Fatima Whitbread opens up on traumatic childhood and helping young people

Fatima, 62, said as a child she would not have believed she would become a javelin World Champion and Olympic medallist.

If given the chance, she said she would tell her younger self: “Don’t worry, I’ve got you, I’m going to look after you.”

And this is the message she wants to send to more than 100,000 children who are currently in the care system.

Her new Fatima’s UK Campaign aims to give a voice to the youngsters and bring together care workers from across the country, to “rebuild happier lives” and create “better communities and a nicer, kinder society”.

As families struggle with the cost of living the mission has more urgency than ever, with record numbers of youngster going into care.

Fatima said: “It’s scary – there’s 105,000 children in the care system as we speak.”

As a baby Fatima was abandoned in a north London flat until police, alerted to her crying, broke down the door to save her. She spent six months in hospital recovering from malnutrition and nappy rash.

She said: “Life for children in the care system can be very challenging.

“Most of the children, like myself, find themselves in the care system through no fault of their own. Usually they’re very traumatised.

“You have a lot of issues, because for a young child not to have a mummy can be really traumatising.”

But it was one “bright shining star” – a care worker known as “Aunty Ray” – who set her
on the path to wanting to help others.

Fatima once asked her to be her mother, but Aunty Ray told her: “‘Look, here’s the thing. I can’t be just your mummy. I have to be mummy to all these children. I can’t always be there where you are. So why don’t you be their mummy when I’m not there?’

“That taught me, you give and you receive.

“For many years children came into the children’s homes and I used to be like their guardian and their mum.

“For me it was very important to be a guardian to these children. It’s no different to me now. It also taught me to swivel the lens around so I wasn’t growing up as a victim – I was growing up as somebody the children needed and equally I needed them. It was very good having each other.”

Sport would also become her saviour, earning her “newfound respect from peers and teachers because I was good at something”. Fate intervened when sports coach Margaret Whitbread told her off for being too noisy with her netball team. When she decided to try out at javelin, she encountered Mrs Whitbread again.

The coach warned her: “Any of that cheek you showed on the netball court and you won’t be throwing any javelins!”

Fatima said: “So I put my hands together and said, ‘No, I promise I’ll behave’.”

And her dream of being part of a family came true when Margaret and husband John adopted her three years later. She said: “That was just amazing. I became a Whitbread and carried on training in javelin. My mum was my coach – both athlete and coach, mum and daughter. And we conquered the world, there wasn’t a championship we never did. World record holder, world champion, Olympic medallist, European.

“If I look back now and said to young Fatima that you’ll end up being a world champion, she’d have never believed it.

“When I take the hand of a young Fatima today, and I say this genuinely – most of us may have left the care system but the care system never leaves you. I still have to deal with it so I can navigate my traumas and learn still, but I will take young Fatima’s hand and say to her, ‘Don’t worry I’ve got you. I’m going to look after you’.”

And Fatima’s UK Campaign aims to do that for children in care now. She explained: “We all know growth comes from grassroots – success never comes from top down.

“I’ve got to be honest, the 60 years since I was in the care system, the same governments have been coming and a going, but not a lot has changed with the policies of the care system.” And she uses her platform as a former athlete to try and “have more understanding of what these children are going through.

“Children are our future. I mean, children in the UK have huge challenges and we should really be celebrating their resilience for what they go through in the care system, it’s tough out there.

“The learning, the self-growth, the experiences, being able to share that with future generations now is wonderful.

“Kids need a dream, hope that there’s nothing they can’t achieve.”

Fatima, who has appeared on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! and SAS Who Dares Win, said she would consider taking part in Strictly Come Dancing although she’s not the “world’s most rhythmic person”. She said: “As you get older you really have to have quite good background in dancing, because it’s fast and furious, the training is quite relentless.

“Yes, they throw you around a lot. It’s no good if you’re feeling dizzy, disoriented or discombobulated, which I do sometimes.“

˜ To support Fatima’s charity visit fatimascampaign.com