Family is everything to me...

Five-time Paralympic gold medallist Ellie Simmonds on being with her parents for Christmas...and why she is determined to become a mum

- HANNAH BRITT

GROWING up in a close-knit family made swimming champ Ellie Simmonds feel she could do anything she wanted.

She won her first two Paralympic golds aged just 13 the second youngest British Paralympian to win a medal - and a year later got an MBE.

Ellie, who was born with achondroplasia (dwarfism), has won five Paralympic golds in total, competed in Strictly and fronted TV documentaries.

It was mum and dad Val and Steve, who adopted Ellie at three months old, who encouraged her to follow her swimming dreams, which led to the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games and those record-making medals.

But at Christmas it will be her dad winning the prizes for his fabulous festive spread. Ellie, 31, says: "I'll be happy just to spend this Christmas with my family.

"My dad, he is the cook of the house.

A couple of days ago we were sent the menus for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. He takes it very seriously. We just leave him to do it because it makes him happy." Val and Steve have fostered 70 kids and also adopted Ellie's sisters Katie and Pauline and brother Steve, plus her eldest sister Georgina, who sadly died in 2013, aged 45.

Being nurtured in such a loving household has made Ellie determined to have kids of her own something she addressed in the ITV documentary Should I Have Children? She says: "For me it is complicated. I would love children. But if I met someone who also has dwarfism, we would be in danger of something called a 'double dose' if I got pregnant.