somebody just guiding me the whole time. They can um guide me around obstacles and they can give me information everybody else has, like how far it is to the next boy, where anybody else is in the race, and um where the finish is, how far I've got left to go, all that kind of thing that other people would have and just don't really realise the information that they need. And that's just been um a complete game changer for me. It's just been amazing, it's made such a huge difference. And me saying I don't race open water, it has meant that I can actually race properly, and I've I've been to several events where I've I've been able to race as hard as I possibly can because there's somebody on the bank guiding me. And I've actually won a a couple of races against fully sighted swimmers because I've been able to race as hard as I can, um, and that has made me feel so empowered and so strong mentally and physically. It's made a huge difference to me. And it also opened up everything for me. I could I started to think, well, maybe I could do like a huge challenge like Windermere and you know, maybe possibly in the future that I could swim the English Channel, which had been a dream for many, many years, which I thought was impossible. And yeah, then obviously it it came to happen.

Sue Anstiss:

Came to be. And you said that it's 2024 that you managed that incredible feat. I was gonna ask you how long that had been an ambition. It's like I think for many open water swimmers, it is that ultimate dream, isn't it? So had that been something you long thought of even when you were swimming in the pool, or was it as you came to open water you began to think about it?

Melanie Barratt:

It's been many, many, many years. I think when I was in the swimming pool, I was aware that people could swim the channel, and I thought, like I've said before, I think it's just I used to think it was just impossible to do. I mean, I think I was aware that a blind man had done it, but I had no idea how he'd managed to do it. And I I just thought he was he was just incredible to even try it. I just thought I couldn't do it. I don't like cold water. How could I possibly do it if I don't like the cold and I can't see and when I'm in the water, how do you know when the waves are coming? How do you know if there's jellyfish? How do you know if you're going the right way? And all that it's such a long way. How can I swim that far? And how I wouldn't be mentally tough enough. It's difficult enough to do a two-hour swimming session. So all these questions and doubts in my mind made me think it was just impossible for many years. Um, and then gradually, I guess, I increased the distance that I swam. So I did the 10K, and then I did longer swims, and I did Windermere, which is about ten and a half miles. And I, as part of my swimming experience, I I I came to meet some incredible women. So the open water swimming community is always really supportive. And um I had a local friend who took me to my first river dip. She was an amazing person who she swam many different uh swimming events, and she's attempted the English Channel twice, and she's very experienced, so she kind of encouraged me to try different things. Um, and then I met some more local friends who um meet regularly to swim open water, do longer distance, do events. Um, they're called ironfish swimmers, and they're like a group of incredible ladies that are you know really inclusive and they've been so supportive, and and they've also empowered me to feel really kind of welcomed and um strong and that I can achieve anything. And it's it gave me a real sense of belonging that I hadn't really had before, and also that I was worthy of you know being with them and being in open water and that you know I I could do it just as well as they could. We got together in 2023 to swim the Lac Liman, which is Lake Geneva. That's 71, 71 kilometres, it's a really, really long way, and it was the most that was an incredible experience because um not only is it a spectacular place to swim, like beautiful blue waters and the sun was shining and we were on this incredible yacht, but also we came together in such an incredible way as a team because they had to take it in turns to guide me, they had to support me. I couldn't do it without them, and they needed me on the team as well because we had to work together to to swim it as a relay, and it was it was an amazing, amazing feeling and an amazing thing to do together. So that really made me feel accepted and that I could achieve anything, and that then I signed up to swim the channel, and you have to sign up a couple of years in advance because it's so popular, believe it or not. There's I think twelve boats that do it every day. Well, not every day, it's only when the weather is good. So it's it's a really, really competitive thing to get to do now. I think it's two two or three years you have in advance, and that gives you time to kind of prepare yourself mentally and physically. And so that then came two years of uh lots and lots and lots of swimming and um preparation mentally and physically and I was really, really worried about the cold. To swim the channel, you have to do it in your costume and you have to do a qualification swim in waters that's less than 16 degrees for six hours, which is just yeah, that was horrendous. It was very challenging. But just doing that made me feel like I was a lot stronger than I thought I was, both mentally and physically, and that really gave me the confidence that I maybe I could swim the channel, and maybe I, you know, maybe I could do it, and maybe I could be successful. And then it all came together on the day in the most fantastic way. It was just an incredible, incredible day. I was so unbelievably lucky.

Sue Anstiss:

You say you were so lucky, lucky in terms of the weather and the conditions in your amazing team, and what what was it kind of about that day?

Melanie Barratt:

Everything, everything about that day was just spectacular. It was it was every single thing. If I could go back, I would do it tomorrow. It was just incredible. I had the most incredible support team, had three amazing ladies, they were the most incredible team. They were guided me on the headset, took it in turns, and they supported me and fed me, and they were just incredible. And then the weather was like nothing you'd ever expect on the channel. It was the water was completely flat, like glassy. It was like Lake Geneva, just blue and flat and clear, and the sun shone down from a blue sky the whole day. It was just absolutely incredible. I'm not saying the swimming was easy. I started in the night time, I started about an hour before dawn, so I had to swim in the dark, which I hadn't really done a lot of, but um we'd prepared for that because we knew in advance. So obviously the boat had lots and lots of lights on it, so I could I was aware of where the boat was. But then I also had the radio headset. Um, so I I just swam and swam and swam and swam. Gradually it got lighter and then it got a bit warmer. I never felt cold because the sun was shining, it just I never really was aware of the cold, and the water felt so soft and I just felt like I was gliding through it. And I was really, really scared of the jellyfish as well, because I can't see whether they're there or not. I just assumed that they were gonna be coming to get me. And they were there, but they didn't make themselves known to me, which I was very relieved about. It was a long day with a lot of swimming, and I got about halfway after about six hours, and I went through a phase of feeling really, really, really sick, really sick and really tired. And the longest that I'd swam before then had been seven hours, and I can remember thinking to myself, well, you know, you've you haven't even done seven hours yet, and you're feeling like this, and there's going to be at least this again. So, how are you ever going to manage this? So, this was like my dark phase, I think. And I'd been preparing for this because I knew that I'd get to this point where I'd feel like I couldn't go any further, and I knew I just had to keep swimming for five minutes and think about something else for five minutes, and then swim towards the next feed, because we had a feed every hour, and then at the next feed I could decide what I was going to do, and then by then I'd started to feel a bit better, and then I just kept swimming a bit longer and I started to feel less sick, and gradually I started to feel like I could I could do it. Perhaps I could do it. I wasn't feeling quite so bad again. And also the other thing I was thinking was it's look, the conditions are absolutely incredible. The sun's shining, there's you're not you're not ill, really. It's just a bit of sickness. And if you get out now, then you could you can have to say, I really didn't have any excuse, I just couldn't didn't want to do it anymore. And I couldn't do that to myself. So I carried on going, and then eventually it all came together. Um, I felt like I could just keep swimming. The sickness went away, and I I started to feel a bit less tired, unbelievably. Started to feel a bit achy, but I I don't remember feeling really bad. Just kept swimming and swimming, and then eventually I had the most incredible message on my headset. They'd been passing messages throughout the second half of the swim, which was really lovely. Little short messages from um Pete, my supporters, which was really nice. And then I had a message that said, Listen very carefully. One of us is wearing a swimming costume, and the other little boat is being lowered into the water. That meant that we were just about to land in France because they have a little boat that follows you into land where the big boat can't get in because it gets shallow. And we worked out that one of my teammates could get into the water and swim next to me to help me land. So that meant to me that I was about to land, and I that was the best thing I have ever, ever heard. It was the most incredible message. It was, it was, yeah, it was just incredible. The rules are very, very strict for swimming the channel, so obviously nobody is allowed to touch you, so I couldn't have anybody touching me until I got out of the out of the sea in France. They can pass you stuff in the water, but they're not allowed to touch you. So we had this radio headset, but it owed it's only got a two-hour window before the battery goes, so we had to change it every two hours, and that was all done with me floating in the water, popping it out of my hat, and I had to put it in a net that they lowered into the water, and I replaced it. So all these things we'd practised, and it all went really well actually. We were really lucky with that. But I'd had dreams of running up the beach in the sunset, waving my arms with my team around me, with the sandy sand underneath my feet, and like joyful, you know, all the celebrations. Maybe, maybe somebody'll come down from the cafe that's on the beach with a glass of something for me. As it turned out, we landed on the cap, which is like rocks basically, real sharp, horrible barnacles and really dangerous for people to land on. Luckily, it wasn't very wavy, but there was still quite a lot of movement, which was really difficult. So my my finish was my friend Natalie saying to me, go left a bit, right a bit, left a bit, right a bit, get out on that one, no the other one, try and try and get out on that one. And so I hauled myself out onto my belly and managed to get onto my knees, and then when your feet clear the water, your swim's finished. So everybody's got these incredible finish photos, but mine is just me like on my on my hands and knees, like trying to do like a yoga pose wave to the boat. But that feeling was just incredible though, it was amazing. I would say that means more to me than anything that I've ever done in my life. I'm more proud of that swim than I am of anything that I've ever achieved, including all my Paralympic gold medals. It means so much to me because I think because I had to overcome so much to get even to the start beach, I had to learn how to swim open water, how I was going to do it independently. I had to overcome all my fears of the cold and the waves and the jellyfish. Um, and then to actually complete it when you know, maybe 2,000 people, 2,500 people have completed it. To be able to be one of those is such an incredible thing and something that I'm so proud of. And I think it's made me feel like finally I've achieved something amazing and I I have done something that I should be proud of. I am, you know, an a whole person and proud of who I am. Whereas before I kind of felt like my visual impairment defined me. Now I I define myself more as I'm a swimmer, open water swimmer sampling English channel, and I'm really happy with who I am now. So people have said it, said to me in the past that it's a life-changing experience, but for me, I never used to understand what it meant at all. I thought, how can a swim be a life-changing experience? But for me, my God, it really has. I feel so differently about myself since then. I feel like I'm so strong and so powerful, and that I can achieve anything really that I want to set my mind to, and that I am a whole person and I'm, you know, I'm not lesser than anybody else. I love that.

Sue Anstiss:

You're like the perfect podcast guest because you're preempting all the questions. My question was, how did that compare to winning Paralympic medals? Oh story. No, no, it's perfect. It's perfect. We're obviously on the same track with your story. I love it. I do have this tendency to ramble on. No, not it's not rambling, it's telling the story and it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. It's funny because I'm I've I've swum open water, and I was going to talk to you about the cold, actually. So I've done a lot probably the last five, six years, I swam through the winters. Absolutely. Uh but like you, I love a warm beach, I love a warm bath, but but but I've l really love the cold side of it too. And so the the channel's always been in the back of my mind of maybe one day, one day. So talking to you is like, oh my god, it's opening up all my ridiculous uh ambitions. So too many questions. Um, but how has that cold helped helped you the cold? I guess overcoming the cold. I want to come on to in a moment to talk about the documentary too, and you in dunking yourself in that barrel in the garden. But but it's obviously had a really big impact for you in terms of the the kind of positive side, the mental and physical side.

Melanie Barratt:

I used to swim in a wetsuit, and I used to think it felt cold in a wetsuit, but then I I kind of felt like I didn't really get the whole experience. So then and I also knew that to swim open water, uh you know, to swim it properly, I guess, um, or to swim the channel using channel rules, and I had to swim in my costume, so I knew that I had to expose myself to the cold. And oh gosh, I still don't like it very much. Um, I swam through several winters before I even signed up for the channel. So by swimming through the winter I mean I went to um my local lake, which this just just saying I went to my local lake, a lot of people could just get in the car and go there. But for me, it's a that is really, really difficult difficult for me to do. Um, because obviously I can't drive. There's no public transport that gets anywhere near open water. So I rely on other people to which I absolutely hate doing because I don't want to be a burden on anybody else, so I only really go when they're going. So it limits if I I have time that I could go every day, but I can't because I can't get there, which is really frustrating. But then I've learned that I can't spend my life thinking about things that I could do if I could see. I have to think of things like, wow, I'm really lucky that I have people that can take me there when they can, so I just accept that that's going to be the case. So if it's only once a month, then that's what it'll have to be. So I yeah, I go as often as I can, and through the winter it can get really, really cold. Um, so I've been to quarries where it's been like six degrees, and when it's this cold, oh gosh, it's it's painful to get into. But you go numb when you're in there, and then it is the most incredible feeling. When you come out, everything is tingling and you feel so alive, and being surrounded by such cold water and kind of just just the whole the cold air and everything, it just makes you feel really alive and really grounded and sort of like you've taken a drug. I think it releases a lot lot of endorphins and serotonin on feel-good hormones, and it is really, really addictive. It's very, very easy though to push it too far um and stay in too long. And I have done that on a couple of occasions and been having having to be rewarmed and warmed up again, and um that's not particularly pleasant, but I think on the way to swimming the channel, you have to go through, push yourself as far as you can so that you become aware of what your body does in the cold and what's normal for you. So I've learned that I can when I did my six-hour qualifier, my fingers turned into starfish when I was swimming front crawl, and I literally, because the muscles they got so cold they didn't work, I literally could not put my fingers together to swim properly. And and initially, a few years ago, that would have terrified me. I would be thinking, right, that's the first steps of hypothermia or I need to get out now. But I'd over many years I started to realise that for me, for other people it's obviously different, but for me, it plateaus after that point, and I could swim for four hours with my hands like this, and I didn't really get any colder. It's more um my mental capacity when that changes. Sort of when I was doing the qualifier, I had friends who were checking in with me regularly to make sure that I they kept asking me who the Prime Minister was, which was very very funny because it was just before the election. And I think that's a real sign, you know, if your mental capacity changes, then that that's when you need to get out. And luckily for me it didn't. But it is a real learning curve and learning what your body can tolerate. And when you're going to push yourself that far in the channel, you need to know what is okay for you. And throughout all my training, I knew that I could get to the stage where my fingers, my hands felt really cold, but I could still swim. And I knew what a warm core felt like and what a cold core felt like, and it's it's very different. And and I think it does take a long time to develop this, but it gives you a real confidence in what your your body is able to do, and it's you know, it's made me feel really sort of proud of what my body can achieve, and it made me realise how strong our bodies are and what they can take. It is quite it's quite an amazing thing to learn. Absolutely.

Sue Anstiss:

I agree with you 100% on on all I'm nodding here on all of that stuff. Uh your journey across the channel was captured in the brilliant documentary Untethered made by Daniel Selwood. I'm a massive fan of hers, as she was a wonderful previous guest on the Game Changers podcast. So I'd encourage people to have a listen to that and hear about her her personal journey too. But how did that collaboration come about with Danielle? Oh my gosh, this is quite a story.

Melanie Barratt:

Um, many years ago now, so maybe four or five years ago, no, it must be five years ago, I started sharing on social media about my open water swimming as a blind swimmer. Um, and I I kind of I think I shared it on Open Water Swimmers UK or some kind of similar Facebook group. She was a member there, so she picked up on it and she contacted me and said she was a filmmaker and she would um love to meet and have a chat about possibly making a film because uh her daughter is blind as well. Um so I think she was quite interested in how I managed, and she wanted to you know have a chat about making a film about it. Um so she came to my house and we had a chat and she did a little bit of filming, a little bit of filming of me swimming, and the plan was to perhaps do sort of like a small piece about about my swimming and how I managed it. And then I decided I was going to swim the channel. This evolved into making a film about me swimming the channel, and she was hoping that she'd be able to get some funding to follow me and perhaps do a longer film about me swimming the channel. And then she applied to Sky Sports. They had a a new focus fund, and she was lucky enough to get selected to do that, and that meant that she had a lot of funding, and it coincided with me doing the channel, and then it was just the most incredible timing, really, because she was able to follow my training and film it and film the qualification swim and all the all the build-up to the the swim. And then she was actually on the boat with her camerawoman um Natasha on the day filming, and it was fantastic, really. We all got on so well together. Um, she was just like a friend, well, she is a friend now, and she was part of my team. Uh, they were both part of my team, and she produced the most incredible film, which is uh I think it's available now on YouTube, so anybody can watch it. And she's made the film in such a way that everybody can access it. So blind people have audio description done by her daughter, actually. So it's beautifully done. It's almost poetic. It's beautiful, it is absolutely beautiful, isn't it? It's so lovely. I've never seen anything quite like that before. Um, and then it also has subtitles and a BSL interpreter, which is she is incredible as well. So it's it's a fantastic film, accessible for everybody, and she's done a fantastic job of telling my story, and uh it's been so lovely to watch it as well. Um, you know, seeing behind the scenes while I'm swimming, seeing what they were all doing on the boat, and um it's such a lovely thing to keep as well. It's like so many memories, and also I I've said a lot on that film that I'd not said to anybody before ever, and now everybody can see it. She's so good at get at getting people to talk that I just told her everything.

Sue Anstiss:

And how did that feel to then know so many people did see so much and hear so much of your your story?

Melanie Barratt:

Well, at first, when I first saw it, when we went to um the Kendall Mountain Film Festival, I was kind of in shock afterwards, kind of a bit shaken by what I'd what I've told everybody, because there was some quite personal stuff in that. But on reflection, I think it was all stuff that everybody needed to hear and everybody needs to be aware of that that's the way that I've felt and how um you know there's been times in my life when I've I've felt like for a long, long time I felt like I'm less of a person and you know inferior to everybody else because of my sight. And even up until maybe six, six or seven years ago, it's just been a normal feeling for me, but it's only been recently, over the last few years, through my open water swimming journey, I think it's really made me feel a lot more confident in myself and proud of who I am and proud of what I've achieved. And you know, that I shouldn't be ashamed of anything at all. It's it's something to be proud of. And I think the film has actually helped me feel like more, even more so, and especially with my golden eye. I had a prosthetic eye fitted about 20 years ago, and it's always just been a brown one because I wanted it to be the same as the other side, like everybody else. I wanted to try and fit in, that's why I had it done, so I didn't look any different to everybody else because before then it was a tiny little eye and hadn't formed properly. And so for many years I just had I had two brown eyes, which I was very happy with. Um and then a few years ago I went to have have it fitted again. And the lady, I said to the lady, Well, maybe I could have a different coloured eye, fancy, you know, maybe having a change, go for something blue, and then I could have a blue contact lens in the other side. And then she gave me this book with all these different other coloured eyes, dragon eyes and tiger eyes, and like these glittery eyes. I was like, Oh my god, do people really have these? And she goes, Yeah, some people have like all kinds of funky things. And I was like, Oh my god, that that's incredible that people want to make such a feature of being different that they have these these eyes. It kind of epitomizes blind pride, which I speak about a bit in the film as well, about being proud of who you are and being proud to be blind. Um, I know the deaf community really embrace being deaf and they have a sense of deaf pride, but I the blind community don't really have that so much. And I've never ever felt that. But then I saw and seen these eyes, it's like, oh my god, some people must really embrace it. And I thought, well, maybe I could have something different like that. And I ended up going for the gold a golden eye. It's actually a mini, tiny, tiny, they've done an incredible job. It's a tiny, tiny version of my gold medal from Sydney. And it, if you look closely enough, it's like got all the it's hand painted, but it's got all the details of the gold medal on it. It's amazing, really beautiful. And when I saw it, I was just that's just amazing. It really glows almost. And I didn't, I was didn't wear it for a long time because I wasn't very brave. I thought this this is really gonna throw people. I think because it really challenges people's idea of symmetry and it looks so different to a normal eye. But then Danielle came and did some filming, and I I wore it, and then after that, I just I kept it in for a few days, and I I felt like you know, I don't care. This is me, this is my eye, and this is you know, stare at me, I don't mind, this is me, I'm proud of this, I'm proud of what I'm wearing. I took it off though when I went to work because I work in a school and I thought it'd freak out all the teenagers if I had this golden eye. So I took it off when I went back to work. But I wore it for the channel and I I wear it for public appearances. I don't wear it on a day-to-day basis because it's such a huge feature. Um, sometimes I forget that I've got it in. My husband tells me because it's quite it he finds it quite, you know, it's very different for him. But uh interestingly though, he said that when I first got it. But once he watched the film and saw the reasoning behind it, he hasn't said anything like that since then. So I think he understands why now that I wear it, and so he doesn't say anything anymore. He just lets me wear it. And but I I wear it for kind of like if I'm doing any kind of appearances or anything like that, and and and I enjoy it because it's it's uh it's like a powerful thing for me. Like bl it epitomizes blind pride and um who I am and that I'm now proud of who I am, and sort of like the end of my journey. I feel like I've got to where I want to be in life now, at the grand old age of where I am now. And I feel like finally I'm really happy with who I am, and the golden eye sort of epitomizes that for me.

Sue Anstiss:

I love that. I love that. And it are as you say, you're at the end of your challenges. Do you have more challenges in mind? What's next for you? Or or you know, you're drawing a line and you're just gonna enjoy your open water swimming.

Melanie Barratt:

Well, it's yeah, I wouldn't I it I went through phases of of thinking what should I do afterwards in the run-up to the channel because it was such a huge, huge thing. I was really looking forward to life after the channel when I wouldn't have this looming over me and all the worries and the kind of all the everything sat on my shoulders. And then a couple of days afterwards, because I was on such a high, I was like, wow, that was just the most incredible experience. I want to now swim around Manhattan, which is it's kind of called 20 Bridges, it's an amazing swim, it's quite iconic. And then there's also the Catalina Channel. If you did all those three swims, you get the triple crown of open water swimming. I was planning about that, and I was thinking maybe I could swim around Jersey, um, that would be amazing. Um, all these things that I was thinking of, and after a few weeks I was starting to think about it. I was I brought it up with my husband, and he said, Well, you know, I completely understood why you wanted to swim the channel, I completely got that. But where we are in life at the moment with our sons, because one had just gone to university and the other one, he's he's he was just about to sit his two CSEs this time last year. We're not gonna be as a family, we're not gonna be together for many more years before they all leave home. And the amount of time that you spent training last year, we didn't have a holiday before my channel swim because I was basically swimming the whole time, and it really impacted our family life. He said there's not gonna be many years where we're gonna have the time together with them. I don't care what you do after after they've all left home, but you know, the next couple of years are really valuable, and that made me think, you know, it is really important to have these things in my life to work towards, but there are certain times in life where other things are more important, and family time is so valuable, especially when they're teenagers and they're gonna be going and they're not gonna want to go on holiday with you anymore, or actually they might if you pay for them, but they're not and they're not gonna want to spend much time with you anymore, and maybe that should be a priority. And my first feeling when he said that to me was like, Oh, all right then, you don't want to support me then, but like you know, in a typical kind of stroppy way. But once I actually took time to think about what he meant, uh I had to admit that it made a lot of sense. So the last year I've actually really enjoyed just just relaxing and enjoying and enjoying swimming and just doing it be going swimming when I want to go swimming and doing as much as I want to do, not any kind of crazy distances, although I have entered a few events. Next week I'm swimming in uh Montenegro at an event called Ultra Swim 33.3, which is the distance of the channel, but over several days, and I'm an ambassador for them, which which I'm really excited about. I'm really looking forward to that because it's something slightly different. It's not a huge challenge for me, it's sort of more of like an enjoyable thing to do, and I'm helping them to work on their accessibility because they haven't had somebody there before who's blind, so I'm helping them to work out how they could support people in the future, and that's really what my main fo focus has been this year to work with events to try and open them up for people who are blind and with other disabilities, because not only is getting to these venues really difficult, but taking part in the open water swims are it's really, really challenging. I've had some events that have actually said, No, we can't have you swim and have your husband in a kayak or somebody else on the water in a kayak to guide you because it's safety reasons or whatever. But that has meant that I haven't been out to a swimming swimming event when I want to, and it's almost it's really limiting, and it shouldn't be like that. In this day and age, we should be able to work around that. So I've I've several events this year I've gone along to and sort of explained to them how they can make it more accessible and how I use the radio system, and their safety crew have had the radio uh radio and guided me a little bit, and they've, you know, they've helped me with the course and liaise with organizing committees to try and make their events more more accessible. And I think that's really important to do, and it's something that I really really want to focus on, rather than like mega challenges over the next couple of years. I might come back to that in the next couple of years, but at the moment I really want to focus on just making things more accessible for everybody because it it is it is the most amazing thing to do to get into open water and experience being in nature, and the buzz that you get from being in the cold is amazing, and the the social interaction is incredible, and I feel like nobody should miss out on those opportunities. And the more that I can make these events more accessible for people, the better. So that's what I've focused on this year, and that's what I want to do next year as well. It probably involves entering lots of different events and just trying to work with the organized committee to help people in the future. And then after that, when my son, my second son, goes to university, then maybe look again at bigger events. But I feel like I have nothing left to prove to myself at all. I feel like I'm really happy with where I am, and I just want to really use my experience to help other people.

Sue Anstiss:

My goodness, how wonderful to talk to Melanie. She really has inspired me to think again about that channel swim in the future. If you'd like to hear from other extraordinary women like Melanie, there are over 200 episodes of the Game Changers that are free to listen to on all podcast platforms or from our website at fearlesswomen.co.uk. Guests include elite athletes like Melanie, along with broadcasters, coaches, scientists, agents, journalists, entrepreneurs, and CEOs, all women who are changing the game in sport. As well as listening to all the podcasts on the website, you can also find out more about the Women's Sport Collective, a free, inclusive community for all women who work in sport. We now have over 14,000 members across the world, so please do come and join us. The whole of my book, Game On The Unstoppable Rise of Women's Sport, is also free to listen to on the podcast. Every episode of series 13 is me reading a chapter of the book. Thank you to Sport England for backing the Game Changers and the Women's Sport Collective with a National Lottery Award. Thank you also to Stan Walker at What Goes On Media, who does such a great job as our executive producer, along with my brilliant colleague at Fearless Women, Kate Hannon. You can find the game changers on all podcast platforms, so do follow us now and you won't miss out on future episodes. Do come and say hello on social media where you'll find me on LinkedIn and Instagram at Sue Ansters. The Game Changes.

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Sue Anstiss

Host
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Sam Walker

Producer