CHERYL WHARTON: She absolutely loves being in front of the camera; she loves posing,
she loves doing her model walking.
CHERYL WHARTON: She absolutely loves the attention.
CHERYL WHARTON: She is yeah, she is definitely one in a million.
CHERYL WHARTON: We know she is gorgeous. JOHN WHARTON: Of course, she is gorgeous.
CHERYL WHARTON: She is cute, you know everyone has always said she is really cute.
CHERYL WHARTON: Grace enjoys being the centre of attention.
JOHN WHARTON: And she loves it.
CHERYL WHARTON: So Grace is our daughter. She is seven years old and she has Down Syndrome.
CHERYL WHARTON: Grace absolutely loves having a picture taken. We saw an advertisement on Facebook
asking for models with disabilities. So we thought why not? We were invited to a photo shoot.
She went to the photo shoot, walked into the room and twerked in front of everybody – which everyone thought
was hilarious. Within a very short time, Disney showed interest in her and she has done work with CBeebies and
the BBC. So she has been really busy.
LAURA JOHNSON: We felt that there weren’t enough opportunities for people with disabilities within fashion,
advertising, TV and film, and we really wanted to see that change.
LAURA JOHNSON: Straightaway we knew that she was going to be amazing in this world. She is such a
gorgeous little thing, so smiley, so full of confidence. So she is definitely one of our success stories.
LAURA JOHNSON: She is amazing.
CHERYL WHARTON: When I first found out Grace was going to be born with Down syndrome, I was devastated.
There is such a lot of negativity surrounding Down syndrome. We got up the next morning and we said, you
know, she might have Down syndrome but she is still going to be our baby.
And from that point on, we just have celebrated.
JOHN WHARTON: Nothing else mattered, yeah, nothing else mattered.
CHERYL WHARTON: Everything, every part of her.
CHERYL WHARTON: Grace loves school, she has got so many friends, everybody loves her and we can’t walk into
school without people going, ‘Hi, Grace. Hi, Grace. Hi, Grace’s mom. There’s Grace. My friend, Grace.’
CHARLOTTE WILLIAMS: So I am really lucky because I have had Grace in my class for two years now.
CHARLOTTE WILLIAMS: Grace is probably the most popular member of class 5.
Everybody wants to be Grace’s friend.
Boy: I like Grace because she always plays with me. GIRL: She is kind of, sweet.
GIRL: She helps. BOY: She helps and she gives the best cuddles.
GIRL: She likes to play with the Lego and build really tall towers.
JOHN WHARTON: As you can see from today, she didn’t struggle with a lot of things at all.
CHERYL WHARTON: She just does things at her own pace.
CHERYL WHARTON: Grace’s biggest struggle is probably her speech. Grace is talking, which we are thrilled about
because some people with Down syndrome, you know, don’t talk.
CHERYL WHARTON: Sometimes she is hard to understand. But she gets there in the end.
JOHN WHARTON: Yeah! CHERYL WHARTON: And hopefully her speech will continue to improve.
HANNA CORONER: Grace is sassy, confident and strong-willed.
CHERYL WHARTON: If you remember this one. This is Grace wearing her t-shirt,
‘Keep calm. It’s only an extra chromosome.’ And that’s all it is. It is really important to us to get the message
across that she has just got Down syndrome. It’s no big deal. She is a feisty little girl.
HANNA CORONER: I think often when people think about Down syndrome, they kind of think of like, the older
people with Down syndrome that were institutionalised. They never learned to talk, never learned to read, never
did anything, whereas that has changed a lot.
CHERYL WHARTON: Society is changing now. It is changing for the better and Grace are changing it,
you know, changing people’s perspectives.
CHERYL WHARTON: She just continues to defy everyone; whoever told her she wouldn’t do anything.
JOHN WHARTON: She has always come through everything. She is a fighter. She is! She is a strong girl.
CHERYL WHARTON: Grace is just, it comes with that extra chromosome, comes extra.
Extra loving, extra naughtiness.
JOHN WHARTON: Yeah, a little extra I think. Yeah, it all comes along.