I’m eating an apple and waiting for Gee Atherton to turn up. My laptop pings and GeeMan’s face blinks into life in front of me, five minutes earlier than our scheduled Google Meet. “Sorry, I’m still eating lunch,” I splutter. “No worries, I’ve just had physio, a crumpet and a cup of tea.”
He’s just back from a session at the gym with his long-time strength coach Alan Millway, so I’m guessing he’s had more than a couple of fluffy cakes to keep him going. Gee’s keen to dive straight in and talk about the crash three years ago that almost killed him, though. He rattles off the injuries like most people talk about their shopping. Pints of blood lost, five ribs snapped, two punctured lungs, one broken femur and one compound wrist fracture. “Oh and I fractured my eye socket and blew my face apart,” he says with a grin.
I grin too, and it seems fine today with Gee sitting in his kitchen in Wales, sun coming in the window and dazzling the screen, me tapping away from my bedroom in Sussex. It really wasn’t at the time though? I ask Gee.
“I’m painting it in this light now just because it’s my way of dealing with it. But at the time… yeah it was bad. Worse than I probably realised at the time. I only just survived it really. But you go into these projects, and you know the risks. There’s so much exposure, there’s so much risk when you’re balanced on these edges. There isn’t any
