In an exceptional show, our guest is the remarkable human that is Sophie Morgan. Sophie often finds liberation on a motorbike. She pops up frequently on TV, presenting Crufts or the Paralympics as a guest on Loose Women or breakfast TV. This past year she’s been promoting her autobiography Driving Forwards: A Journey of Resilience and Empowerment After Life-Changing Injury. She’s a powerful campaigner for disability and, specifically, better rights on flights for wheelchair users.
As can happen when you throw three thoughtful and pragmatic disabled people together, Sophie allowed us to have a far-reaching conversation. What drives her, what does she do when the going gets tough and who supports her? She explains that writing her autobiography allowed her to pause and reflect on her identity and how her passions have formed and re-formed over the year. It turns out that having a ‘chip on your shoulder’ can be a helpful motivator. As we approach the 20th anniversary of her becoming a disabled person, she talks through her immediate and future plans. We know this will include being an artist, something she’s returning to as painting allows her to find a calming place.
Links
Driving Forwards: A Journey of Resilience and Empowerment After Life-Changing Injury
In an exceptional show, our guest is the remarkable human that is Sophie Morgan. Sophie often finds liberation on a motorbike. She pops up frequently on TV, presenting Crufts or the Paralympics as a guest on Loose Women or breakfast TV. This past year she’s been promoting her autobiography Driving Forwards: A Journey of Resilience and Empowerment After Life-Changing Injury. She’s a powerful campaigner for disability and, specifically, better rights on flights for wheelchair users.
As can happen when you throw three thoughtful and pragmatic disabled people together, Sophie allowed us to have a far-reaching conversation. What drives her, what does she do when the going gets tough and who supports her? She explains that writing her autobiography allowed her to pause and reflect on her identity and how her passions have formed and re-formed over the year. It turns out that having a ‘chip on your shoulder’ can be a helpful motivator. As we approach the 20th anniversary of her becoming a disabled person, she talks through her immediate and future plans. We know this will include being an artist, something she’s returning to as painting allows her to find a calming place.
Links
Driving Forwards: A Journey of Resilience and Empowerment After Life-Changing Injury
This is the Way We Roll. Presented by Simon Minty and Phil Friend. You can email us at mintyandfriend@gmail.com or just search for Minty and Friend on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn,
Simon Minty:Hello and welcome to the Way We Roll With me, Simon Minty.
Phil Friend:And I'm Phil Friend
Simon Minty:our guest this month is omnipresent.
Phil Friend:What? Omnipresent, what is that? What is that?
Simon Minty:As in she's everywhere. It might be a travel show, might be on a motorbike presenting Crufts or loose women doing Paralympics on a catwalk. Everything.
Phil Friend:Ah, yeah. Okay. So book signings at 10 Downing Street and the White House campaigning for better flight rights for disabled people, and always on Instagram
Simon Minty:Today. Thankfully she is with us. Welcome to Sophie Morgan.
Sophie Morgan:Thank you for having me.
Phil Friend:Hi, Sophie. It's great to have you here. We are both big fans of yours and, and of what you're doing.
Simon Minty:And I never miss Loose Women. It's one of my favorites.
Sophie Morgan:I love finding out who watches loose women. It's always the most unexpected of people. I tell you. I tell you. Oh, thank you so much for having me on.
Phil Friend:No worries. Now, when you are introducing yourself to the very few people who don't know who you are, how do you see yourself, Sophie, a broadcaster, a writer, a traveler or or something else?
Sophie Morgan:Do you know? I think it's ever evolving, to be honest, Phil. I kind of, I sort of, it changes, each, seems to change each month, but I primarily, I'd say a TV presenter. Now a producer as well. I'm also a writer and an artist. I do like to add in the artist because I think at the heart of it all, I, I, I, I want to consider myself an artist because that's what I always wanted to be when I was kind of younger, and that's what I was hoping to become. When I first had my injury, I got sidetracked and moved into all this other world that I'm now in. But I still like to approach it as though I, it wasn't a piece of art
Phil Friend:Art in the sense of painting
Sophie Morgan:Painter. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so like that's, I don't know, it's, yeah. I, I add that into my title for personal reasons, but yes, primarily TV presenter, producer, and a writer.
Simon Minty:I do know two or three people, particularly historical, who painting has become a sort of therapy. It's the sort of the space away from it, or is that how you use it, or is it you. Yeah,
Sophie Morgan:that's exactly that. I think I mean, I, I painted since I, for, for as long as I could remember, but after my injury, it certainly became that cathartic sort of outlet, and I, I needed it to help me focus a lot of my, how do you put this? I suppose, un uncomfortable emotions, uncomfortable feelings, issues. I couldn't quite articulate. I would put into paper or into paint, and so I, that's how I used it to start with, but now when I have time, I just do it for fun. But what I would say, the reason I bring it up is because I think I. It's, it was always about being creative. For me as an artist, that's what it was about. You know, trying to find ways to articulate in, in, in visual form, so articulates the wrong word, how to put into visual form the, my lived experience and then when, when I became disabled, using art as that tool to, you know, really show what I was going through was really helpful, but it wasn't enough. And I think that's why when I discovered telly, I was like, oh, this is a better tool through which to shift perceptions, to educate people that la la and I kind of almost in my mind, switched my medium of making art from. From being a painter and a drawer to being a TV presenter or making tv. So it is just different medium, if that makes sense. It probably doesn't make sense to many people, but to me it makes me feel a little bit less guilty and a bit less mean, or I, I felt I get quite hard on myself for not making enough art. But then I, if I think of my life as my art, I go, oh, that's right. You're still making up. Does that make sense?
Phil Friend:You are triggering a thought in my head about during the pandemic, this Channel Four programme with a guy painting the joy of something, he's now Long dead. This guy had big, bushy hair and he suddenly popped up on Channel Four at seven o'clock in the evening for, for half an hour showing people how to paint mountains. He had a particular way of doing it.
Sophie Morgan:Bob Ross?
Phil Friend:Yes, Bob Ross. And he did what it seemed to do for us, the nation. Yeah. Is to give us a kind of sense of restfulness and wellbeing. And, and that's what you are in a sense, describing yourself, isn't it? That you use it for that sort.
Simon Minty:Am gonna go and look up for Bob Ross and find out more about him. I, I already, I can tell it's gonna be impossible to cover everything that we actually want to talk to you about. I totally get your bit about the sort of the art and the creative and all of that part and the, the flip flop between it. Now you, I'm trying to think. When I first came across you, I do remember Britain's top model missing top model. And Lara Masters showed me some photos of you and another person, and both of us wanted you to win. Oh, that was before it was decided, I thought that was the first time, but you actually did Beyond Boundaries. Before that was that adventure show. The specific question that I'm sure you've addressed it in the book or people were to ask you a thousand times, but that was soon after you had become a paraplegic person. Nine months or something. That's pretty rock and roll, isn't it? Why? Why did you do it so soon?
Sophie Morgan:I think you could call it rock and roll, or you could call it completely and utterly. Ugh. Ridiculous. I, I don't know. Simon, but I, I would, I, I'd say to go into it a bit more honestly, I think I did it'cause I had a real chip on my shoulder about how people had suddenly started to see me completely differently, you know, after my injury. So, so I was 18 years old, I'd just been paralyzed. I was now a full-time manual wheelchair user and talk about grappling with my identity. I didn't know who I was. I mean, I was only 18, so I didn't know. Anyway, I was just in the process of working that out when I had my injury. So I was absolutely confused and I think you know that to then be. To then be facing those prejudices that we all know well enough about how people feel about wheelchair users. Okay. You know, there was all that kind of stigma and, and I, I, I couldn't deal with it. I, I think as a young person, I didn't know, I didn't have the language. I certainly didn't have the experience, you know, the resilience to go, no, I can be myself amongst all of this. I, I, I was like, if people can't see me, how can I see myself? And I, I, I also didn't like the idea that there was all these limiting perspectives on disability. And I, I had unlearnt quite a lot in that short time it's used. There I was nine months. In the nine months that I had been injured I'd, I'd discovered that there was so much I didn't know about. What wheelchair users could do. And I was quite surprised. I thought, wow, we could do a lot. And, and I was really enjoying that process. I was, you know, gain, regaining my independence at that point. I'd learned to drive. I was at the time going to art school in Brighton. I had, you know, got friends. I think I had that. I think I'd even got a boyfriend, you know, I was doing stuff and I was enjoying my life and I was like, hold on a minute. I think there's a lot that people have got wrong about disability, myself included. So when I got this opportunity to go and be on TV, and I should add also travel somewhere extremely exciting. And I love to travel, so,
Simon Minty:and the show was meant to challenge that, wasn't it? It was meant to challenge the perceptions of disabled people. That was exactly the premise.
Sophie Morgan:Which is why I leapt in, you know, with both feet. And I just thought, right, I'm, I've gotta do this. So I had lots of reasons why I did it. And I. I failed, I think, or not so on lots of levels because, or it failed me, I suppose in, in some, my expectations in reality didn't quite meet and it was a good learning curve. But jeez, was it steep? For that point in my journey I think firstly I realized that the television show itself, Wasn't going, didn't have at its core, proper, authentic representation. I think it actually played into some tropes that I now have come to understand. Television does quite a lot'cause it's told from an able, sort of non-disabled lens. And it was very much the sort of, the tropes that I think are quite problematic for disability. Either the inspiration porn or the, you know, I, I don't know. There was things I won't, I won't drag it too much'cause it was also very groundbreaking and I think important. But I, I, I didn't quite land where I wanted it to personally to land. And secondly, I think for me, I came face to face with my own disability in that moment. And that was very naive of me in some respects, but also I think it was to be expected. I was very headstrong. I was very determined. Mm-hmm. I had been told at that point, certainly by myself and everyone around me, that there was things I couldn't do, but positive attitude and you know, being strong and focusing your willpower on something and you'll probably get it get there. And I hadn't come to face-to-face with the reality that actually in some environments, disabled people are disabled. It doesn't matter how positive you are. And I think being in the jungle in a wheelchair with literally, I didn't have very much of a body strength at that point. I was only 18 years old. I just thought, oh my gosh, I'm so disabled. I didn't realize how disabled I am. But it was, again, it was the environment I was in. And so that was, that was really tough. And I had to leave early unfortunately,'cause I got really sick. So there was a lot going on there. But it, you know, let's, let's be honest, it. It was, it was a wake up call. I think for, for, for me personally, because I, I realized, like I said earlier, it was this great medium through which to start shifting people's perceptions if done correctly. And the second is I, you know, I think it did have a, an impact on the, on the non-disabled viewer. The response was, was palpable. I I, you know, at the time they hadn't done anything like that. That was one of the earliest representations of sort of, it was,
Simon Minty:I mean, you, I think you've been very harsh on yourself. I think at the age of 18, I didn't know what the heck was going on. I trying to find my own identity and I'd always been disabled to then have that transition that you did. I totally understand. It's people like you and Addie that that sort of came out the other side of that. I also think Phil and I occasionally meet people who become disabled and they do that classic thing of I'm gonna challenge everything. And you, you go out full on because you are like, no way. I'm not getting stuck into where it is. And that we sort of overcompensate and I think I probably do it all the time. What's that phrase we used to use? Super Crip you become so over that.'cause you, you just wanna challenge it and then there's a little bit later you go, oh, bloody hell. I can't sustain this.
Sophie Morgan:The adaptation process. Perhaps it is enterprise, you're, you are so right and, and, and yes. I look back on it and I go, gosh, I had so much to prove. But then I think, hold on. Fast forward 20 years, I'm still banging on the drum of we need to do more. We need to do, and I, and you know, I, I, I say that has never really left me that kind of wanting to disprove people. That's lessened as I've got older. But I still find it in me when people underestimate us and people underestimate what we can be and do and or people literally stop us from doing things as in, you know, I don't know, take flight, the flying campaign that I'm sure we'll talk about at some point. That, that, that I'm running at the moment, that's literally stopping disabled people from living their lives. When things like that happen, I'm still like, I'm gonna go and do something about it. So I think I, I, I have to say maybe the chip on my shoulder will never leave. Maybe it's my motivator. Maybe being paralyzed will always have that kind of light that fire under me. I don't know. Or maybe it's just the person I was before, maybe who knows? Who knows?
Phil Friend:I suppose what's interesting is, I mean, that that programme was groundbreaking and in that sense you pioneered, although it was flawed in a number of ways, the fact that the, a woman in a wheelchair, pretty newly disabled, Took on the challenges, said something to a lot of other, I'm sure younger disabled women who'd never, ever thought about that as a possibility. That's one level. But your work now is what I would call much more every day, getting on a bloody plane, you know, getting on a bus. So for all that you are you've done with your life thus far, the fame, you have the, you know, the things you do. Incredibly exciting. We'll get to the motorbike in a minute, but, but it boils down to the fact at the end of the day, that you can't cross the bloody street or you can't get on the, you know what I mean? So how do you kind of, how does that feel now after, as you say, that initial spurt of energy you had and so on?
Sophie Morgan:I think I was, I've been reflecting on this a lot'cause I'm coming up to my 20 year anniversary this summer. And I, I am very aware. That, how do I explain it? I, I, I would say that I, I look at where I've got to, I, I think I, I, I awoke to something in that experience in the jungle that made me, that galvanised me to actually find a place where I could have a profile and I could have a platform and I could have a voice and have, you know, all of those things that we so desperately or I so desperately wanted. I think layer into this, the idea of being a woman as a wheelchair user, you know, you're relatively invisible. You're kind of unseen. You're certainly not as respected as you might want to be in society, and I think that I have always wanted to push back on those things and so, The, my, my mission to get to this point where I've got now finally, a voice that's being listened to. I've been working towards it for such a long time, and I, I'm, I'm so grateful. I'm finally here and I've got one, and actually I'm speaking about issues and, you know, just the privilege of even, even this morning being invited on Good Morning Britain, just to talk about the update with this campaign. And I mean, I feel so privileged, but I've worked so long to get here. And now that I'm here, as much as, to be honest with you, I wish I couldn't be, I wasn't talking about all this. I wish I was just, as you said this, Phil, like spending all my time on my motorbike, which we will talk about, you know, or living my life and just doing other things and just being, you know, being, I'm, I'm actually, I am stuck in this state where I'm constantly having to advocate, but I think I created that for myself, so now I'm here, I'm not gonna let it go. So that energy still remains, but sometimes I do wake up and go, gosh, I wish I was doing something else. I don't wish I was campaigning or advocating, you know,
Simon Minty:Can we, explore the, the flight rights? Phil and I have been around for a while and Phil a little bit longer than me. So obviously we occasionally we go, oh, we remember when we did the flight right there. The difference is you are immensely strategic. All the people that you've lined up with. I love the fact that you are the big voice, but then you've got two or three people who are presumably working with you behind the scenes. It is the one time it's not, it's one of three times where I get the most upset when I fly. I flew very recently with someone new and beforehand my stomach flipped of anxiety and I'm like, oh my God, this is all gonna go wrong. She's gonna see it all go wrong. This is a nightmare. And this particular time it was great, but your campaigning, Phil and I were talking about it beforehand. You're doing this presumably'cause it has a direct impact on you and you can feel it, but also you're realizing the industry needs to change. And how exhausting is it? How successful is it besides going to Number 10 and the White House, how are you feeling about it all?
Sophie Morgan:Thanks for asking and I'm really, you know what I, I can say this to you two'cause I know you'll understand it. We, it, it, it's, it's this thing, it does directly impact us, right it's our lives and it, I, I've said this so many times now, it's not just about going on holiday or something, you know, flying is, it's integral to our every day part of our, it's just, it's a human right. Fundamentally we need it for, for work. We need it for, for medical reasons to visit family, you name it. Flying is, is important and the fact that it is still. So, as challenging as it was when I first learned, when I first got paralyzed and I first flew 20 years ago, I remember suddenly having this massive awakening to the challenges that the wheelchair users face and I couldn't get over it. And that nothing's changed in 20 years. So anyway, rant over the campaign's, going well, really well, but not in my opinion quickly enough. As you have rightly pointed out, people have been campaigning about this and have been talking about this for such a long time. This is not new news. This campaign is not particularly, you know, groundbreaking or in that respect, but we are getting traction and we are making an impact and. It's tangible at the moment, and that feels really exciting. I'd say like, thank you for pointing out. I think the right thing that's happened is that there's actually, it's not just me in the public eye. Like say for example, Frank Gardner or whoever else has actually got You know, pick their stories picked up in the newspaper. These, they sit in isolation and, and, and, and a few things change, but not a lot. But what's different about this is an is a couple of things that I've realized have made all the difference. One is having Marion Fellowes, who's this SNP minister for a spokesperson for disabilities for the SNP she has been really, really integral to all of that at all of this. And she's doing everything she can kind of behind the scenes and also the advisors that I've got around me who are experts and both and, and have lived experience of disability. And, and we're not just talking about wheelchair users here, we're talking about pan disability. And it is literally coming together at such pace. You know, yes. We've got to Number 10. Yes. The government has said they're going to do more. Yes. I got to the White House. Yes. That administration has said that they're gonna commit to do more. We, we are yet to see it in practice. It's, it's, it's all promised. Whether we'll see it, we don't know. So the pressure must still be applied at, at all, at all times. And that's my job is just to keep going. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. We are here, we're not going anywhere. We're not going anywhere. To your second question, how am I, I'm absolutely exhausted. I'm really, really exhausted.'cause it's it's a lot. And I'm, I don't have the, you know, the energy that I need to just keep going on this, but I'm just doing it anyway. You know, when someone says You've gotta get to the White House, you get to the White House, you don't, you don't say, oh, I'm tired. Do you know what I mean? You say, yeah, okay. How the hell am I gonna get there? Right. I'm gonna make this work. And I have to say, you know, even this morning at five o'clock in the morning, getting up to go and do a morning breakfast show after doing yesterday and then coming back from Washington and my body is, is paralyzed. It's paralyzed from quite a high level. I, I've got a lot to deal with and I, I'm still, and I'm dragging it through this process, but it is starting to say no.
Announcer:This is The Way We Roll with Simon Minty and Phil Friend.
Phil Friend:One of the things that makes you different in, in ways, at least I think this is from my point of view most campaigners do what you do. Yeah. They, they get pissed off and they allies and all that stuff and they crack on and eventually they'll get some progress. What you do as well is share, and you do this very publicly on Instagram and other places. The cost to you personally of that. So you are not averse to putting something out there showing you being very emotional, maybe your chairs in bits on the runway or something. How do you do that given the pressure you are under anyway? You are, you are exhausted from doing all the things you're doing, and yet you are also sharing that very, I think sometimes really intimate personal side of you. Tell me a bit more about why that, why you do that.
Sophie Morgan:Do you know? I think I've always, I've always been this way in that I'm not very good at hiding how I feel. I've, I've done it on every show I've ever been on. I think I have some sort of eruption at some point or some honesty. It's like I'm an emotional person and so my social media, which obviously I, I manage and curate and put together and. It can only be that I don't really know how, how to be anything else. And I, I would also say I have this underlying feeling a, a lot of the time that people don't perhaps think that I'm as impacted by the day-to-day lived experience of the, of the average disabled person, because I happen to be on telly. And I, and in some respects that's true. In some respects, I am treated differently. And I know that there's a privilege with that. I'm very aware of it because I didn't always have this profile, and I know what it's like to be just, you know, your average disabled person. Okay. So I do know that. But the other part of it is it doesn't make me immune to the problems that we all face. And I, I get, I, I get every bit as upset and as hurt by the, the things that upset and, and hurt us. And, and I share it for that reason because I, I, it ha it's true. You know, it, it, it's ha like having my mobility devices. Broken. It actually makes me just, you know, I, I wanna cry about it. And so for me to, to put up a facade and per say, perhaps re retell that story on social media from a more veneered sort of news or sports presenters type of you know, persona would, would be so disingenuous. It, it is genuinely who I am and I think I, I dunno how to do it any other way. So, to your question of how, you know, why and how, and I think it's, it's this kind of, I feel an obligation to be honest, and I love following people who are in turn, really honest about how the things that they're facing. But, but on both sides of the coin, you know, the, the, the pain and the suffering and the tragedy and the trauma that, you know, you go through, but also all the joy and the fun. And I think it would be, again, really in inaccurate and also misleading to, to only do the latter. I must do the former too. And I was, I, it's taken me a, a while, to be honest with you, to be really honest about the bad days, because I used to just want to always say, Don't judge disabled people in the sense that you think that our lives are really shit, our lives are great. So I would only put out the great, but then I realized, but hold on, that's not right.'cause our lives are also tough and there's really tough things going on. So I decided that I needed to take that position. I think maybe a couple of years ago maybe just before Covid or, or thereabouts, I was on bedrest and I was having a really tough time and somebody said, why don't you post about this sort of stuff? And I thought, I don't know. I dunno why I don't, it's private. And they said, but you do realize like people are going through the same thing. Firstly, they might be able to sympathize and help you. The other part is you might be able to help them. And I just, it just was a light bulb moment. I thought, you know, I should be more, more honest about the things that go when they go wrong.
Simon Minty:I, I have huge empathy and I completely agree with you, and I think by default I try and do a fun or a joke or a interesting'cause I don't want to latch onto the negative stuff. Maybe you've had an influence.'cause I did post recently about 12 year old kids giving me grief and it got through my armour most of the time I ignore it, but I was in the shop, it got through my armor and I posted it
Sophie Morgan:how did it feel?
Simon Minty:It kind of, well, there was some reactions that weren't what I wanted because I just rise above it and I go, well I rise above 99 times outta a hundred. Yeah.'cause I can't be bothered with it. I can't swim. But occasionally it gets through, which is why I'm telling you about this one. About half a dozen people said, oh my God, I didn't realize, I'm so glad I'm aware that this crap still happens. I thought it was all okay. Yeah. And so by putting that out, it was really important. I suppose my, a couple of responses I've just deleted'cause they're such way off the ball. I think you, I'm white male. I think I get away with more. I think you being female, I think you get crappier responses occasionally. I'm interested in how you manage the crappy responses. I'm also interested in the support'cause when I get this, I go around and tell all my friends and family and they support and da da da. How, who's your support in all of this?
Sophie Morgan:So to your first question about the the crappy responses and what do I do with them? Wow. I have, I think I've shared a couple recently. Yeah. That have really cut through the armor to use what you just said. It's a, it is a perfect, perfect and metaphor for how it feels, isn't it? Your armor just gets pierced. So this guy, I get it a lot from men, you know, and, and it is the integration, sorry, it's the combination of ableism and misogyny when they come together and come at you. Oof. Does it hurt? I get sexual violent threats. I get you know, some really nasty, nasty comments and I think. Most of the time, I, I am able to kind of step back and just go, okay. Right, let's unpack it. And I have actually unpacked it on my social media. I actually screen grabbed one message and just shared it, and underneath it sort of wrote my response out. I thought that might be quite helpful, maybe as catharsis, maybe not. I'm not sure sometimes what my agenda is when I post, but I just wanted to do that publicly.'cause it felt quite helpful. It quite felt quite empowering actually. Mm-hmm.'cause when I had, I had a stalker for a couple of years, very violent and very aggressive stalker. And I was told by the police never to respond. So I felt very voiceless in that and I was never able to fight back in inverted commas. So when I do get these, these trolls on social media, I do like to fight back because I can. But I know when to pick my battles, to be honest with you, Simon. I think that's one of the things, isn't it? You know, some people you just think, do you know what you don't know? You don't know how it feels. And I don't need to educate you. It's not my responsibility. The other part of it is I think that to what you said earlier, when you do share something vulnerable about yourself and you get that feeling back of, oh, thank you for sharing. I didn't know that about that. I actually do feel that I'm, I'm perhaps contradicting myself, but I do like that educational element of going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This still happens guys. It does, yeah, it does still happen. You know, you kind of want cause I forget, you don't know what you don't know. And I, I forget people that, people, people don't know that. So that, that feels good. And your other question, forgive me, what was it?
Simon Minty:So who supports you?
Sophie Morgan:Support? Ooh. Well, I mean, I think support, I get it. Firstly, I, I mean, I, I get it from the most incredible network of friends and family, which I cling to like a limpet. Do you know what I mean? I literally they are so important to me, but I also, I'm, I'm quite guilty of not always reaching out to them when things are tough or things are hard. I'm, I'm quite a I do manage stuff by myself. I'm, I'm, I'm also, I'm single now. I have been for the last year or so. So I kind of I don't have a partner in that respect to kind of help support on there. And I, but I'm quite resilient. I've, I, I've learned how to deal with things over the years. So I think I've got my, my own back. I, I've got my family and friends as well. And also I use the, the disabled community quite a lot.
Simon Minty:I just realized I, so Phil and I will come on half an hour beforehand and I'll do 20 minutes of what happened and we just do it. So he's my support'cause he gets it. So you are saying you do have disabled people as well? They know it. They get it straight away.
Phil Friend:Sophie don't you think it's a bit extraordinary in this conversation? You kind of chuck in the fact that you were stalked for a couple of years and then move straight on to, you know, something. For most people that would be horrendous. And I'm not saying it wasn't horrendous for you, how on earth. I don't put myself out there. I'll be honest. My tweets are about something inane. But you are doing this every day. Thank you Simon.
Simon Minty:I'll verify that. I'll verify that he does
Phil Friend:Every single day. Sophie Morgan is out there and you've got your support networks and all that stuff and good for you that you have. But isn't it sad, don't you think? Or what do you think that, about the fact that anybody who does what you are doing, Runs this gauntlet of total and utter hatred and, and yet keep, you, keep doing it. And I'm really intrigued by that.'cause it would be so much easier not to do. It would, yeah,
Sophie Morgan:it would be, it would be easier actually. Hold on, let me just stop myself there. No, it wouldn't be easier. I tell you why it wouldn't be easier because I'm putting myself out there for a reason. And the reason is I want it to be easier for disabled people. Okay. So if somebody comes at me and tries to stop me or, or not tries to, you know, inadvertently they could stop me from being so vitriolic on social media or wherever, and I stop that, then I, my life is still just as hard. It's hard either way. Put it that way. It's hard. It's hard. It's just as hard to not do it as it is to do it'cause if I don't do it, I'm stuck not being able to live my life. And if I do do it, I'm making changes to make my life and other people's life easier, but I'm still getting, you know, the shit for it. So, yeah, it's hard either way. But you make, what do you do? What do you do? I don't really know what the choice is there. I don't, I don't know if, if I'm, if, if we are blessed with that much choice. I think, you know, I, I didn't get into the public eye for fame. I didn't get in it for, for certainly not for any money. It's not like that my agenda was purely because I wanted. To be seen. And I wanted disabled people to have an easiest go of it. So I've got that now, and so I've got to keep going. That's why I'm there. So if it, if that's the consequence of it, I suppose I'm just gonna have to take it. And it did get to a point where I thought, I can't do this. I mean, thankfully he ended up in prison, this guy. Hmm. But there's a, you know, there's a number of times when I've gone, I mean, at five o'clock this morning when I'm, I'm absolutely cross-eyed tiredness. I'm like, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? I could be somewhere else, right? I could be on holiday, I could be lying on a beach, reading a book. I could be painting a picture. But at the same time, if I was doing those things, guys, if I was sitting there painting my picture, drinking my rose, doing whatever it is that I'm fantasised about doing, I know after a week I'd be going, but there's shit to do. There is stuff to do. There's stuff to change. And if you don't do it, who's gonna do it? Because there's not enough of us in the public eye doing stuff there's not enough of us with disabilities. I think because we're not given the platform, think how much I've been able to influence just because I've been given a tiny platform. I mean, I'm not, I'm not a household name. I'm not, I'm not a huge celebrity. I don't have millions of followers and I have been able to do this small amount of incremental, you know, about change. And it makes me angry.'cause I think if all of us disabled people had more of a voice, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in. We wouldn't be, we would be somewhere else. We'd be, we'd be sitting on a beach having a nice time, like probably not most of the other non-disabled.
Simon Minty:Your voice is getting louder and brilliant. I mean, in the metaphorical sense, it's not here on the show, it's exactly as, okay, and, and by the way, you are 10 times more known, but when I do post something and someone writes to me and says, I feel that, but I can't say it, or I've never said it, that makes me feel quite cool.'cause I'm like, okay, there is that tiny bit you've said what they're feeling because they haven't been able to do it. So you can use that voice. The most reassuring thing you've said so far is that you're single. So that gives hope for everybody. But you're still single. But has your voice like got so much more louder because of your book Driving Forwards, a journey of resilience and empowerment after life changing injury? I mean, that seems to have catapulted something. Am I reading too much into it?
Sophie Morgan:No, thank you. I it, it, it, wow. It gave me a script. It gave me clarity. I think it just, it just cemented a lot of, I just, I mean, we all stopped during covid. Of course we, we were forced to, but for me it was a different type of stopping. I stopped and then I looked back and I wrote this book, and I, and I reflected and I, I delved into my past. I went into all my diaries. I, I really reflected and wrote a book about it. And I did it just at the time when I, so this is a couple of years ago now when I wrote it, that I have, I had lived half my life disabled and half my life non-disabled. I was paralyzed when I was 18 years old, so it was 18 years on. And so it was such a healing, but I mean, it was upending, my gosh. It was, but it gave me, I think gave, right. That's that you've done that close, that chapter and it get, I think I just got, I grew up, I think I felt myself grow up or some sort of maturation process happened in it, and I thought, right now I know what I wanna do and how to do it so that that helps. Yeah, for sure.
Announcer:This is The Way We Roll with Simon Minty and Phil Friend.
Simon Minty:We've, we are terrible. We don't do research. I'm gonna read your book now, but I, I totally get that bit of you having you writing. It meant you really thought deeply and every time I see a review or comment, it's about how aware you are and how smart you are and how you. How you processed it. We know we're always processing it and we know why armor gets jinked and all that, but it sounds like you really did pause and kind of go, where am I at? And that's given you that sort of platform to be even cooler and better and stronger and all the stuff that you are.
Sophie Morgan:Well, I appreciate you saying that. I, I, I, I think, you know, I look back over the last 18 years well now 20 years, and I think of all the learning and unlearning I've done in quite a public way. I'd look at, you know, going on beyond boundaries and coming face-to-face with my physical limitations or going on Britain's missing top model and coming face-to-face with my body insecurities and my body images and you know, that my body image, sorry. And I, and I think it's taken me a hell of a long time to. Kind of embody this, this, this experience and be very proud of it. And I, I, in the book, I sort of reconcile the feeling of, I always wanted, I, I thought I wanted to be the other version of me, the non-disabled version of me. But in my book, I sort of work out through, well throughout the process of writing it. But certainly in the last chapter, I do this experiment where I go back and emotionally kind of play out the game of meeting myself. And I found myself, I was sobbing when I was writing the chapter. I actually found myself sort of thinking, do you know what? I don't want to be her. I think she might quite like to be me.'cause she'd be probably pretty proud of me because she, all the things that I used to look up to or be proud sorry, be impressed by, or want to aspire to, you know, aspire to be, or women that I thought were pretty badass. I. I've become, and I actually think, yes, disabled or not. That's that's by the by, she actually, as a person, I think my younger self would be, she, we'd probably get on and that was really healing. I just thought, actually there isn't this disconnect that I imagined. There's actually a real kind of yeah, a reconciliation and, and so I think coming to, to, into it now, I, I think the book gave me a lot of closure. On, on this moment where I could have very easily held a lot of grudges and a lot of jealousy, I think, towards my younger self. But I don't anymore. I really don't. And I, and, and that's been very, whew, freeing, you know, it's like, no, this is who I am. And I'm very proud. I also, sorry to just keep rambling on, but one thing that I really loved, I really re realized how much I had grown into my, my disability as an identity.'cause when I was first working out my identity when I was a kid and I was newly injured, I did not want to be considered disabled. I really didn't like it. That's why I went on these shows. It's like, no, my definition of disability is this. I don't even like the word. I was all like that, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, but now I'm like, no, gosh, I feel so differently. And that was really nice to, to realise as well that at this point in my life
Phil Friend:is there something about the 18 year old. It's interesting, isn't it, the before and after disability bit, which I was born, I was three when I got disabled, so I have none of that previous stuff that you've got. Mm-hmm. But I wonder how you feel about the 18 year old and saying thank you to her for giving you the experiences that you were gonna need to have in order to be the, the 36 year old you are now. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. There's there's something about that too, isn't it? Very interesting.
Sophie Morgan:Yeah. I, I, I, I, I feel very like a responsibility to talk about acquired disability, as we call it, whatever you wanna call it. You know, people that come into it, especially through trauma and, and, and, and what, what it does to your relationship with your disability and also, Also going into the nuances around when it happened and what that meant, and everyone's got a different version. So no one story is the same, but I definitely think that, you know, the, my version of disability which I share with others who have spinal injury and other women who use wheelchairs, you know, there's, there's various sort of commonalities that we share. They're all obviously personal and, and we can relate in some ways and others that we can't. I think that being paralyzed when I was 18 years old, there was a lot of advantages to it. And people always go, oh, really? Oh my gosh, you were so young. It's so bad. Oh, awful. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I think a, I had the belligerence, I had the tenacity, I had the headstrong kind of, you can't get, you can't tell me what to do, you know, perspective and attitude of an 18 year old. And that served me well. I also think I, my life was a completely a blank canvas. I didn't know what I was gonna do. I didn't know where I was gonna go. I had a few ideas and I knew what I loved. And I, but I, I think for that respect, it wasn't, my identity was there to be formed. And so that, that served me too, I think But you know, again, I look back at it and I, even though at 18 you think you're so, you know, everything. I still think, gosh, it was very young. Yeah. It was very, very young to have all that, all that change. But maybe that was the blessing,
Simon Minty:As a couple of old timers in, in some respect, I mean, being born with it, but I, 25 was the first time I thought, okay, I need to explore this thing because I'm ignoring it. I'm pretending it's not an issue. Yeah. And it is an issue. And Phil was what, late thirties. And you're like, oh shit, I've gotta, I've gotta explore this disability thing more. So there is this point where you suddenly go, okay, I, yours was different. Yours was thrust upon you. So hang on. We've said it three times, we've not got to it. And I think we're exhausting you with this heavy talk. I wanna talk about motorbikes. Phil wants to talk about motorbikes. Sophie wants to talk about motorbikes. What's happening?
Phil Friend:This is a bit of you that I'm really, I just wanna know more about because I mean, there's the practical stuff. You know, you ride a trike, but it's one hell of a beast. It's not the sort of trike that comes to mind when we say trike. But it's about that whole, how do you, there's some practical stuff about how the hell you get on it, but there's also the other stuff to do with why you do that. And I suppose beyond boundaries is a bloody good answer, isn't it?'cause it's dangerous or it's thrilling or I, anyway, over to you, Sophie. What, tell us a bit about this motorbike.
Sophie Morgan:So it came, there's a number of ways to answer this question. It came around because, so firstly, I should probably give some context. I have always been a bit of a rebel of sorts. Okay. In that sense that I like to push things. I like extremes. I like. Finding my own way. I'm, I'm a bit like that. I don't think that's necessarily something that maybe everybody kind of knows about me. Why would they? But certainly if my friends were to describe me, I think that's, you know, that those are the sorts of ways they would describe me to someone who didn't know me. And so I think that the, the, the, the trike is an extension of that. So it wasn't that surprising to those who know me. But what happened was I, I was coming to the, I was getting really tired with the, the TV industry because I was struggling to get the work I really wanted to get. And I felt very pigeonholed and a bit sort of exhausted with the process of commissioning and all of that sort of bollock. So I just, I was finding it really tiring and I said, I said in a throwaway comment to an a TV exec over coffee,'cause I'd just been reading a book about the, the first woman to ever ride a motorbike around the world. A woman called Elspeth Beard, who was who rode a bike in the eighties. She didn't have a disability or anything, she was just the first woman to ever ride a motorbike around the world. And I read her book and I was just like, blown away. Anyway, so I I said in this comment over coffee, I said, oh, do you know what? I'm just gonna sack all this tele off and I'm just gonna get on a motorbike and ride around the world. And the woman looked back at me in disbelief and she said, what? You're gonna do what? I said, yeah, I'm gonna ride around the world on a motorbike. She said, you can't do that. I said, you red flag to a bull. What do you mean? And she said, well, you can't do that. How can you do that? And obviously she was doing it for journalistic sort of integrity. She was trying to delve down into how I would do that. But my gosh, she, she, so I was like, well, I'd just get a motor bike. I'd adapt it and I'd go and she was just like, well whatever. She kind of almost, she goaded me and it was brilliant. It was enough to kind of get me to go, right, I'm actually gonna look into this. Anyway, long story short, she pitched it to Channel four. Channel four said, yeah, let's make a documentary about it. And I was suddenly like, oh, I've gotta go and find a motorbike. Now what am I gonna do anyway? So my initial, my initial plan was to find a motorbike and get it made into a trike or have a sidecar put onto it. I was gonna work all that out when somebody showed me this machine called a Riker. Yeah. It's from Canada. It's made by the company Canam and I, I minute I saw it, it looks a little bit, imagine a jet ski'cause it's actually made by the same company, jet ski-Doos and that. Yeah, imagine that. But it's on wheels. It looks a little bit like a quad bike, but it's got two wheels at the front and one wheel at the back. And it's not designed for disabled people necessarily. But it was perfect. I thought it's got balance because obviously I don't, I'm paralyzed from the chest down. I don't have any balance. I don't have core muscles, so I can't, I can't balance. So I needed that stability. I couldn't be on a motorbike'cause I, again, I can't use my legs. I can't put my legs down when the bike stops. And I know there's solutions out there for that, but it, none of them were suitable for the type of journey I wanted to do. So I saw it, I contacted them. I said, I wanna ride around the world on this. What do you think? And they said, yeah, go for it. So we started plotting this amazing adventure, and we just started rolling. We were just about to set off on this huge epic, monster journey when Covid hit. And then that canceled. Everything got canceled. So but that was, you know, it is what it is. But I've been riding ever since. I'm, I'm obsessed with it. I cannot, if I didn't have to get off it, I wouldn't. I just love it. And I'm actually just in the, in the process as we speak of planning for my 20 year anniversary. I'm gonna ride from here to LA so I'm, I'm in August, I'm gonna set off. I can't ship my bike unfortunately,'cause of it's not gonna get there in time. So I'm gonna, cheat a bit by riding my bike to Heathrow, flying to the states, picking up a bike there and then riding across. But either way, yeah, it is the most liberating, empowering, and even transformational feeling just getting on it because for all the reasons I know that you two would understand wheelchairs are our mobility and gosh, they're liberating and they're brilliant. We love them. Of course we do, but they're limited. Yeah. There's only so far they can go and only so fast they can go. So I just love getting off it and I'll answer your question about how I do that, but getting off it, and it's almost like, and this is a really weird thing to say, but like I feel like a transformer. I feel like I transform from this girl in a manual chair. I watch kids, I watch people watch me get on it and it just gives me such joy.'cause they're like, what is going on there? I roll up to this machine, I throw one leg over it. Yeah. I then hold onto the handlebars. I pull, heave my weight up. So I'm, so I'm then straddling it. I then pick up one leg, put it onto a footplate, which has been modified so that it's nice and flat. And then I strap my leg in, then I pick up my other leg, strap that in. Then my wheelchair gets usually by somebody else.'cause I haven't worked quite worked out the attachment yet. Yeah. Put onto the back, clipped in. And then I put my helmet on, put my leathers on and off I go. And it, it's, it's, it's incredible. It's so much fun.
Phil Friend:There's so many things about it, isn't it? There's the sheer, just the sheer fun of the whole thing. But I know a man who's double, double leg amputee who loves watching people watch him as he gets out of his Porsche 911 you know it because it's that whole transformation thing. You know this, but I think women on motorbikes very interesting that it's only in the 1980s that the first woman went around the world on a motorbike. You know, it says a lot about bikes and women, doesn't it? But it is a, when I was younger, I used to be part of a, a rocker group. I was in an invalid carriage at the time. It was so ironic. Go way. We're gonna need see picture. See Harley Davidson. That's what intriguing. Anyway, look, you've answered my question and long may it continue. I did watch Billy Connolly's tour. On a great big three wheeled motorcycle. Yes. Perhaps you could team up with him.'cause he's now pretty disabled. Isn't he? Old Billy?
Sophie Morgan:Oh, Billy, if you're listening Yeah. You, if you riding partner Billy That would be phew! That would be the dream. That would be sweet. I mean, I, I'm sort of loosely calling my journey to LA the blonde way round because it's like the long way round. But it's, yeah, I mean, I honestly, I, I think there's something about it as a woman. Yes. And then as a disabled woman Yes. Is that like, don't underestimate us or, I think it's, it's, I get the same reaction when I talk about, or when people see I've got quite a lot of tattoos and people see them. Either'cause deliberately I'm showing them or'cause they just happen to notice them and they get, I get this reaction and it, there's an implicit message in this, in the reaction that I think as a disabled person I am heightened to, which is people say, gosh, I didn't imagine you'd had tattoos like that. And I want to say, Why, what is it about me? Is it, what is it? Is it the wheelchair? Do you think that we don't, you know, women like I, I don't know. I, I read into it, right? I read into it a lot. It might just be because, I dunno, don't look like I have tattoos. I'm not sure. But all of that, you don't look like you ride a motorbike. You don't look like you. What, what does that mean? And, and I, I challenge that and I actually quite enjoy that because you kind of go, well take your assumptions and swivel
Phil Friend:stick them up your.
Simon Minty:You said the word challenge and I think that's a kind of permanent state of being that you, you are in, which is, is exhausting but amazing as well. It was a little line you said, and I had empathy and I can't quite work out where, when you said you get on that bike, Something changes now. It's not that you're necessarily not disabled anymore, but there's a liberation, there's a freedom, there's a, suddenly all restrictions have gone. I get that and I can't work out. The closest I can think of is when I go to my conventions with other short people and suddenly the difference melts away. Wow. And it's, it's a huge feeling. And I, when you said it, I was like, oh, I get that. But I couldn't place it. So That's gorgeous. That's amazing.
Phil Friend:You'd get it Simon, when you got in, your Simon used to have the most beautiful B M W 6 3 5 car. And you used to get in that and you get out. When you got out, people went, what? What's going on here? There you go. But when you are in it, yeah. You are the master of the universe in your case. That's the universe's, isn't it? It's about, that's it's, you're like everybody, although you, Sophie, you're not doing that. You are getting on a bike. That rarely, if ever most women or most men would be on, you know, it's a very different, it's not a car.
Sophie Morgan:I suppose, I suppose there is that, you know, but it's all relative how, how we approach these things and I think that feeling that you must have had Simon in that car and, and you know, I think I love the feeling of also stepping outta my own comfort zone. And I tell you what, getting on that motorbike and going at, you know, Full speed down a motorway. I just, I feel invigorated. It, it clears the cobwebs in a way that I don't get that from other experiences. I think also because of this paralyzed life, you know, you, you often sanitized quite a lot. You don't get, how do I get that extreme feeling? How do I get that feeling of like, yeah, I, I, I love that feeling and, but I also, I'm not a risk taker in the sense that I don't wanna hurt myself. I mean, I've done enough damage. I, I can't risk, so I, it's a calculated risk. Yeah. If that makes sense. I'm not, I look at some wheelchair users, especially people with spinal injury. I actually, somebody said something to me recently. I'd love to know what you two think about this. Somebody said to me, who has muscular dystrophy? She was re she was reflecting on. It's Mayan, Ziv. I dunno if you know her. She's the fantastic c e o of access. Now, she's Canadian. She's a very dear friend. She said to me, she reckons there's character types for different disabled people. And she said, the spinals, she said, spinal injury, right? They're all extremists, they're all extreme. And I, for a minute I thought, I think she might be maybe right? Because there is, if you think about the common commonality between like how we get our injuries, it's usually doing something hair-brained I mean that's, that's a generalization of course. But it made me think about, you know, the way some people react to their disability when they become spinal injured and they go and, I don't know, you know, extreme like go skiing and they, they're throwing themselves off, I dunno, half pipes or they're adapting m mountain bikes so they can get that feeling. And you know, it's just because we're human. We're human and we've got the same drives as, as we did before our injury.
Phil Friend:I met a guy who was a coal miner, Many, many years ago, and he broke his back when a rock fall smashed into him. And he was fairly high lesion. And then about five or six years ago, he decided to be the first bloke on a tin tray to go down the costa the, the, the what's it run in A luge? Yeah. On a luge. And I said to him Whatcha trying to do break your neck this time? I mean, you've done your back. What? And SMAs people with spinal muscular atrophy for me, they're all clever. That's so funny. One that wasn't bright. So they're all sort of clever people. I dunno where Polios are. I think we're at the bottom of the pile somewhere.
Sophie Morgan:Mayan said that people with muscular dystrophy, what did she say? She said they're all really dry and quick. Oh, okay. And I thought that was funny. I mean, again, it's just observations and of course people listening might go, God, that's not me at all. But it does make me think about, you know, how I relate to my disability. Why do I wanna ride a bloody motorbike or drive it across the why for my anniversary? Is that what I want to do? You know, why do I wanna ride across the bloody to a to America? What, what's that about? But actually, do you know what, I have a, a little thing I wanted to comment on what you said there, Simon, about being around other. People that you relate to and how that lifts away some of those other, you know, it, it gives you a different feeling, doesn't it? And it's hard to explain what that feeling is. It's inclusion of some sort, isn't it?
Simon Minty:It's a, like a shot in the arm sometimes.
Sophie Morgan:It's a giddy feeling. I, I dunno how to put your finger on it, but I, I've, I've experienced that in America. I feel very different over there. And I think it's the physical access that I experienced, I found myself very liberated. So again, that's that draw to want to go over there.
Simon Minty:I, I dated someone who's American for a long time, spent a lot of time there. It's also, the access is brilliant and also how I was treated. It, it's different.
Sophie Morgan:So tell me, did you find it different? Because I
completely, I, I could move to America. People have criticism of America. I could move there because I think my way of life would be so much easier. And people, I go in a shop and they respect me from the moment. They don't give us stuff about what I look like, how I am. They're just like, we want your custom. We wanna serve you. It was so welcoming compared to some places in the uk I think.
Sophie Morgan:I completely agree.
Phil Friend:I think there's a. I have a theory about that. Oh, well, which is that the oppression, let's call it that, of disabled people is hundreds and hundreds of years old and America's not hundreds and hundreds of years old, if you know what I mean. It doesn't have the long history that Britain does of voluntary sector and looking after us and all that stuff. Mm-hmm. Whereas in America, it's the pioneering, it's the kind of inventing new things, attitude, nothing's beyond us, kind of go for it type culture. I, I'm being very general here, but I just think there's something about disability in Britain, which in some ways, is molly coddling, in a way it isn't in America. America, I've been there not as long as you guys have, but I've certainly worked in America for a brief time, and I felt the same. I could go anywhere, do anything,
Sophie Morgan:I, I wonder as well'cause of their respect and, and the way that they consider veterans, right? Mm-hmm. Because that they were very integral, I think as I understand it, in the bringing around of the ADA a and things like that. And I think there's just a different, different attitude towards disability. Now, obviously, we could unpack all of this and go into the fact that their healthcare systems very disabling and all of that. There's a lot of, there's a lot of things that aren't great about it. But I think from as, as a Britt being over there, I've certainly noticed that attitudes are different and access is different. And it has a very real effect on how I feel about my disability. And every time I come back to the uk, I feel myself just, I've normalized so much of the, the, the bollocks that we have to deal with, the lack of physical access, especially in London, where I live, and the way people treat us, like you say the Molly coddling, the infantalizing, the pitying, the blaming, the, you know, the kind of the, you know, we all benefit Scroungers or whatever we are. You know, there's that kind of.
Simon Minty:I just, one thought I did think if I think Motability scheme needs to go to America,'cause then we might all or Motability need to have CanAm on the scheme. Your social media works a treat. I'm now looking at Howden's Kitchens. I'm looking at count Canam bikes. I mean, whoever is supporting you is now making me buy your products. So it's working.
Sophie Morgan:Yay.
Phil Friend:Let's, let's draw things to a close, Sophie, but just asking you the question that, you know, what, what's next? You've talked about your trip to America on the bike, that sounds epic, but in your other life, the flight rights things going really well. A lot to do. You've said that, but what about you personally? What's more painting or a different show perhaps from Loose Women? I mean, what's
Sophie Morgan:So I'm actually in the process of setting up a production company both in the UK and in the US so I'm really excited about that. And I'm doing that with a business partner over in the US who I love. Keely, CatWells, you might have heard of her. She's just extraordinary woman. So we are working together to set up this production company. I'm really excited about what that's gonna mean, both for me personally, but also what we would love to do with other disabled talent. We want to focus and center all of our work on progressing basically disabled talent. So we have got lots and lots of plans and we are in the throes of setting all that up. So there's that, that's kind of dominating. But I'm also, I've just been given this wonderful opportunity to, to write by Conde Nast Traveler. They've given me a column on accessible travel, and I tell you what, it is just the biggest. biggest privilege'cause I get to go and explore and write about accessible travel and, and, and highlight the good things that are happening out there. Highlight the wonderful changes that are being made all around the world. I mean, I've just got back from Safari on the first five star wheelchair accessible safari, which. By the way, you must check out. I mean, my God, I can't tell you. So Safari, and then I'm going to Chile next week. I've got, I've just, I'm gonna potentially be going on a cruise later in the year. I'm going to, I, I mean, I won't show off, but it's one of those things where you're like, there's so much great inclusive travel out there, and I'm getting to say to sample it and to signpost people to it and write about it. So I'm doing, I'm spending a lot of time on that, which is, it's, I'm really enjoying
Simon Minty:That is a dream gig. Sophie dream, I mean, that's a dream gig.
Sophie Morgan:Brilliant. It's my, it's my dream. It actually is. Yeah. So I feel very lucky on that respect. Yes, the campaign there's also a, a couple of other projects that are bubbling away. Rights on Flights is taking a lot of time up, but in a good way. And what else am I doing? Yeah. Riding my bike. And traveling a lot and then trying to sleep at some point.
Phil Friend:Okay. Yeah, that sort of, that puts it there, isn't it? Well, look we, we've got to end now. I'm sure you've given how busy you are, you are going to other things after this. So but can I say what a pleasure it's been. I, I really enjoyed talking to you. It's first time I've had a proper conversation with you, I think ever. So thank you so much and thank you for fitting in the time because it's really appreciated.
Simon Minty:Well, and you had a ridiculously early start, so thank you for staying awake and answering our questions so eloquently. We appreciate, it's been really lovely speaking with you, Sophie.
Sophie Morgan:I'm really grateful. It's, it's always a pleasure to speak to people like, like you, you guys. I love you both. I, I've, I only Phil you say we haven't had met, we haven't met had a conversation, but we have, and it lasted with me. I dunno where we were, but I always remember just, yeah. Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm really grateful to have the chat. I'm really grateful to talk to you and thank you for your amazing questions.
Phil Friend:Good luck. Good luck with what you're doing next. Thank you.
Simon Minty:And just to say with the production company, you're looking for disabled talent. I think you're looking at a couple of people right now. Be someone there.
Sophie Morgan:You know it, you know it. Honestly, once this is off the ground, I don't, you get me started.
Phil Friend:If you want someone with pipe and slippers, it's kind of always,
Sophie Morgan:I dunno. I think you might need to get outta the dog. I think we need to talk about the Harley Davidson. Oh yes. I mean, have you seen the Harley Davidson trikes? Have you seen
Phil Friend:Yeah, the oldest rocker in town. I'll be.
Sophie Morgan:We need to go on a ride the way we roll.
Phil Friend:Absolutely. Yes. Oh, there's a, there's a gig. We'll record the podcast on three trikes. Yeah, I've, this has gotta stop this conversation.
Simon Minty:Thank you so much. Take care of yourself, Sophie. Well done and all your brilliant work.
Sophie Morgan:Appreciate it. Appreciate it a lot. Thank you both.
Announcer:This is the Way We Roll. Presented by Simon Minty and Phil Friend. You can email us at mintyandfriend@gmail.com or just search for Minty and Friend on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, so.