‘After Race Across The World I quit my job for a new life’

Tom and his mum Caroline, went on the trip of a lifetime together (Picture: BBC/Studio Lambert/Gary Moyes)

After zooming around China and India, Race Across The World contestant Tom Bridge has returned to the UK and started a new life for himself. 

Tom, 21, and his mum Caroline, 60, applied for the spectacular race after watching the second series when six teams travelled the entire length of Latin America. 

Tom had done some travelling with friends, but his mum never had the opportunity. 

Never in a million years did they expect to embark on an adventure together quite like this, competing against five other pairs to travel 14,000 miles from the Great Wall of China to Kanyakumari on the southern tip of India without a phone or credit cards – just the cost of a one-way plane ticket in cash. 

Few contestants return from the experience the same person they were when they left, but Tom has revealed he was inspired to quit his job as a labourer and start his own company after leaving school without GCSEs. 

He tells Metro: ‘I was a labourer for two or three years, on and off, and it was a good job, but I was never really pushing myself. 

‘I never really stepped out my comfort zone, I was happy lifting heavy things and just doing repetitive stuff because it paid me and it was good but since I’ve come back, I’ve branched out, and I’m trying to start my own little handyman business helping people around the village.

‘It’s really scary, I’ve already messed up a couple of times, but then I found a way around it and I fixed it. It’s just pushing me a bit more.’

More than anything, though, Tom’s let go of his fear of failure. 

‘I want to learn from failure now rather than letting it get to me too much,’ he says. ‘I was always a bit scared of trying something new in case I’d mess it up or just in case it didn’t go my way. I think a lot of time on Race it didn’t go our way, but then we learned from it, or we found another way around it.’

Ahead of the race, Caroline said she wanted to prove that she’s more than just a ‘mum’.

The pair faced their share of trials and tribulations on the 14,000-mile-long journey (Picture: BBC/Studio Lambert)

‘I feel a lot more confident now,’ she said. ‘I feel as though I am more capable and I have a lot more self-confidence. 

‘I feel if I want to go on an adventure now, then I can; before I would have been too worried and felt that I perhaps didn’t deserve it or wouldn’t know how.’ 

Caroline and Tom had the rockiest start of the five couples in this series. In China, they just couldn’t get to grips with the race. They felt defeated as soon as the experience began and had an abundance of bad luck. But everything changed the moment they landed in Nepal, a clear turning point for them both. 

‘India just made me feel alive and so much more relaxed,’ said Caroline. ‘It’s just such a liberating place, so colourful, so vibrant, so noisy and so smelly, but it made me feel alive.’

‘Nepal was the breath of fresh air I needed,’ Tom agreed, and it was clear to see from the get-go. 

Nepal became the place he felt comfortable sharing something he’d been keeping to himself throughout the journey – his cerebral palsy. 

But after reaching India, the pair hit their stride (Picture: BBC/Studio Lambert)

His condition affects the right side of his body, leaving him unable to use his right hand. ‘It feels like it’s disconnected from my brain,’ he said. 

During a home stay where Tom and Caroline were fed by a family and specifically asked to eat with their right hand, Tom struggled and asked permission to switch to his left. It wasn’t an issue, but Tom bravely talked about his cerebral palsy on camera when so many of his close friends didn’t even know what he’d been living with. 

‘Before the episode came out, I was really nervous because it’s never been something that I’ve purposely told people. If it was ever to come up, I would always just say, “Oh, I’m left-handed”, instead of saying why I can’t use my right hand. The race taught me to open up about it. 

‘I just didn’t know how people would react, and I really didn’t want it to define me, but ever since the episode came out, I’ve had so many just lovely messages and also people who have similar problems. 

’It’s just it’s made me realise that it’s actually quite normal, and it’s not about me. It’s not something I should be nervous or shy about at all, because everyone has something.’

‘I didn’t actually know until I saw the episode that he had disclosed it on camera,’ says Caroline. 

Now Tom feels confident enough to start his own handyman business (Credits: BBC/Studio Lambert)

‘I was really proud of him for owning it. I’ve never either encouraged or discouraged him to share it, I thought it was up to him when he was ready, and I thought he couldn’t have done it at a better time.’

There are another four episodes to go until we find out which couple – Caroline and Tom, Elizabeth and Letitia, Fin and Sioned or Brian and Melvyn – will be crowned the next winner of Race Across The World and bag the £20,000 prize, but everyone returns a winner.

Whatever the outcome, Caroline and Tom came home with a bond that money can’t buy. 

‘We have a very deep understanding of each other now and what we’ve been through, and perhaps much more respect,’ says Caroline. 

‘I think Thomas now tries to see me more as an individual that he can have fun with and be close to, rather than just as a mother. And I don’t try not to criticise him because I think he’s just wonderful.’ 

The pair believe Race Cross the World really helped them connect (Credits: Katelyn Mensah)

‘We were always close,’ insists Tom. ‘Mum gave up her career to look after me, so we spent so much time together when I was a kid, but then we then just became two people, living in the same house, living separate lives. 

‘We forgot to really get to know each other, even though we got on and we’d still have fun, we never really connected. Going on Race Across The World really helped that.’

But the journey doesn’t stop there. They’ve already got their next adventure planned, another month exploring the great unknown together without a plan and just each other. 

‘We’re planning on backpacking through Kazakhstan,’ Tom reveals. ‘This is going to sound stupid, but it’s mainly because of Borat, which isn’t even filmed there, but for some reason it’s always tickled my pickle. A few of my mates have spoken about wanting to go there, so I did some research and apparently it’s brilliant. 

‘We’ll go without a plan for a month, a bit like the race.’

Caroline laughs: ‘But with a mobile phone.’

Race Across The World continues tonight at 9pm on BBC One. 

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