'I knew finding my birth mum wouldn't be easy'

As she celebrates turning 30, Paralympic swimmer Ellie Simmonds reflects on the emotional journey she's had to finally get answers about why she was adopted at three months old

- HANNAH BRITT

Paralympian and Strictly star Ellie Simmonds has had a big couple of years, culminating with a 30th birthday trip to Japan with her family in November.

"I got to go in Covid time with the Paralympics but we didn't get to see anything. It was always the place I wanted to go to and explore. And to celebrate it for my 30th was even more wonderful."

In fact, it was after the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 when Ellie, who was adopted at three months old by parents Val and Steve Simmonds, retired and decided to track down her birth mother.

She let cameras follow her, resulting in the 2023 BAFTAwinning documentary Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family. "I knew it wasn't going to be an easy journey finding my birth mum," says Ellie. "I cried. But that's me, I'm an emotional woman, and it's OK to show that."

While Ellie grew up in a big happy home in Aldridge, West Midlands, the youngest of five children, all adopted, she admits to wanting to know more about her roots. "You have all these questions you've had for years and years and are finding out answers," she says.

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"There's my love of horses, my curly hair, my eye colour. Just wondering where all that came from. It's nice to have those answers and I know that's only nature. I've got the majority of my traits from my parents Val and Steve. The majority of it is nurture as well. I see myself in my parents a lot."

In the ITV documentary, Ellie learns how children with achondroplasia-her type of dwarfism - were viewed in the 1990s. In an emotional scene she reads a shocking leaflet which said some people equated people with dwarfism with "evil and stupidity" and how they "traditionally had been involved in the circus".

Ellie came to understand her birth mother's decision to give her up, as she had recently become a single parent.