Love Island's Hugo Hammond will be making quite the change when he swaps the classroom for the villa next week. The teacher, 24, has just completed his PGCE teaching qualification - but Love island might just change his plans. 'I don't have a school lined up for after the summer,' he says at a press conference with Grazia. 'So I'm not too sure what's going to happen, I'm not sure what this opportunity is going to bring for me.'
In addition to his teaching, for the past few years, Hugo has been travelling around the world competing for England's Physical Disability cricket team. And it's a sport he grew up with. 'My dad's a cricket coach, my brothers play cricket as well, so I was very much born and bred cricket,' Hugo says. 'Playing for England and Wales, wearing those three lions is - anyone who's done it - will say it's one of the greatest honors of their life. And I completely agree, I've absolutely loved it.'
Since the line-up has been released, Hugo has been described as one of the show's first contestants to have a physical disability. The PE teacher was born with clubfoot, a condition where a baby is born with a foot or feet that turn in and under and he says that he had numerous - 20 - operations when he was younger, before the age of eight, to correct it. (Charity MiracleFeet predict it affects 200,000 babies worldwide per year.) 'I'm very thankful for my parents doing it when I was so young, because obviously now looking back on it, I don't remember too much,' he says.
'Day to day life, it doesn't really affect me too much,' he adds. 'I'm very lucky. You know, if I'm on my feet all day,, I want to sit down in the evening, but I'm pretty sure that's the same for everyone. Obviously, I can't compare it to someone that wasn't born with it.' He says that, now, it affects the way he walks. 'What people will probably notice is I've got slightly short, Achilles tendons on my heel, so I walk slightly on my tiptoes,' he says. 'I look at it as natural swagger. But some people look at it as a slightly different walk.'
However, Hugo - who says he applied for the show after a few drinks with his housemate -stresses that he do not want his condition to define his time in the villa. 'I'm a person with a disability. I'm not a disabled person,' he says. 'I'm on this show because they like my personality, and they liked what I can bring to the house. So I definitely don't want it to define me. But I'm also well aware of the platform it may bring. And if I can have a positive impact on other people with disabilities or young people with disabilities looking to make it mainstream, and things like that, then that would be absolutely fantastic. And hopefully I can I can bear the torch well for everyone, so to speak.'
Love Island starts at 9pm Monday 28 June on ITV2 and ITV Hub. Episodes are available the following morning on BritBox.
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