Unique: A Memoir

"Yes, she’s the double Olympic champion for Team GB. This is an updated memoir, if you like. She has written memoirs before but, crucially, in those she left out the part about being gay. The joy of this book is that you can feel Kelly as if she’s in the room with you. Her relief and happiness at being able to not hide anything from you is palpable. Although it’s a really upbeat book—it’s funny and it rollocks along—I found there to be a level of sadness there, that it took so long for her to be able to be true to herself. You might say, ‘The world isn’t like that now. You don’t have to hide your sexuality.’ But she was in the army, and the rules forbade you from being homosexual. It was something she’d been forced to hide. Then there was, ‘I’m an Olympic champion, I’m famous. Am I supposed to be a certain way? Do people expect me to be a certain type of person?’ It was doubly hard for her to come out when she was a famous figure because it had been instilled in her that what she felt was shameful. So it was a very sort of specific set of circumstances that led to her own journey about being honest about her sexuality. But it is insightful. It reminds you that when someone you know or hear about says, ‘I’m gay’ it isn’t always an easy thing to do. You’ll have close family that might judge you, as well as the wider public. You could also say, ‘Does it matter? Does anyone care?’ but if you’re hiding something, it really affects your ability to enjoy life. That’s the other message of this book. She had these wonderful moments in her life. She was beloved by the British public. The footage of her face when she crossed the finishing line is an iconic image in British society—that shocked joy and disbelief that she’d won. And yet she couldn’t really enjoy it fully, because she wasn’t being herself. In interviews, she was scared she might say something that would give it away. Now all that’s gone and she’s just open about who she is and who she loves, you can feel that she’s a much, much happier person. That makes this a nice read."