A Talk about Hope
when i was asked to do this talk
i thought what do i talk about what do i
want you
the audience to leave here with and
i landed on hor i want you to leave with
paul and it sounds a bit trite that but
hope’s important it’s
it’s part of our lives you know we we
hope that we will eat traffic on the way
home we hope that
our relatives will get better we hope
that our kids will grow up to be good
people
i hope that what balls this talk up um
and whenever we switch on our radio or
our tvs or we scroll through our socials
we’re bombarded with horror stories
we’re told there’s a
high probability that we’ll die if we
leave the house whether it’s by a
natural disaster a hate crime or worst
of all someone might
disagree with us on the internet um
and there’s no hope it’s all a bit
nihilistic you know what what message do
we want to send to our kids
to our young people um
see when we’re growing up we do we need
to be bombarded with negativity
we have enough to worry about don’t we
we worry about all sorts of things when
we’re growing up we worry about
some things that are tragic some things
that are trivial
some things that are quite profound you
know
i i used to worry about
what will i be when i grow up but i
wanted to be a wizard
um and funnily enough my son told me
that he wanted to be a dragon so
it’s nice to know that the the apple
doesn’t fall far from the tree
um what car will i drive people might
say ferrari or
a bentley but
i wanted to drive a ford scorpio and
because it sounded like scorpion and
scorpions are cool right i used to worry
about other things as well i used to
worry about
you know will i always be fat
will i always be ugly will i ever be any
good at rugby
will i ever fit in will i ever find my
place in the world
see as a kid i used to
i used to look like this um
a chubbier book too
much more ginger kid and i loved reading
i loved learning i loved fantasy stuff
you know dragons and magic and that made
me feel like a bit of a nerd
i loved history i loved generals and
kings and wars but
that made me feel like a bit of a geek i
liked boys too
and that made me feel like a freak a
weirdo
what was wrong with me was was everybody
thinking this and we weren’t talking
about it
or or was there something wrong with me
see i grew up in a town where
nobody was gay apparently gay people
were
like elton john and george michael
um and i was definitely not like them i
grew up in a
in a world where gay was a negative
don’t do that it’s gay being gay was
either a butt of a joke or it was a
cause for pity
and someone’s gayness was offensive
it wasn’t a badge of pride unfortunately
that world does still exist and i
grew up regularly hearing don’t be gay
so i tried my hardest not to be
tried to bury it tried to hide it ignore
it
um i blame my dad for it
see he was never around and i always
thought if he’d have been around then
maybe i wouldn’t have been gay
and then i started to think maybe he
knew that i was gay and that’s why he
left in the first place
i wanted so much to find a place to fit
in
and i did i found one by accident i was
playing out on the street one day and a
blue mini bus pulled off outside and a
guy wound the window down he said come
on get in
i thought this is the stranger my
mum’s been going on about
so i ran in the house and i said
she said all right it’s all right i
ended up getting in and
i went off it turned out it was a local
rugby coach and
he’d see me in the school playground for
he’s a big lad
and he’d surreptitiously recruited me
via my mum
so i went off to my first rugby session
i loved it the premise was catch the
ball
and run i couldn’t do either
um but i stuck with it and i got better
at it
and puberty was good to me you know
and he didn’t worry too much about being
fat and ugly because by the time i was
17
i was six foot four and i had a beard
that covered half of my face
now i’d like to tell you that at that
point i
came to terms with being gay i accepted
who i was i came out
and everything was fine
but that’s not what happened that’s not
what happened for a long time
see i was i was scared of letting people
down
i was scared of being a disappointment
there were no gay rugby players there
were no
i thought there were no gay people like
me
but wait a minute there’s no gay people
like me
so i can’t be gay goodbye worry hello
denial
over the years i’d be a bouncer a
builder
i worked as a poster i worked in a
factory
absolutely not gay and
i had a girlfriend at 19 and i was a dad
at 20.
i was in deep denial there
i thought that i wasn’t gay anymore or
if i was
it must be on its way out and
from the outside i had it all i had
a girlfriend family house promising
rugby career
but on the inside there was a constant
battle going on in my head
who i thought i was supposed to be
versus who i actually was
and as i got into a day-to-day routine i
became more trapped and scared
trapped in a life that i should be happy
with scared that a part of me
that i tried to bury down so deep would
be uncovered
and when the inside of your head is a
battlefield it’s only a matter of time
before it spills onto the outside
so i worked more i trained more i went
out more
i drank i did anything not to have to
spend time in my own head
i wasn’t a good father i wasn’t a good
boyfriend
i wasn’t a good person but what were my
options
tell people that i was gay i couldn’t
have made it to myself
so how could i tell another person talk
to someone about it
talk to someone about what i i didn’t
know what was going on i didn’t want to
know what was going on
i couldn’t live with it and i couldn’t
carry on as things were that’s for sure
so i was
i didn’t like myself i was really
self-loving
i didn’t like the person who who looked
back at look back at me in the mirror
so i came to the conclusion that i would
take my own life
people are better off about me people
wouldn’t have to put with my
i wouldn’t have to put in my
but i remember seeing my little girl and
she was so small and i was so big
and she needed me how could i leave her
i didn’t want her to feel like i felt
that dad didn’t love her
that something was her fault so
i buried my thoughts and my feelings and
i resounded to
be better now
i buried him so deep that i got married
and had another kid
and people probably ask you why would
you get married if you thought you might
be gay
and the only answer i can give to that
is i didn’t want to be gay
um i
a part of me that i willed it and hoped
and prayed that it would change but it’s
a part of me that can’t change
and it’s something that you know i’ll
always have to live with and that i
always be sorry for
by 24 we were married had two kids two
dogs
rebuilt a house from the inside out and
rugby were going pretty well too i’d
played in a couple of championship grand
finals
and i’ve become captain of my hometown
club which as you can see i was pretty
chuffed about
um and that’s not a bad achievement for
a fat kid who as one fan once eloquently
put it
couldn’t run through a saloon door
i met some amazing people friends for
life
and i also met some fantastically
ridiculous characters as well
rugby league is full of them
my head and my hands were full for a
while but as things settled down the
same old battle came back
who you think you should be versus who
you really
are ding ding round two
i didn’t do well the first time and i
did even worse the second time
i felt like there was a a huge hole in
my soul
and i tried to fill it i tried to fill
it with work with training
with booze with drugs it didn’t work
maybe this time i’d actually have the
balls to address it
to talk about it to think about it
and and again i thought about suicide
a long drive a secluded spot
a horse pipe
but then my family had never known
why i’d done what i’d done they’d think
it was their fault they’d think
that they could have done something
it was it was nobody’s fault
the only thing they’d done wrong was put
up with my
and i remember seeing my kids faces and
you know thinking how could i think
about leaving them
there’s no doubt in my mind that my kids
saved me from myself
i got into a nasty cycle of going out
getting into a state
beating myself up feeling guilty round
and round it went
and not saw merry-go-round of
depression and suicidal thoughts
eventually it came to a head and my
marriage came to an end and with that
came some time
some reflection some realization
and eventually acceptance now it was
hard to
think about it it was even harder to say
it out loud
the words would literally stick in my
throat i’m
but having it all sorted out in my own
head was
liberating and joyful and devastating
and terrifying
all at the same time and now that i knew
other people needed to know too and
the first person i told would be my wife
and that was the hardest conversation
i’ve ever had to have
next i’d tell my mum and
i wanted my mum to ask if i was okay
i wanted to ask how i was feeling ask
what she could do to help
i wanted to tell her that she loved me
to hug me to tell her she was proud of
me
but she didn’t she said he’s six foot
four how can he be gay
which sounds ridiculous now but you know
funnily enough for
the longest time i’d thought that myself
she told me she was disappointed and we
didn’t
speak for five years i was worried that
we’d never speak again
my sister was brilliant but i started to
fault her at this point
maybe i’d done the wrong wrong thing and
then a couple of rugby lads asked me
they said
some of these rumors about you being gay
true
i thought what do i do do i do i take it
all back do i
deny it do i crawl under a rock and
pretend it’s
a bad dream but i didn’t and i told them
and the reaction was not what i expected
my best friend cried and
as he wept and he hugged me he said i’m
sorry you’ve had to go through this on
your own
i’m sorry that i couldn’t be there to
help you but we can now
we all can and then i had to tell my
coach and
i was genuinely fretful about what was
going to happen about my future
but i needn’t be he said
keegan your rugby league player i’ll
they don’t matter to me if you’re gay
a few weeks later
it became front page news now
i used to worry about being a bad father
a bad example
a bad man but now i’m 100 times the
father 100 times the man that i ever was
before so when it came out
as front page news i got a phone call
from
sir elton john i remember the guy who i
said i was nothing like
and i never did get to become a wizard
but i did get to become friends who won
i remember how i used to worry about
being fat and ugly
well somehow i ended up on the front
cover of a magazine
and i even did a bit of modelling too
and and as a kid
i’m worried about being good at rugby
well
i went on to play the best rugby in my
career
signed for wakefield played super league
did a decent job as well
remember all worried about fitting in
well
i’ve shared my experience with hundreds
of people with schools charities
businesses
even set up my own business to help
people find their confidence and their
place in the world
i’ve even done a ted talk
and worrying about not speaking to my
mum again well
we’re speaking now we’ve laughed and
cried and apologized and
people can and do change and as i say to
my kids
everything is fixable
and you might remember that as a kid i
used to worry about
finding my place in the world well
me and the kids met andy and peter who
who taught us that family has nothing to
do with blood
and it’s everything to do with
unconditional love and we have it by the
boat lord
i learned that uh to love and to be
loved is to
is to feel the sun on both sides and if
it wasn’t for them i wouldn’t be the
man i am today standing in front of you
talking about this
i used to worry that i wasn’t a good man
i used to worry that i wasn’t a good
father
and i used to worry that i’d never be
proud of who i am
but i’m a rugby player i’m a father
i’m a friend i’m a gay man
and i’m proud of who and what i am
now i hope that me wittering honors
giving you some hope and you realize
that
no matter how dark things may seem
there’s always some light no matter how
stormy the skies may be
eventually it will blow over
the world is full of light and love and
happiness but
sometimes you have to go looking for it
sometimes it’s not where
we’re told it should be and sometimes we
have to wait for it
but it is there
if you’ve ever wondered who you are
know that whoever that is you are loved
even when you don’t feel it you are
loved whoever you are
wherever you are and if you have or
ever have felt like you don’t belong
know that there’s a place that you do it
might not be where you
expect it to be it might not be where
people tell you it should be
it might not be an actual place it might
be with friends you haven’t met yet
in a place you haven’t been yet it might
be a feeling you haven’t experienced yet
but it is out there and you will find it
you just got to have hope
you