Gap Year

Mind the Gap!

Many Sixth-formers, now in their final year of school, will be planning to spend a year abroad before starting University.  Their parents may be worrying, and asking themselves if their son or daughter will be safe.  In 1989-90 my daughter, Anna, spent a year as a Young Volunteer in Bandung, on the island of Java, teaching English in a tourism college.  More recently, my neighbour’s son, Laurence, did a similar job in North Vietnam.  Both went abroad under the auspices of an organisation called ‘Project Trust’.

Project Trust was set up in 1967 by Major Nicholas Maclean-Bristol on the Isle of Coll, and since then it has been sending young people abroad to various countries throughout the world.  Anna had been recommended to apply to them and she was called to Coll on a selection course where, with other applicants, she was tested and observed whilst working on the settlements and living with local families, over several days.

Anna enjoyed the training experience very much, as she always loved a challenge.  They were set various tasks, building dry-stone walls, tending the lazy-beds, working in the classroom, attending lectures and so on.  Anna has been a keen dancer all her life so the evening ceilidh was something she enthused about.  Before they left Coll they had a farewell service, conducted by the then chaplain, Andrew.  His wife, Vicky, was the Indonesian visitor and desk officer.

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Anna passed the selection course and later returned to Coll for training and briefing.  Each volunteer works abroad with a partner.  Anna met Penny, the one chosen for her, on the briefing course.  The two were to teach in the same establishment and to share accommodation. (Much to their bemusement, they were actually provided with only one double bed upon arrival!). 

In August that year Anna was one of six volunteers, two lads and four girls, flying out to Jakarta to start their year of adventure and exploration.  I accompanied her to Heathrow and suddenly it hit me that the moment of parting was approaching.  I couldn’t bear to see her disappearing through the departure gate so I fled.  My consolation was that Project Trust would take good care of my daughter.  They carefully monitor each host country and if there is any danger threatening, they will bring their volunteers home.  For that reason, Indonesia is no longer on the list of countries for young volunteers. 

We, as parents, had the chance to attend meetings in a choice of venues throughout Britain, one before departure and one before the return of the volunteers.  I attended the London gatherings and there I met staff from Coll, and parents of other young volunteers, some already abroad, and others preparing to go.  We were discouraged from visiting our children during their year abroad, but we were asked to write regularly to them and to help them with their spending money even though their ‘keep’ was technically covered by their sponsorship money.  In those days, communication was by letter and the very occasional phone call.  Today’s volunteers have e-mail, internet and mobile phones; communication is far easier and I doubt that volunteers would find themselves in the same situation as Anna and Penny who, six months after the fact, discovered during a chance conversation with a western tourist passing through their isolated base, that the Berlin wall had come down!

While abroad, there is a representative to whom the young people can turn in times of stress.  This is usually a British citizen living and working in the host country.  Also, a member of staff from Project Trust visits each volunteer once during the year and the volunteers have to send back reports regularly.  Project Trust makes all arrangements for travel, placements, medical and accident insurance and so on although part of the Young Volunteer’s challenge is to raise a set sum by sponsorship and I, as Anna’s mum, had to sign a guarantee to make up any shortfall.

That year the placement options were as varied as Outward Bound instructing in Hong Kong, Jackeroo-ing in the Australian outback, working in an orphanage in, eg, China / Africa, or teaching in colleges or schools, as my daughter did in Indonesia.  Many of the volunteers, including Anna, helped or worked with other institutions in their spare time (eg, The Leprosy Mission or Private Language Teaching Schools), keen to become as fully immersed in their host cultures as possible – something that few travellers can really hope to achieve.  Anna now complains that as a result of living and thinking in Bahasa (Indonesian), she can no longer access the diary that she wrote in that language!  An occasional few, like Laurence, would become so captivated by their new lives that they would go as far as staying on to work with charitable NGOs, post-placement, keen to hold on to every opportunity that came their way.

Before Anna returned home in August 1990 I spent a week on Coll with some other parents, and we sampled all that our sons and daughters had been through on their selection and training visits.  It was a great experience – both fun and educational.  It also gave us a clearer understanding of what our children had been through, during selection, and what qualities the organisation had been seeking.  We spent one day rounding up sheep, in a kind of military operation, directed by the major!  I failed in the sheep-shearing exercise, my captive running around the pen with me astride its back, screaming for help!  I was demoted to weeding the lazy beds in extreme heat!  (Lazy beds are plots of land with the soil piled in long, narrow, raised mounds, used to grow vegetables.) A day of bird-watching was far more up my street – but everyone enjoyed the ceilidh and the evening dinners, hosted by the Major and his beautiful wife, The Hon. Lavinia Bristol, (who was then the Director).  I still correspond with one of the other mothers with whom I forged a strong friendship over that week.

Would I recommend parents to encourage their own children to go abroad for a year?  I can’t pretend that there were no moments of panic and anxiety, but I had already realised that Anna was an adventurous explorer who was going to take risks and court danger, so I was happy that she chose to apply to Project Trust as opposed to setting off into the vast unknown, alone, to face whatever new cultures, civil unrests or challenges that might cross her path. 

When I had seen her off at Heathrow, in 1989, she was, effectively, still a dependent schoolgirl, but the person I met there a year later was a mature, independent adult with a wealth of experience written across her face.  Throughout the year, there had been a support network available had she ever needed it, and for this (as well as for the fact that I knew I would be kept in the loop if need be), I was very grateful.  I was also grateful that they had specifically prepared me, ahead of time, for the changes that I would encounter in her, upon return, and that they also spent time with the volunteers themselves, upon return, to facilitate their smooth readjustment into their home cultures. 

I felt that they left no stone unturned and I would recommend their excellent service to any young person wanting to ensure that his/her year abroad was well spent, bringing maximum advantages to both the host country and the volunteer.  Lavinia recently remarked that nothing much has changed since then.  I was touched by the knowledge that they remain interested in the lives of former volunteers.  Anna, in fact, attended a reunion in London on the 3^rd March and met up again with fellow-volunteers and with members of Staff who are still there from her time. 

I recently asked both Laurence and Anna for their thoughts on their gap year.

Laurence’s reply was, ‘My training week on Coll prepared me as well as anything for my year working in a rural university in Vietnam.  The subject of English language teaching was brought up, and the trainer did admirably to prepare us for the work we would be doing (something that is a bit difficult to do in less than four weeks, to be honest); we covered the basics of first aid and living away from the watchful eyes of Mum and Dad, and did lots of activities that bonded us as a group. The bond that was formed over the week on the island stayed strong for the entire year, with most of the volunteers staying in touch with each other at regular intervals.  When we met up for debriefing, it was like meeting old friends, despite the fact that we had only really spent a week with each other, at most.

In short, the training provided by Project Trust was excellent.  It wouldn’t be possible to fully prepare a group of eighteen-year-olds to live in a developing country for a year as soon as they leave school, but I left the training week fully aware of the challenges ahead of me, as well as well-briefed on how they could be dealt with.’

Anna said, ‘I have travelled in many places and met many incredible people during my life.  However, nothing comes close to those pivotal life-changing years, when I have had the opportunity to really live, work, and play amongst people from other cultures.  When fully immersed within another culture, earning a similar wage to local colleagues and, therefore, facing similar limits and challenges, you arrive at a level of understanding of collective hopes, needs and driving forces that is impossible to access when merely passing through a foreign country as a traveller.  Living for one year on the Indonesian Archipelago, with Project Trust, opened my eyes to a world that I might have missed had I simply travelled through there alone.

Since then, every time I have set off to live somewhere like Nepal, West Africa or Central America, for anything from a few months to a couple of years, I have had the same feeling of trepidation as when I first left for Indonesia (and an ever greater battle with inertia as I get older).  Now, however, I can use the experience I gained from that first year to give me confidence that I am doing the right thing; that it will be worth it in the end.  This gives me the courage to step across the threshold and to set off on each new adventure.  There are no regrets.  And no looking back.  I am very privileged.’

Anna

During her first year at the RGS Anna became involved in adventure racing for the first time when she was invited as a last-minute replacement on the British team booked to take part in the 10^th Raid Gauloises in the spring of 2000.

Alain Gaimard, a French professional mountain guide, founded the Raid Gauloises, the original adventure race, and the toughest in the world, in 1989.  It is a long, non-stop, cross-terrain, extreme sports event, demanding exceptional technical skill in a wide range of outdoor sports as well as team spirit and endurance from the competitors, as Anna learned from her first experience of this type of race.  It is a test of mental as well as physical stamina.

The 10^th Raid Gauloises was 847 km in length and took place over 12 days across the Himalayas from Tibet to Nepal.  Anna had no time to train and was given only a few hours to decide if she wished to accept the challenge.  She realised that the team would have to withdraw if she didn’t agree, so she thought, “What have I to lose?” and accepted.

Her team was called ‘The Salomon Pilgrims’ and her fellow team members were:

·         ‘Ski’ Steve Sharp, aged 35 at the time, a sergeant in the Royal Signals in Gibraltar, and a trained mountaineering instructor and orienteering champion:

·         Russell Dawkins, aged 32, an optician and the model for Action Man’s picture on the toy’s box:

·         Richard Inman, aged 31, an officer in the Royal Green Jackets:

·         Douglas Gillespie, aged 31, a golf course manager and keen yachtsman.

The back-up crew were:

·         Dave Freear, a partner in Pilgrims group, a risk management consultancy:

·         Roger Smith who runs British Lakeland Mountain Guides.

Each team had to have at least one female member.  Anna must have felt some apprehension at the thoughts of the formidable challenge ahead of her in such impressive company.  I was certainly excited but fearful, too, as I compared Anna’s sedentary job with the men’s action-filled lives and I worried about her asthma as I pondered on their high level of fitness.  As ever, I was filled with admiration for this beautiful daughter of mine, rejoicing that others held equally high opinions of her qualities and abilities

The activities facing them included trekking, mountain biking, hydrospeeding on the Sun Kosi River, canyoneering, canoeing, kayaking, horse-riding and whitewater rafting.  Anna was really excited at the prospect of sampling all these adventurous and dangerous sports.  She was also excitedly looking forward to revisiting Tibet and Nepal and she felt that her knowledge of the area and of the language would be an advantage to the team.

Along the route she and the other team members suffered severe altitude sickness and hypothermia and she developed bronchitis.  However, they all endured and finished at 6.53 a.m. on day 9, in 16^th place out of 50 teams at the start, a tremendous result considering what they had gone through, sleep deprivation added to the other hardships. .  I was so proud of her indomitable spirit and brave heart in the face of such challenging obstacles.

Anna later told me that at one point along the route, as they led a horse across the high Tibetan plateau, she, Russell and ‘Ski’ were suffering so much that they formed a human chain with the front man holding on to the horse, on which they’d placed their rucksacks.  Richard was the only person fit enough to lead the horse while Douglas just about managed to stagger alongside. 

Another time they huddled together in a small tent with a single sleeping bag between them and one of them literally in the fly sheet while the temperature outside plummeted to –30 degrees centigrade.  After a short nap they woke to find it was snowing hard and they set off in a blizzard, feeling disorientated and losing precious time.  At the next Check Point they had to be thawed out in a heated bus and Anna received treatment for her bronchitis from the medical team before proceeding.

A further crisis was in store for Anna and Russell when they were crossing a swollen river with their bicycles held above their heads.  They were being swept away in the current and a Nepalese man dived in and rescued them.  Anna said that local men sometimes lost their lives like this, but being very poor, it is a risk they take in the hope of earning a small reward.  I never cease being horrified by her tales from abroad, although she seems able to put everything into perspective.  In her late teens she was very supportive of my work for the Third World and she has always shown compassion for those in need.

Were I to dwell on all the dangers she has been through, I’d go crazy but I’ve learned to look on her achievements and personal victories and to feel pride in what she has accomplished in spite of the handicap she suffers from her asthma.  Above all, I talk, talk, talk, bringing my fears into the open by telling people what I consider to be an exciting adventure story, so that it becomes like a dramatic reading from a book such as ‘Scott of the Antarctic’.  Thus I try to elicit admiration for brave men and women who set out into the unknown to explore in hostile environments, rather than brooding inwardly in fear and worry about my beautiful daughter.

Anna became hooked on endurance racing from then on, really appreciating the spirit of adventure and exploration and personal challenge of these big expedition races. 

She became an active and enthusiastic member of the group of British men and women aiming to form a top international team in what is fast becoming a recognised sport. From then on, weekends and holidays were spent training and acquiring new skills.  The dedication of all these athletes seems almost fanatical, as if each member is suffering from an addiction, yet, as I entertain them in my home from time to time, I recognise their sterling qualities and I feel as if I, too, am now part of this new scene.  Anna tells me that all the mums are, like me, supportive.  “It must be something about the way you brought us up!” she’ll say.  Being so closely associated with them has opened up a whole new life for me.  One of the things I admire most about these adventurers is the camaraderie that exists between them.  For Anna this would be a big attraction, too.

 My sister in New Zealand is the latest to become ‘hooked’ as a supporter.  One by one, all my friends and close acquaintances are being introduced to the Internet coverage of the different races throughout the world!  Those who haven’t yet embraced the new technology ask their children or grandchildren to find the sites and print pictures and accounts of Anna’s exploits.  Feedback includes E-mails from young people telling me that they’ve seen my daughter and been most impressed by her performances.  Life at the age of 74 is anything but boring!

Ambitions Fulfilled

Anna thus found herself back in Britain and able to view the programme with a crowd of her friends in London.  At home I switched on my television and tuned in to BBC2.  I then knelt on the carpet close to the screen, straining my eyes, determined not to miss the expected fleeting glances of Anna.  At the end of the programme I rose slowly to my feet, eyes and mouth open wide, frozen into a state of unbelief. 

Anna had been one of 30 members of the public chosen from 800 applicants to take part in the Reality show to see if they could pass the selection test for Britain’s elite military force, the SAS. Twice during 2001 the filming had been postponed due to the foot and mouth outbreak and then, in September, the site was switched from the Brecon Beacons to the Scottish Highlands.  Unfortunately, the dates clashed with the European Championship Adventure Race in Switzerland in which Anna had been so looking forward to racing.  After much procrastination and seeking of guidance, she opted for the SAS programme.  One of those advising her was Nick Crane, the hero of her teenage years. Nick pointed out that there would be other opportunities to race but taking the SAS course, which had long been an ambition of hers, was a one off opportunity.  Sarah Odell, who had already taken part in the TV show, Survivor, replaced Anna on team 9feet.com for Switzerland.

Two-thirds of the way through filming, Anna’s group were dismissed so Anna was able to fly out to Switzerland to be with her adventure race team and to visit two casualties in hospital there.  Ski had been taken by helicopter to hospital for an emergency operation after one day’s racing, so the team were disqualified.  A friend of Anna’s in another team had slipped on the rocks in a canyon and had been under water for 15 minutes and, as a result, was in hospital in a coma.  These are the sorts of dangers that endurance racers face all along the way.

The showing of the SAS programme was then postponed because of the war in Afghanistan.  Finally, the broadcast took place over three Sundays in March 2002.  No woman had ever been considered by the SAS as a recruit, yet here was Anna, featuring prominently and passing tough physical endurance tests with flying colours.  The days that followed were euphoric for me.  Phone calls, e-mails, press interviews, being stopped on the street by so many, meant that, as Anna’s Mum, I was sharing the full glory of my daughter’s success.

A week later the programme showed Anna surviving a traumatic interrogation lasting 12 hours but, in spite of her brilliant performance, she was dismissed because of an earlier stupid error by her group during the Escape and Evasion exercise. I had known about this 4 months before the broadcast, yet I sat there in front of the television and wept because I knew that all the tests still to come would have been so easy for Anna.  However, she had come away from the filming, feeling confident and knowing that she was “tough enough for the SAS”, and that she could have survived.  In fact, she was told by one of the SAS men and by Mike Stroud, the medical consultant to the programme, and by the BBC team that she was capable of passing the tests.  Paradoxically, it was because of being caught ‘using her initiative’ that she had to go.  In my heart of hearts I was so proud of all she had achieved as I remembered what I had always advised her, that for the two of us the only failure would be not to have tried.  At the age of 73 I could finally say, “All my dreams have now been realised.  Anna has proved herself in the toughest of situations.  From now on the world’s her oyster.”

In the silence of the night, however, I sometimes recall the interrogation scene and I shudder.  I hear afresh the clank of the huge metal bar being dropped on the ground close to her feet and I see again her involuntary jump in fright.  I remember how any sudden loud noise scared her when she was little and I wonder if this is how I want my daughter to be.  I also recall how scared of the dark she always was and I wonder what it was like for her being hooded and not knowing what was going to happen next or who was being so nasty to her.  I then think about the many injuries sustained by her over the years, the damaged Achilles tendon and reconstructed knee, the broken bones and early signs of arthritis. I remember the tragic deaths and paralysing injuries of many of her young friends and, most terrifying of all, Anna’s own frequent, close encounters with Death and, filled with horror and uncertainty, I ask myself what many an adventurer must have asked, “Is this the price one pays for fame?  Is this what I wanted for my beautiful daughter?”

I also frequently recall all the wonderful young men who, over the years, have fallen hopelessly in love with Anna, and I weep for them as I dream of what might have been.  So many of them have shared their hopes and longings with me and have helped me to get rid of my deep-seated antagonism to the male species. I remember a question Anna once put to me.  “What is wrong with just wanting to sit at a till in a supermarket?”  Looking at Anna, as she now is, I know this could never have been an option for her but I keep asking myself if I shouldn’t have provided a quieter, less action-packed environment for her.   

However, as she trained for the world’s toughest Adventure race, the Raid Gauloises, due to take place in Vietnam in May, I forgot my doubts and felt renewed pride that she was racing with one of the world’s top teams in what is the toughest endurance race.  I have watched my beautiful daughter over the years graduating from local celebrity status to national fame and now, finally, international recognition. 

I sensed a budding romance blossoming between Anna and the Finnish captain of the team.  I was really happy with my identity finally established as “Anna’s Mum”, accepting, at last, the fact that my own earlier dreams were unattainable.  I know that my world is inextricably bound up with Anna’s life and I am happy at last to lose the huge chip on my shoulder about my own lack of fulfilment.  I am glad that I helped Anna advance at all stages towards fulfilment of the life she dreamed of.   How she has lived out her dreams is very different to the dreams I had for myself but I was always determined to open up the world for my daughter and let her choose her own path in life.   Let us, however, hear what Anna has to say on the subject.

“The idea of fame,” she says, “never once entered my head.  All my life I have struggled with asthma and everything I have done has been my own personal challenge.  I remember enjoying Robert Service’s poems when I was in my teens.  The first poem ever to mean much to me was,

“They have cradled you in custom.  They have primed you with their preaching.

They have soaked you in convention through and through.

They have put you in a showcase. You’re a credit to their teaching,

But don’t you hear the WILD?  It is calling you.

Let us probe the silent places.  Let us seek what luck betides us.

Let us journey to a land I know.

There’s a whisper on the night wind; there’s a star agleam to guide us.

And the wild is calling…calling.  Let us go.”

Also Ran

One evening in the early summer of 1995 I received an unexpected phone call from a young lady named Sarah who wanted to contact my daughter, Anna. They had been volunteers together in Indonesia in 1989-90 and Sarah was ringing because she'd just walked through the door of her home in Oxford and seen a programme about Anna on Central News South.

Anna had taken part in a big international race in Nepal and the reporter had described her as a young Oxford woman. Sarah was excited at the prospect of meeting up with her again.

I was taken by surprise, as Anna had never shown any interest or ability in running. She swam, she cycled, she danced, she rode horses, she climbed mountains, but running? No!

I rang Central Television in Birmingham and was told the news would be local to Oxford. I was given the name and telephone number of the sports reporter who happened to be still in Nepal but he rang me back in four days' time and said he was sending a video recording of the broadcast to Anna and I was welcome to open it.

The race was the Annapurna Pepsi Triathlon - reputedly the most beautiful race in the world. To my surprise, he told me Anna had come second in the women's section and fifth overall. The race comprised a 2km lake swim, a 35km mountain-bike ride climbing 3000 feet and down again, a 20km road bike race, and a 12km run up and down the 3000 ft peak.

Later that summer an avalanche on Mount Everest left Anna with a severed cruciate ligament so she didn't race again for a while. Last year she ran her first big Adventure Race as the female member of Britain's Salomon Pilgrims team in the gruelling Raid Gauloises.

Sixty-nine international teams entered this 827km race, run over 11 days from Tibet to Nepal, across the Himalayas, involving running, climbing, trekking, hydrospeeding, canyoning, Canadian canoeing, rafting, abseiling and mountain biking. The Salomon Pilgrims came 16th and completed the race in nine days.

From whom did Anna inherit her sporting ability and her stamina? Not from me!

When I was six, my Aunt May and two of her friends visited us one Sunday. After lunch we all went for a walk through the demesne on which we were living. My aunt had brought me a new pair of shoes, which I wore at once. They were good leather shoes with a strap and a button, rather like character shoes which dancers wear, only they were in two tones of green - olive and sage.

They had smooth leather soles, not at all suitable for running about on gravel. Instead of walking sedately along beside the grown-ups, my older brother and I went tearing all over the place. I suddenly had an urge to see if I could run faster than my fastest! Perhaps I thought my lovely new shoes possessed magical powers!

The inevitable happened. What a fall that was! Blood spurted from a deep cut over my left eye. I still bear the scar 67 years on. My best Sunday clothes were blood-spattered and my shoes had a great stain which turned brown, and scratches on the soles.

Everyone had to return to the house where the visitors attended to my cut eye. The only disinfectant in the house was Jeyes' fluid, which they had to use to bathe the wound. To this day I can't stand the smell of Jeyes' fluid.

In 1934 it cost money to visit a doctor so you coped with things like a cut eye on your own. You managed without stitches or tetanus injections.

That incident cut short any aspirations I might have had of beating records in running. Thereafter, I limited myself to chasing balls on the tennis court, or running up and down the hockey pitch to attack or defend, or trying to make it to the next post at rounders before being stumped out, or to a bus stop before the driver pulled away. More often than not, I didn't reach my goal.

Then, at the age of 58, came my big opportunity. Against the odds, I had survived for two years after a major operation for advanced cancer of the colon. Life had taken on a new meaning for me. I became intensely aware of our fragile hold on life.

When Bob Geldof organised his Sport Aid run for May 25, 1986, I found myself longing to take part but the idea of running put me off. Then, the evening before the run, I suddenly decided to have a go.

Next morning I woke up to a feeling of unreality, and as I listened to the radio I heard a doctor advising people who had never before run not to do so now. He was warning that such people could drop dead.

My husband didn't want me to go and I didn't have any sponsors, but I was determined to go, so I took a sheet of foolscap paper to St Mary's Church and handed it to the curate, asking him to get some parishioners to sponsor me!

Then off to Perry Barr Stadium we went. The organisers were expecting 15,000 on the Birmingham run but 25,000 turned up. There were throngs of people wandering around. An air of excitement surrounded us and everyone was in high spirits.

They ran out of T-shirts. That didn't worry me as I'm not the right shape for wearing T-shirts! Nor could they cope with registering so many. My cousin's three children and her son-in-law were running so we started together. Two of them had run the London Marathon in under four hours five times.

With so many people it took us ages to walk out to the start. Because of the numbers participating, the turn-round in the city centre was to prove impossible, so the 10km was extended by 2km. Just my luck! We set off together at a comfortable trot and I kept it up while the cameras were on us, but then the others went ahead while I ran intermittently but walked most of the time.

On the way back my hands suddenly went numb and I noticed they were swelling badly. I panicked, remembering the doctor's warning that morning. I took a break and threw cold water over myself and exercised my arms by the roadside. This side effect, I discovered later, was quite normal.

In the beginning everyone was sailing past me but towards the end I was passing others! As I approached the finishing-line, I managed a fair pace once more so that it looked as if I had run all the way. What deviousness! Not that it mattered because the important aim was to complete 12km.

My legs were like jelly, quivering uncontrollably and fit to collapse, but eight members of my family were waiting to hug and congratulate me. To them I was the heroine of the afternoon.

It was a truly memorable occasion. The atmosphere was so exciting and uplifting. We all felt part of one big unified world. When I later called at the church to tell them I had run 12km, the curate had promises of £100 waiting for me.

Nowadays, I am often to be found browsing among the magazines in the sports section at the newsagent's. Runner's World, Running Fitness, 220, Global Adventure, High, On The Edge, On The Hill, are on my list of reading, not because I could ever run competitively, but because I have a daughter who is the female member on two of Britain's Adventure Race teams.

My only involvement has been to help with handing out cups of water to the runners in the Sutton Park pre-London Marathon practice run and to providing meals and accommodation for Anna and nine of her fellow-athletes when they came on a training weekend to Cannock Chase.

As they sat after meals discussing and planning strategy, I could whisper: "I also ran. I ran for the world."