Channel 4’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins is must-see family viewing in my household.
From the comfort of my warm home and cosy sofa you can hear me shout at the screen, “I could do that!” or “No way would I have wimped out over that”.
I have the smug, self-satisfied smile too. Until it was wiped off when I found myself balancing on a tightrope over a ridge as one of this year’s contestants.
And it was all the fault of my kids and husband, daring me to go on.
My son Zac said the inevitable: “There’s no way you could do that helicopter jump, Mum, you’re rubbish at swimming and scared of heights. You couldn’t in a million years.”
Those words – “You can’t do it” – triggered that same lifelong reaction in me: “I’ll bloody show you I can.”
I’ve tried with therapy to not rise to that, but I can’t help myself. Part of me doesn’t want to let that trigger go. I know whatever it is I’m about to do will reveal more about who I am – and what I’m made of.
As I age, I feel this trigger is helping to push me out of my comfort zone. I surprise myself with what my mind and body can do if I embrace those fears.
Even now I still feel I must prove that as a woman – of Asian heritage and now in her 50s – I am equal to the men out there.
This all comes from my childhood and upbringing – the inequalities I saw between the treatment of women and men.
I was under an obligation to be seen in a certain way. There were restrictions on what I could say, who I could be seen with, where I could go and with whom, what I could wear and what I could and could not do with my life.
It was the family’s honour – one bad step would disgrace them.
So what better way to show I am equal than the hardest reality show on TV?
Yet seeing the other contestants, I crumbled inside. Rower James Cracknell towers over me like a giant, Wes Nelson (off Love Island) is young, fast, fit… and smiles at me.
Singer Alexandra Burke looks like an Amazonian goddess. And ex-footballer Kieron Dyer is quiet but the one to watch.
They say don’t judge by appearances, but it’s human nature. They judge me, and I don’t blame them. I’m the shortest, the slightest and look like the weakest.
I felt prepared. I’d trained like a Spartan, seven days a week. I ran, did push-ups, pull-ups, squats, carried rocks on my back, threw myself into ice-cold water.
I was not prepared at all.
I was stripped bare of everything – my dignity, my ego, my accomplishments and my pride.
Cold, wet, hungry and raging with adrenalin. But what I also was not prepared for was how the mind kicks in to save you.
You will see household names on this show, but not as you’ve seen them before.
We are all laid bare – our fears, emotions, traumas and vulnerabilities. But these are the things that shape us into who we are.
If you watch the show tomorrow on Channel 4 at 9pm, you won’t truly appreciate the cold, wet and exhaustion we felt.
The experience left me humbled. It took me to very uncomfortable personal places – ones I had locked away deep inside me. I thought I’d dealt with them, but clearly I had not.
You will see me break. I can tell you now, on your comfy sofa, I went to hell.
Would I do it all again? Damn right I would. Hell was the making of me.
