Grantchester star: 'People have commented on my body all my life'
Proudly displaying her baby bump, the bloom of pregnancy isn't the only reason for Grantchester star Melissa Johns' radiant smile.Her online announcement that she and her husband Dan Hampton were expecting prompted a flood of celebratory messages.
And people wanting to touch her baby bump makes her appreciate the beauty of her body for the first time. For Melissa, 35, who also appeared in Coronation Street and Adolescence, has been programmed to hate her body - by other people.
Born without a right forearm and hand, she recalls:'I was eight when I really started to feel I was different. We were playing tag in the playground and someone said: 'if you touch Melissa, you've got Melissa disease.' It was like a punch to my stomach.
'In the summer we'd go on caravan holidays. I'd take my little brother to the play area and some of the other children would scream and run away when they saw me.'
These shocking reactions have not just come from kids. More shocking in many ways has been the ignorance of adults. Blissfully happy with Dan, a senior transport planner, he makes her feel like 'a winner.'
Yet, she reveals: 'On our honeymoon we had people saying to Dan right in front of me 'do you not mind?' (referring to her disability) and one man called me 'a cripple'.' As a pregnant woman, for the first time, people's focus is on her bump and not her disability.
She explains:'People have commented on my body all my life. 'Either it's something horrible or something about me being inspirational - I was in the local newspaper when I was six years old and the headline was 'Girl with one arm rides bike.'
'But now people are talking about my body in a lovely way. They're going: 'oh my God, look at you!' or 'Ooh, can I touch?' And for once in my life that's not about my disability, it's about my bump.
'I've been in shows where even other actors have said about my arm, 'can I touch it?' So, my pregnancy feels even more special. Now it's my bump they want to touch and for the first time they're mentioning my body in a positive way.'
Disability activist Melissa, who plays Grantchester's Jennifer Scott and previously starred as Coronation Street's Imogen Pascoe, revealed her pregnancy to her online followers last month alongside a picture taken on the beach of Dan - who she married in her native Herefordshire last year - lovingly cradling her bump.
'I have a strong history of loathing my body,' she says candidly. 'That never came from me – it came from society telling me that my body was wrong.
'But there is so much positivity around pregnant bodies and now I really do very much like what I see when I look in the mirror. It feels lovely and I think to some degree it takes away from the other parts of my body that I have questioned for so long.'
Like most first-time mums, Melissa is approaching things with excitement and trepidation. But when people, clearly referring to her disability, ask how she will cope, she says: 'That just adds an extra layer of anxiety to the pressure that all first-time mums feel.
'We're all worrying - how does this work? How does that work? How will I do this?' And then on top of that I'm thinking 'what about when my husband is at work – will I just stay in the house all day, or will I be able to find a one-handed pram that I can collapse with one arm?'
''How will I get the pram in and out of the car on my own? How will I drink a cup of coffee with my friends while holding the baby?' There are so many things. I feel like saying 'I don't know yet, I haven't worked it out. But I will find a way.''
Steely determination has certainly served her well in life. A turning point came in her 20s, after watching old camcorder footage of herself as a young girl at a family party.
'I saw this happy little girl dancing and spinning, without a care in the world and I thought 'I'm so sorry for the life I'm giving you,'' she recalls.
'It was at a point where I had really stopped doing most things. I wouldn't dance anymore and I wouldn't go out without a cardigan – I'd essentially stripped myself of my own freedom, because I needed to control the way that people saw me. I thought that part of my body was ugly and they shouldn't have to look at it.
'I had boyfriends where it would get to the third date and I would have to tell them that I'd got one arm. I'd see that as winning, that I'd hidden it so well.
'Now I know that winning is having a wonderful husband, where my disability doesn't even come into play.' Training at East 15 Acting School, she was one of the first disabled actors to win the Laurence Olivier Bursary Award.
In 2015, aged 25, she landed her first TV role, working alongside Jo Joyner and Trevor Eve, in the BBC1 drama series The Interceptor and two years later was cast in Coronation Street, spending two years as Kate Connor's girlfriend Imogen Pascoe.
She played school nurse Carla in Adolescence and joined the cast of Grantchester in 2021, as police station secretary Jennifer Scott.
She is currently filming the 11th and final series, with series 10 due to air early next year. It will pick up where series 9 ended, with Miss Scott finally kissing policeman Larry Peters.
'It's a wonderful storyline,' Melissa enthuses. 'It's been a will-they-won't they for so many years.'
Melissa plans to work until two weeks before her baby is due in November. 'Grantchester has been a brilliant show to work on,' she says. 'Some other shows in the past have said: 'do you mind if we write something in to acknowledge your arm, because the audience might wonder?' But I don't think in the six seasons I've been in Grantchester we've even brought it up.
'And they couldn't be more supportive. They cut my food up for me and I have help into my costumes when I need it. Things like that have such a positive impact on my day.
'They've been so nice about my pregnancy too. Robson Green was the first person I saw when I came out of the lift when we started filming the new series.
'He said 'Hi gorgeous' and then he went 'Oh my gosh! Look! I'm just made up for you.' 'Later he texted me and said 'Welcome to the most beautiful club.' 'And Kacey Ainsworth and Tessa Peake-Jones both went 'Oh! Can we touch it?' in such a loving way. They're such close colleagues that I was happy to say yes.'
When Grantchester finishes Melissa will be working on a TV adaption of Snatched, the one-woman show she wrote in 2022, exploring her experience of having explicit photos leaked online after her iCloud was hacked.
She says: 'It sold out around the UK and I got offers from TV companies, so I'm currently developing a six-part series with Kudos.' For now, though, Melissa is looking forward to becoming a mum.
'Because of having one arm and looking very different to other people growing up, the world questioned whether I would have a family of my own,' she says.
'I didn't know what else to believe, so I believed what I was told. Now, I'm in my own home, with my incredible husband and a baby on the way that I just can't wait to hold and cuddle.'
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