Dr Ranj Singh: ‘I would tell my younger self, you don’t have to fit into a box of any sort’

Dr Ranj Singh was born in Medway, Kent, in June 1979. He trained in medicine and worked as a specialist in paediatric emergency medicine. In 2012, he started presenting the CBeebies show Get Well Soon, kicking off a TV career which has also seen him appear on Good Morning Britain, Strictly Come Dancing, This Morning and The Great British Sewing Bee. He has since appeared in the stage shows Scrubs & Sparkles and & Juliet.

In his Letter to My Younger Self, Singh recalls his childhood dream of going into medicine, the moment he came out and his time on Strictly

I was raised in quite a traditional Indian family. That had its challenges. My parents’ attitudes towards growing up were very different to my own, especially in a very different environment. They grew up in India, so their focus was always on doing well at school and achievement. I probably wanted to be a bit more creative. But getting into university was their focus. And I think it became mine, because I kind of just thought, Well, no point fighting back. It’ll be easier just to get on with it and please everyone around me. I was quite strait-laced. I was very quiet, very shy. I wouldn’t say boo to a goose, didn’t really want to stand out – the adult Ranj is quite the opposite.

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I knew I wanted to be a doctor around 10 or 11. I always loved science. I had a really strong love of art as well, but that came out in later life. I loved working out how things ticked. I know I wanted to do something that helped people. So medicine seemed like the logical choice. 

The younger Ranj and I could bond talking about the pressure of school and making friends, worries about exams. And deep down, looking back on it, there was probably a part of me that just wanted to talk about being free of all of that, and wanted to do stuff outside that. I just had this huge thing hanging over me the whole time. There was a part of me that wanted to rebel, that wanted to break out, that wanted to be free of all of that and just have fun and be creative. I think I wanted someone to ask me, ‘Are you happy? How are you? What is it that you want? What is it that you need?’.

I would tell my younger self, you don’t have to be just one version of yourself. You don’t have to fit into a box of any sort. Things might be tough now, and you might feel very tunnel-visioned right now, but actually life will explode in front of you later, and you’ll have so many other things that you can explore. You can work within the rules to get what you want, you don’t have to put what you want and need on the back burner. You don’t have to please everybody else. Take every opportunity that comes along, give it your best shot, dream big and work hard. 

Read more:

• Dr Ranj Singh: ‘If you want to be 100 per cent happy, just be yourself’
• Johannes Radebe: ‘As long as my body will allow, I will do Strictly. That’s my sparkly, magical world’
• Karen Carney: ‘I never thought I’d be on Strictly. I don’t want the year to end’

Actually being gay was never something my younger self thought about. At 16 it wasn’t really on my radar, that you’d be able to live authentically and happily as a very different kind of person to who you thought you were going to be. Knowing that would give my younger self a sense of hope.

I finally came out to a friend of mine in later life, when I was around 30. I was married, and obviously that relationship broke down, and then it was dealing with everybody else, friends and family. It happened when I’d got to where I thought I was supposed to be. I had the career I’d always wanted, I always wanted a home of my own. I’d ticked all my boxes. So the big question was, why am I still not 100% happy? Why does it still feel like something’s not right? And that’s when therapy brought all of that stuff out. Therapy made me think, hang on, you’ve got to be honest with yourself now, and you’ve got to think about what it is that you want. And that’s when I thought, I’m not the person I thought I should be, or I thought I was going to be. This perfect life that you’ve imagined and hoped for, and dreamt of and worked towards, isn’t your perfect life.

I did feel scared when I realised I was gay. I describe it as everything fracturing and then falling apart, and me not knowing how to make head or tail of it, and then gradually building myself up again. Everything that I’d imagined equated to happiness was not my happiness, it was everybody else’s. And so everything fell apart. You kind of think, who am I? That was terrifying.

I think getting a break on TV was that creative part of me trying to get out. I was a full-time junior doctor, and I just needed a creative outlet. I saw in an advert that the BBC were looking for a young people’s doctor to help out with some of their ideas. I jumped and thought, you know what? This looks interesting. This looks like something different. I can use my day job to do something a bit more creative. So I took a chance. Why not gamble on a dream? And it just grew from there. I quickly learned that actually it was something that I liked doing, something that I was good at doing. 

I’d been throwing my hat in the ring to do Strictly for several years. It happened very last minute. I was probably the last person to be booked that year. I didn’t think I was going to get it. I had all these meetings, and I had an audition. I was like, this isn’t going to happen. Put it to the back of my mind. And then when it actually came through, I was just absolutely over the moon. I was on a train to Liverpool, and I couldn’t quite believe it, and you’re not allowed to tell anyone. It was a dream come true. I just love the show. It’s an amazing show. Learning how to dance for fun, I enjoyed it so much.

Being on This Morning was a fantastic thing for me. It was one of those shows I had wanted to do for a very long time, and getting on there, being part of it, was to this day, one of the best things I’ve ever done. I loved my time in there. It’s just that, as time went on and the show evolved, and the people who were in charge changed, and the team changed, the feeling behind the scenes changed, and it didn’t sit right with me any more. Increasingly, I didn’t like the way things were being done. I didn’t agree with certain people’s management styles. I spoke up and I said, I don’t think this is good for people. I still look back on that and think, did I do the right thing? Because I’m not on This Morning any more. You always question, should I just shut up? But it’s a question of, do you maintain your integrity? You can’t be gutted about it, and you can’t regret it. I, to this day, maintain that I did the right thing by speaking up.

I have been in the tabloids before, and that’s quite hard to process sometimes. I’ve always lived my life trying to do right by others. And you know, my job is all about helping other people and making things better. So when people write things about you without knowing you, and make assumptions and say things that aren’t pleasant, I think you can’t help but take it personally. But I’ve learned that actually, there’s not much you can do about that. I have found it difficult in the past, but now I’m learning to kind of let it be. 

I’ve learned that people criticise because they need to have something to attack. Hate sells unfortunately, and increasingly so. Positive stories don’t necessarily get the same traction that negative ones do, which is really sad. I mean, tabloids exist because of it. Social media platforms exist because of it. And I think I’ve just learned that it is an inevitable part of the world at the moment, but I can choose whether I want to be a part of it. 

If I could relive a part of my life I’d do Strictly again. Just knowing what I know, I would enjoy it a lot more. I’d jump at the opportunity of doing that again. I was so stressed, so nervous and so focused on getting things perfect and I forgot to enjoy it. And had I just enjoyed it and gone with the flow and had fun I’d have had a better time.

Dr Ranj’s Human Body Encyclopedia, illustrated by Bea Barros, is out on 4 June (Dorling Kindersley, £20). You can order it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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