At home with Sharron
Above: Sharron Davies
LEGGY jeans, T-shirt hinting at perfectly toned body. Um-hum – Sharron Davies is looking as glam, gorgeous and as fit as ever. But for once, the attention isn’t solely focused on her.
It’s a truth she recognises in a flash. “He’s in bed, upstairs,” she admits. Then, sensing disappointment, she concedes, “But… I’ll get him up before you leave.”
She’s referring to the angel-faced Finley: the beaming blond of a thousand photos mounted on the walls, propped on the shelves, perched on tables. Fin, of course, is the much longed-for baby she gave birth to just over a year ago at the age of 44. He’s completed the family for Sharron and her airline pilot husband, Tony Kingston; equally adored by 14-year-old Elliott and Grace (9), her children from a previous marriage to the athlete Derek Redmond.
“Fin has brought us all together,” Sharron says. “Before, we were Grace and Elliott and Sharron over here, and Tony was slotted on the side. Fin has completed that circle.”
That’s very evident. You don’t need the pictures of Elliott and Tony clowning around, (Elliott with his ‘Why does the nutter always sit next to me?’ T-shirt), to see this is a real family home. They moved out of Sharron’s converted barn, in the middle of the countryside outside Stow, more than three years ago, and into a huge town house in the middle of Fairford. Georgian in style, it was built by nostalgic Victorians who believed in beautifully-proportioned rooms and the sort of high ceilings that mean Sharron doesn’t have to stoop in doorways. To begin with, it was a tug to leave her old home behind – “I suppose it was a little bit of self-preservation. That house was my investment; my security. But I’ve got to the point now where I’m quite happy to close that door.”
This year marks a whole new start for the family. When she and Tony wed in 2002, they were keen to begin a family together. It took multiple attempts at IVF, costing tens of thousands of pounds, before Fin finally made his appearance.
“The IVF put everything on a back burner,” she admits. “You’re a slave to your bodily cycles; it’s a nightmare – totally monopolises you. Tony made it absolutely clear that, if it didn’t work, we were still a family; he never put any pressure on me. But I knew he wanted a child of his own, so he didn’t have to say anything.”
When Fin was finally born, Sharron decided to speak out about their three years of IVF misery. It was a big decision – they’d kept their fertility problems private while they were going through them – but she was determined to use her experiences to help others. “Even though women think they’re invincible now because they’ve got jobs, they look great and they take care of themselves, the biological clock is still ticking. I felt that even if I stopped one person thinking it would be OK to start trying for a family at 38, then it would be worth me speaking out.
“So many people go through infertility – more than people realise – and it is an illness. There’s no difference between that and breaking your leg. In fact, it’s probably worse, because your leg will get better and you can carry on. But not being able to have a child is agony. I had people stopping me in the street to thank me for talking about it. I got quite tearful sometimes when people would tell me how they’d been trying for years and still not succeeded.”
For the golden girl of swimming – the British champion who won double gold at the 1978 Commonwealth Games and a silver at the 1980 Moscow Olympics – it came as a shock that her super-fit body could let her down. But she’s pretty sure the attitude that bagged her those medals, and countless other wins, paid off in the end. “I think it was that grit and determination instilled in me that helped,” she says. “I felt we really would keep going until we got there, by hook or by crook.”
Got there they have – and now Sharron’s raring to get back to work. It’s another case of her split-second timing in action, of course – for the Beijing Olympics are round the corner; and they just wouldn’t have been the same for UK viewers without Sharron in the commentary box. She’ll be there in August, cheering on the British swimmers. Unlike film director Steven Spielberg, who withdrew as an artistic adviser to the games, she doesn’t have qualms about attending – in spite of China’s human rights record.
Although she shares outrage and concerns about abuses, she’s seen at firsthand what a positive effect sport can have.
You can read the rest of this article in the April issue of Cotswold Life.