Racing driver who lost both legs at 17 'proves parents wrong' with epic task
Three weeks before his 18th birthday, Billy Monger’s life hung in the balance. The talented racing driver had smashed into a rival’s car during a race, and doctors had to put him in a coma.
When he woke up three days later, Billy’s legs had been amputated and life would never be the same. “It wasn’t plain sailing, learning how to walk again, learning how to be independent,” he says in the new series of Celebrity Race Across The World. Billy, now 24 appears with younger sister Bonny as they battle three other celebrity couples to make their way between Marrakesh in Morocco and Tromsø, in the far north of Norway.
Remarkably, Billy didn’t just learn how to walk again – he even returned to racing, driving a specially adapted car that he could control by hand. But accelerating around a race track wasn’t quite enough of a challenge, so Billy and Bonny, 22, signed up for the ultimate endurance test.
They are joined by McFly drummer Harry Judd and his mum Emma, All Saints singer Mel Blatt and her mum Helene, and Good Morning Britain weatherman Alex Beresford and his dad Noel. From the very beginning of the six-part series, viewers will see Billy and Bonny’s warm sibling relationship blossom, despite a few minor bickers.
Billy with specially-adapted car (Gary Hawkins/REX/Shutterstock)With just 14 months between them, the pair share friendship groups and regularly have nights out together – but travelling on a tight budget for 30 days without their phones was going to be a whole other challenge. Their parents didn’t think they’d make it to the end. “I think we’ve proved them wrong,” laughs Billy from his home in Surrey. “I hope they’ll be pleasantly surprised by what we were able to do.”
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Billy, who uses high-tech prosthetic legs to get around, was struck by the lack of infrastructure for disabled people in some of the countries they visited. On their very first day in Morocco, he was unable to do the same job as his sister when they secured a day’s work at a tannery.
While Bonny climbed into the huge wooden tubs filled with a mixture of pigeon droppings and ammonia, used to dye the animals skins, Billy had to be given a different role. “I ended up carrying a lot of dried goat skins around the place for a little bit,” he recalls. “There were a lot of cobbles, I was trying to make sure I didn’t stack it in front of everyone on day one of the trip.
“I think considering what Bon had to do, I feel like I got away with it.” As Bonny recalls, the trip didn’t get off to the best start. “The night before, we’d left Marrakesh by bus and got a flat tire,” she remembers. “We were broken down for a good two hours. Then we arrived at the tannery, the delirium was kicking in and the smell… I can’t explain how bad the smell was. And it was so hot, the heat made it 10 times worse.”
Billy and Bonny on the show (Studio Lambert Ltd)“It was the worst smell I’ve ever experienced in my life,” agrees Billy. “It was a mixture of poo and just lots of unpleasant things. The only thing that made it bearable was shoving mint up your nose.” Billy was keen not to complain – something which is normal for him since his crash in a Formula 4 race at Donington Park, Leicestershire, in April 2017.
He says: “It’s just how I’m wired, I don’t like to feel like a burden. I like to be able to feel I can do stuff by myself. That’s wired into me from the age I had my accident, you’re at an age where you want independence. So I’ve always chased independence and I make sure that I’m not relying on other people.”
The 30-day challenge was particularly tough on Billy’s stumps. “You have to know your body,” he explains. “Over the six years I’ve been a double amputee, I know when I need to ease it back for like a day or two, but that was the one thing we didn’t have on this trip.” Another issue the pair had to deal with was feeding themselves on the move. “I ate a camel burger, it wasn’t nice,” says Billy, grimacing.
“I thought I was being really cultural. And it was a burger, how bad could it be? It made me feel pretty rough.” Bonny, meanwhile, played it safe. “I get very hangry and if I’d paid for something that was a bit weird I would have lost it, so I kept it safe with Oreos and Pringles,” she laughs.
Billy getting used to his prosthetics (Internet Unknown)So having proved they’re both capable of travelling around the world to their mum and dad, would the siblings ever go away together again? “We’ve not been away together on holiday since being back, I think we’re both a bit scarred!” grins Billy. His sister agrees. “I went to the south of France a couple of weeks ago, and I saw these buses that we used to get on,” she says. “I sent Billy a picture and I was like, ‘I’ve tried to come on holiday and it’s following me around.’”
* Celebrity Race Across the World starts Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One.
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