LoveReading Says
In 2004, when Dame Kelly Holmes returned to Britain as a two-time Olympic gold medal winner, she should have been overcome with joy. Instead, she was filled with fear. The reason? She was worried that her new fame would mean the end of her secret—the fact that she was a gay woman.
In Kelly Holmes: Unique – A Memoir, Holmes now tells the honest story of her life, writing about her experiences as a gay woman, first in the British army, and then as an Olympic winner.
All her life, first when she was a physical training instructor in the British Army, and then as a Team GB athlete, she had kept her sexuality a secret. In the Army, the reason was obvious-- it was illegal to be gay and serving in the forces. (The law has since been changed.) As a professional athlete, she kept her love life secret for fear of the backlash she would receive from the public.
Following on from her 2022 documentary where she came out as gay, Holmes now feels confident enough to share the truth in this book, with which she collaborated with Gemma Aldridge. This warts-and-all memoir contains the highs and lows of her life. The two gold medals she won at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, making her only the third woman in history to win a double gold. A post-Olympic life as a commentator and member of the Loose Women panel. But also the lows: the injuries she sustained as an athlete, along with the self-doubt and occasional self-harm brought about by the secret she kept.
This brutally honest memoir is a must-read for any Holmes fans.
Maureen Stapleton
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Kelly Holmes: Unique - A Memoir Synopsis
In national treasure Dame Kelly Holmes' most personal book yet, she tells the true story behind her extraordinary life from army recruit to Olympic hero and much- loved TV personality.
Last year, Dame Kelly came out publicly as being gay and revealed that for the first 52 years of her life she'd been living a LIFE OF FEAR.
Now in a heart-rending and inspirational new memoir she tells of her journey from hiding her sexuality as a young soldier at a time when being gay in the military was illegal, to her fears of being outed as she stood on the podium at the Athens Olympics, the games which catapulted her to fame as a double-gold medallist.
Dame Kelly tells how she has managed to find happiness and inner peace as she has opened herself to a world where she's finally free to be herself, and proud.
In the last year she has become an unofficial ambassador for the LGBT community and has become one of the best- loved faces of daytime TV, joining the regular panel of ITV's Loose Women.
This honest memoir is a tale of self-discovery, overcoming struggles and learning to be true to yourself.
Dame Kelly says: "80,000 people were chanting my name as I stood on top of a double-decker bus and did a victory lap of my hometown. I'd won two Olympic gold medals, the first woman the UK to ever do that, and I should have been on top of the world at my homecoming parade but even in that magical moment I had this deep fear that someone was going to go to the media and out me for being gay.
"All my life I lived with that fear and anxiety of not being accepted if I lived publicly as my true self. But 18 years later I was standing on stage in Trafalgar Square at London Pride, and people were chanting for me again, this time for the person I have become and I was finally free to be me. Nothing is perfect, the journey continues and I'm learning every day about the community I'm now proud to be part of. But I'm being true to myself and that means everything."
About This Edition
About Kelly Holmes
Dame Kelly Holmes DBE OLY is a retired British middle distance athlete. Holmes represented Great Britain in three Olympic Games and won two gold medals in the 800m and 1,500m events in 2004. In June 2022, ITV broadcast a 55-minute documentary Kelly Holmes: Being Me in which she describes her fears of her sexuality being exposed after coming out in an interview with the Sunday Mirror.
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