Jessica Ennis-Hill on Who Do You Think You Are?: "I didn't imagine I'd find it so upsetting"

"I'm the kind of person who only cries behind closed doors," the former golden girl of British athletics says. "When I was competing, I was a poker face. I wouldn’t give too much away." But sure enough, she did break down in front of the cameras. And not surprisingly, given what she discovered about her family.

We meet at a London studio for Ennis-Hill’s RT photoshoot. The 38-year-old mother of two is posing in a dazzling red suit and looks as athletic as she did when winning the heptathlon gold medal at the 2012 Olympics.

Ennis-Hill, who also won three world championships, has a naturally sunny disposition, but even she has been challenged by the traumatic discoveries. "I didn't imagine I'd find it so upsetting,” she says.

Even as one of the toughest and most inspirational athletes in British history (the heptathlon consists of seven events over two days: 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m, long jump, javelin and 800m), she admits she was terrified of taking part in the genealogy series, which is now celebrating its 20th anniversary.

"They don’t tell you what you’re about to embark on and what they’ve found. What if they find something awful, like there’s a serial killer in the family? Because they go so far back I was nervous about what they could uncover. I spoke to my mum and she said even if they find something really bad, it’s not you." She pauses. "But at the same time, it’s your bloodline isn’t it?"

She had considered taking part in the show in previous seasons, but her anxiety got the better of her. So, what changed? "The kids are that little bit older. My son turned 10 a couple of days ago and my daughter’s six, so it felt like a good time to do it. They’re at an age when they’re taking so much on board and they want to know about their family."

Ennis-Hill was raised in Sheffield by her white British mother Alison, a social worker, and her black Jamaican father Vinnie, a painter and decorator, who moved to the UK aged 13. There is one question that has always fascinated her and that she hoped to answer from delving deep into her family history: where does her strength and athletics prowess come from?

Her parents always said it was thanks to eating liquidised tripe – a Jamaican speciality –as a toddler. "My dad definitely thinks that’s why I’m so strong and why I’ve been a great athlete," she says. But Ennis-Hill believed the secret to her success probably lay more in her ancestry, so she searched for other successful athletes down the Jamaican bloodline.

Did she find any sporting greats in her family tree? She smiles. "No, there were no athletes or sportspeople." But she did discover – on what was her first visit to Jamaica – an even more dramatic display of strength.

In her episode, local historians trace her history back to her great-great-great-great-grandfather George Thomas White, who was enslaved on a sugar plantation. When she is taken to see the plantation, she is clearly spooked by what she finds. "It was a very eerie feeling because it looked so beautiful, the house and the immaculate gardens, but then there’s this awful feeling of history there."

They discover that White, who was born into slavery in 1795 and spent years enslaved as a cooper making barrels for rum, ended up buying part of the land he had been enslaved on.

At the formal end of slavery, the British government introduced an "apprenticeship" system whereby the enslaved still had to work 40.5 hours a week free for their owners, but could earn a token wage as "hired hands" for any hours beyond that. White refused extra work on the plantation but managed to make money independently, eventually buying the land off his slaver for £160. Ennis-Hill left Jamaica feeling proud of White’s resilience.

For the programme, she travelled to Jamaica with her dad Vinnie, who had not returned since leaving as a teenager. "I had wondered why he didn’t go back. But you don’t want to ask too many questions," she says.

Over the years, Vinnie had become more open about how difficult it had been to leave Jamaica and settle in Britain – he moved from a country he adored to one where he experienced racism and was made to feel like an outsider. What’s more, the move resulted in a painful family separation.

"It was quite a traumatic experience for Dad moving to England. His parents came first and he was left behind with his brother, then he followed. Soon after his parents moved to America without him. Rather than return to Jamaica, he lived with his grandparents over here, so that was why he felt a disconnect and was anxious about going back."

Was returning cathartic for him? "Yes, 100 per cent," she says. "He said it was the best experience. We flew out on his birthday and he’d found out that he had prostate cancer not long before we went. He had all these things going on, so for him it came at just the right time. Throughout, he was going, 'Wow Jess! This is amazing!'" Her face lights up at the memory.

Her mother’s side presented another century-old mystery. Ennis-Hill and the family had always been told that her great-great-grandmother Maud had packed a suitcase and left in 1919, with no explanation, abandoning her young children with a kiss, never to see them again. But on the show, she discovers that Maud had in fact been committed in psychiatric hospitals until she died. No one knew of her fate.

During the early days of her hospitalisation, her daughter died at the age of 11, but Maud was never told. It’s a heartbreaking story on many levels and with many victims, including Jess’s great-grandfather, who never talked about his mother. Maud was never able to meet her grandchildren or great-grandchildren, and Ennis-Hill finds it devastating just to think about it.

"It made me think, 'What if I was whisked off to an asylum and I never saw my kids again and my young daughter died while I was in there, and nobody told me.' I couldn’t imagine that."

She was left wondering whether Maud was institutionalised simply because she was ill or because she was an independent-minded, unconventional woman. It was revealed that she had in fact taken her husband to court, alleging domestic abuse, but she withdrew the case.

"Some of her behaviour as a woman was just not acceptable to society," she says. "Women were judged and expected to behave in a certain way and she didn’t conform to that. So, part of me thought, has she ended up in this asylum because she’s just gone against the grain?"

However, treatment notes say she had violent tendencies, and back in Maud’s day, mental health was taboo. It appears to have been less shameful for her husband to tell their children that she’d walked out on the family than admitting she was in an asylum. By contrast, Ennis-Hill, who studied psychology at the University of Sheffield, has always realised the importance of talking openly about mental health.

Throughout her career she got tremendous support from her family, coaches, physios and her therapist. Even so, she says she still suffered with anxiety. It’s almost impossible not to in such a stressful environment. "I’d always feel anxious and nervous as an athlete because of the unpredictability. I just wanted a crystal ball and someone to say, 'This is going to happen and it’s going to work out OK.'"

Today, she says her anxiety is reserved for her children’s welfare. "I think that takes you into a whole other stressful moment. I lie in bed and think about when they’re teenagers and what they’re going to be doing, and you just start spiralling."

But your kids are only 10 and six, I say. "Yeah!" She laughs, embarrassed. Isn’t the worry a bit premature? "I know. That’s what my husband says. He’s like, 'Why. Are. You. Even. Thinking. About. That?' I think most mums do. They think about every little thing."

On the whole, would she say she’s mentally healthy? "Yes, definitely. Very happy, very content, and I feel very lucky to have had the career I’ve had and come out of it pretty unscathed."

But she is less upbeat about the nation’s youngsters. "Mental health among children is worse than it’s ever been. We’re still seeing the knock-on effects of Covid," she says, citing children refusing to go to school and the influence of social media.

"My son wants a phone. And I’m like, no, not yet, because their brains aren’t developed enough. They’re addictive so you can’t help picking your phone up every two seconds and checking what’s happening. He’s not having one just yet. Definitely not until he’s at senior school, and then I don’t know if it would be a smartphone."

When we meet, Ennis-Hill is just about to head out to Paris as part of the BBC’s Olympics commentary team. Does 2012 feel a long time ago? "Well, it does and it doesn’t. It feels like a couple of years ago. It’s still really fresh in my mind, but a lot has happened in 12 years. My life has changed in an amazing way."

For one thing, she says, it’s not all about her now. "Every day for me in 2012 and those few years after was all about this regimented structure of becoming the best for me. It was me, me, me."

Do you look back and think you were selfish? "Yeah, I was selfish. But you have to be selfish. You’re not going to be the best in the world if you’re not selfish. It has to be about your performance, whereas now it’s absolutely not. My priorities are the kids and how everything works around them."

In Who Do You Think You Are?, Jess comes across as exceptionally nice, self-aware and smart. When she finds out about her great- great-grandmother and her fourth-time great-grandfather, she sees a commonality in their lives that makes her aware of how lucky she is.

"Both of my ancestors were stripped of their identity," she says. "It was so hard to find names for my fourth-time great-grandfather. He was just a number; just enslaved. And then as soon as Maud was put into a hospital, she was referred to by a number as well. There was no description of her as a person, it was just a patient number."

But in discovering how society tried to erase her ancestors, she also learnt about their resilience. Despite what Maud went through, she was strong enough to survive an asylum for 50 years, and her son Jack (Jess’s beloved great-grandfather) was strong enough to build a good life for himself despite his troubled start.

As for her fourth-time great-grandfather, she’s in awe of the mental reserves that he must have had to survive slavery. "The trauma of that could have a lasting negative effect on your family for so many years. But he used it and turned it around, and bought lots of land, including some of the land he was enslaved on, and made a great future for himself. So it’s a really inspiring story."

She might not have found elite athletes among her ancestors, but she does believe she’s uncovered the source of her strength. "That resilience and focus has got to be passed down in some way through the lines, whether that’s the way he brought up his kids and how they brought up their kids. And on and on and on it goes."

Who Do You Think You Are? airs on BBC One and iPlayer.

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