Bedside Reading

These Heavy Black Bones

Bedside Reading Podcast Season 12 Episode 2

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0:00 | 32:20

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I'm really, really delighted today to be talking to Selina Flinders about an absolutely wonderful book, These Heavy Black Bones, by Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell.

This is a memoir written someone that some of you may have come across as a very high-level swimmer who swam originally for Kenya and then started to swim for Great Britain and crashed out of professional swimming just before the London 2012 Olympics.

This is a memoir. It has themes of growing up, of being different. There's racism. There are adverse childhood experiences. There is boarding school syndrome. There is safeguarding. There is "safeguarding in affluence". There is abuse masquerading in plain sight as concern and sports coaching. Oh my goodness, there was so much to talk about and I have absolutely loved talking to Selina today about it.