There was never really any doubt about what George Webster was going to end up doing – in his mind, anyway; others might have been less sure. “I remember I used to love performing as a kid,” he says. “I dreamed of doing lots of things, like acting, being on TV, films, stage. It was watching things on TV that inspired me.”
“You’ve always liked dressing up and entertaining people,” chips in his mum, Jane. “If there was nobody to entertain, you’d entertain yourself in the mirror.”
Turns out, dreams sometimes do come true after all. As you’ll know if you’ve got young children: George is a regular – as well as Bafta-winning – presenter on CBeebies; he has had acting parts, on stage and screen; at the end of last year he was a contestant on the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special, alongside pro dancer Amy Dowden. “Amy’s lovely,” says George, as he does of lots of people. “We’re good friends now.” He has written a book, too – and he’s only 22.
We are sitting round the kitchen table in the family house in the village of Rawdon on the edge of Leeds. George’s dad, Rob, is hovering, in and out. Rachel, a publicist from the publisher, is here too: we’ve got the first copy of the book, hot off the press, and George is talking me through it. It’s a children’s picture book: an autobiography called This Is Me. So, this is George, at home with his parents and sister Lauren. “I have an extra ingredient, a sparkling of magic inside,” he reads. “Some people, they say that I’m special, but that’s not what I think … You see, we’re made of different ingredients that help us shine like a star. My glow is what makes me who I am, and yours will make you who you are.”
In the ensuing pages he is doing stuff with his family and his mates: having a good time, finding some things hard, being really good at other things. “There’s a glow inside each one of us.”
Sounds like there’s a message going on here. “Quite a few messages,” George says. “Everyone has their own talents, uniqueness, strengths and weaknesses. We can all dream big, no matter who we are.”
George has Down’s syndrome. When he was younger, he struggled to make his words clear (he – and his family – learned Makaton, a simplified communication tool that uses speech, symbols and signs). He had some difficulties with fine motor skills. Still does: he can do up buttons now but still finds laces tricky. If you saw his brilliant and joyous Charleston on Strictly, you’d be amazed that he couldn’t tie the laces of the sparkly golden dancing shoes he was wearing; but, as he says, strengths and weaknesses.
There is some disagreement in the house about whether George’s singing is a strength or a weakness. “They say my singing is really bad,” he says.
“If I’m in the bath after a long run, he has this knack of getting the karaoke machine out in the next room,” says Jane, before adding: “We’ve all learned that you haven’t got to be best at something if you enjoy it.”
I’m getting the message: more of a dancer. Actually, he wasn’t entirely happy with his performance on Strictly. “I got all the moves, but I didn’t always get the speed right, and the timing.” He wasn’t nervous. George doesn’t really do nervous – except once, on a dormant volcano on Tenerife, when he thought it might erupt.
“When I was a kid, there was no one on TV, in films, even in books, with Down’s syndrome,” George says. “At that time, they thought people like me shouldn’t go to mainstream school.”
It was worse when his parents were kids. Jane had a cousin with Down’s syndrome who didn’t have the right to any education. “He used to go to a day centre with old people until his dad said, ‘I’m not having that,’ and started taking him to work with him at the docks.”
Rob didn’t even see people with Down’s syndrome when he was younger, “at school, in the community, in the media. Kids are growing up now seeing George at school and on the telly and it’s totally normal; they’re getting a completely different outlook.”
George went to mainstream school: “Loved it, it was really fun.” But it wasn’t always easy. Jane says they had to fight against preconceptions, and to get the right support. “I decided not to be shy. I had to be quite tough – it didn’t come naturally. Having a kid with special needs at school: it’s all the admin and the meetings that’s exhausting – not the child.”
And George did experience some bullying. He tells me about being picked on and called names on a couple of occasions, and a time when he was in the toilet and “one lad threw one of those signs that say ‘slippery floor’ over the door and it hit me.” Why was he picking on you? “I don’t know – because of my appearance.”
The book is about explaining and celebrating uniqueness, being proud of who we are. “A lot of people are scared, they don’t need to be, I want them to understand,” says George. And it’s about the importance of inclusion and representation.
He talks about “seeing me for me” and not liking it when “people make assumptions about what I can and can’t do,” and that’s a path his parents have followed, too. As Rob says: “We’ve always said at school: don’t let him off work because you think he’s got a disability. He can probably do it – it might take a bit longer, he might approach it differently – but don’t give him a break, don’t let him play that card.”
Has he ever played that card? “I have done!” George laughs. “In one lesson, I wasn’t writing and the teacher asked why and I said people with Down’s syndrome find it hard to write.” George’s writing is fine.
Then there are the times he says “I do have Down’s syndrome, you know” as an excuse. Jane remembers a long family walk in the Lake District a few years ago. “And he would say, ‘I’m really tired, I’ve got D …’ Don’t even say it, George! I’ve got asthma and I’m walking.”
I don’t want this to sound too gooey, but there’s a lovely vibe in the Webster household. George is very grateful, too, and generous about his parents, even when I offer an opportunity for a moan. “No, they’ve been more than good – they’ve been amazing.”
Now, I’m worrying about the seeing-me-for-me thing, that we’re talking mainly about Down’s syndrome, which may be a part of who George is but it certainly doesn’t define him. “I don’t mind – I’m happy to talk about anything,” he says. But we need to get on to the glow, the fledgling but already glittering career.
It all began at parkrun, the Saturday-morning fitness event. George was volunteering at his local one. A Sky TV crew were there filming; they met him and asked if they could make a film about him for a series about inspirational people, following him round for a day. “Mencap saw that and thought I could be a great ambassador.” Now he is a great ambassador for the charity.
Somebody at Mencap knew someone who was making a short film called S.A.M. that challenged perceptions about disability. Challenging perceptions – those are pretty much George’s middle names. He got one of the leads, alongside Sam Retford from Ackley Bridge. “From that I got an agent, Alex. I had a chat with her – she’s lovely. And she’s got an assistant called Georgia – she’s lovely as well.”
He did a video for BBC Bitesize called Busting Myths, about Down’s syndrome. “It went viral on social media.” CBeebies got in touch and asked if he’d be interested in presenting. “So I went to Salford and did an interview with one of the presenters called Rebecca – she’s lovely. It was a really fun day.” When they called to say he got the job, “I was actually screaming down the phone.” Now he’s a regular presenter.
And he got a small part, playing a telegram boy, in The Railway Children Return, with Sheridan Smith. The nice thing about that one was that it wasn’t a part for someone with a disability; it was just a part. “I went to the premiere and I was talking to the director, Morgan. He was saying he’ll get in touch with my agent – he would be interested to work with me again.”
George seems to be very on top of the networking side of things; who else’s number has he got? “I’ve got loads!” he laughs. He tells me about one time when he was at Media City in Salford with his dad, and this tall guy was coming down the stairs. “He came up to me and said, ‘Hi George, I really love your work.’ Guess who it was? Freddie Flintoff!”
One of the myths that George busted in that original video is that people with Down’s syndrome are always happy. “We’re not. Everyone has a range of emotions and so do we – it’s very important to show that. Like sometimes I have my moments.” Cue parental nodding.
I wonder if they – George’s parents – find themselves being overprotective? “I have to stop myself all the time,” admits Jane. George says he’d like to maybe think about moving out one day, “in a few years”. Jane says she realises how much she does to support him and he may not necessarily realise that it’s all happening. He goes out with his friends, to pubs and gigs, but relies on them for transport: he doesn’t drive – he hasn’t had any lessons. “I have slow reaction time. I might stop too late.”
Any other ambitions, personal rather than professional? “To have a wife, and a girlfriend.”
“Both?!” says Jane, a little alarmed.
“Not at the same time!” George clarifies.
I ask him an ignorant question: whether he would like to have children. “I would, but people with Down’s syndrome find it hard to have kids,” he says. I should have known about Down’s syndrome and fertility, but his answer is factual and honest, not just unoffended but demonstrating the sensitivity I didn’t, as if it’s designed to cause me the least embarrassment. Still, I can’t help feeling bad and sad about it.
There are plenty of professional goals and ambitions. Strictly – a series rather than just a one-off special, if any Strictly producers are reading … “They know!” he says. Of course they do. He’d like a part in Doctor Who, Death in Paradise, Corrie or EastEnders, and maybe a horror film or a Marvel blockbuster. It sounds as if George is planning to sort out representation single-handedly. “It is getting better, but there’s still a lot that could be improved,” he says. His friend Tommy Jessop was the first person with Down’s syndrome to star in a prime time BBC drama, Mark Haddon’s Coming Down the Mountain, in 2007, and he has recently appeared in Line of Duty. The leads of The A Word spin-off Ralph & Katie, Sarah Gordy and Leon Harrop, both have Down’s syndrome. We see them living independently, and that’s what George would like to see more of – not just parts but good parts, so they’re not portrayed as victims or people to feel sorry for. “Why can’t we be the hero? Or the villain – that would be cool.” If any casting directors for Doctor Who, or Marvel movies, are reading …
A message from the next generation, via Rachel, the publicist: her four-year-old son has Down’s syndrome. “Ethan knows George from the television. It’s absolutely amazing for him to have a role model like that.”
While Chris, the photographer, is setting up, George takes me to the basement to see his “man cave”. It’s very tidy for a man cave: shelves of DVDs all arranged according to genre – action, sci-fi, TV, a big section for horror (The Conjuring is his favourite). There’s a familiar face in the corner, a bronze theatrical mask. “Pick it up,” says George. Wow, that’s heavy. George won the Bafta for best presenter at the Bafta children and young people awards last year, for his work on CBeebies. I bet he wasn’t nervous going up there to collect it? “No, I ran up the ramp, and remembered to thank all the right people.”
And this must be the karaoke machine. Would I like to hear a song? Go for it. He’ll do I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys, he says, and he’s off. “Yeah, you are my fire, the one desire, believe when I say, I want it that way …”
Ouch! And I’m suddenly having quite a lot of sympathy for his mum, in the bath after a long run. Now he’s the villain. George Webster: inspiration, ambassador, actor, pioneer, role model, myth-buster, Bafta winner, best presenter, top dancer, top bloke, all-round legend … and a song murderer. Still, like he says: “Everyone has their own talents, uniqueness, strengths and weaknesses.”
• This Is Me by George Webster, developed in partnership with Claire Taylor and illustrated by Tim Budgen, is published by Scholastic.
• Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
