Reflections on the waters of time

​Time is a funny thing. I turned round the other day and discovered that it’s 20 years since I was a Winston Churchill Travel Fellow. And so, I shall use this moment of nostalgia and amazement at the passing of time to reflect how this lifetime opportunity changed my life and continues to influence it to this day. Pull up a comfy chair, get a cup of tea - this is a long one. In short - the trip was EPIC.
 
What is a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship? These life-changing opportunities to travel and study are still available every year – check out www.wcmt.org.uk for more information.

Back in 1997, the categories for the following year included something around Working with Young People – I was working as Development Officer for the Forth & Clyde Canal Community Project in Glasgow and through the project had discovered a passion for watersports and was organising and delivering a substantial amount of youthwork. Having always wanted to visit Canada I managed to combine Canada, watersports and young people in to my application to travel in Canada for 3 months investigating the use of watersports with young people. 
 
I chose Canada as it is a nation that is built on its waterways – the rivers and lakes brought connection, travel opportunities, trade, destruction, creation and community. This land of wilderness today creates opportunities for recreation, travel, exploration and self discovery – all of which are great ingredients for working with people of all ages and backgrounds. Although most Fellowships last around 6 weeks I chose to go for 3 months and spent a month in each of the provinces of Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia. 
 
During the 3 months, I was very privileged to visit over 50 inspiring projects, businesses and organisations. I ticked many firsts and listed in my report that it was my first time:  

• in North America
• being met off a plane by a person holding a card with my name on
• driving an automatic car, on the other side of the road and driving for 9 hours in one direction in one day
• being away from Scotland for more than 5 weeks
• breaking down in the absolute middle of nowhere
• canoeing in shorts and short sleeves on white water and more importantly warm water…

All of these seem quite inconsequential now but at the time they were huge. And hilariously my report mentions me using the internet to do research on companies and email to contact them – I had even signed up for a Hotmail account. Jings! Imagine that. So much of what I take for granted today was new back then.

​Most of my lasting memories are based around the people I met and the landscape in which I travelled. In looking back, I sometimes wonder how I found the courage to do what I did – not sure I could do that now, things like:

• turning up at companies – often without having actually spoken to them first 
• turning up at someone’s door asking if I could borrow a phone to call a breakdown company 
• hitching with a set of kayak paddles (which were not break-aparts). 

And of course my car – my lovely 1979 Ford Fairmount (I had asked a friend to find me something small – preferably with gears and this was the result). 4 hours driving and it was time to refuel – both petrol and coffee – my Timmy Ho’s coffee cup perched beside me on the bench seat. 

Driving from Toronto to Cape Breton and back via northern Ontario was a fabulous experience (including the breakdowns – the radiator blew up in the middle of Algonquin Park and the rear end fell off one night in Halifax – hey ho). These too became experiences – getting a new radiator built from scratch and the garage who ripped out the ignition so I could start the car with a screw driver as the key broke in it. I drove most of the way through Quebec in one go because although I reckon I could get by in French in terms of sorting out a campsite and coffee, French for my fan belt needs tightened was utterly beyond me.

I vividly remember my first night wildcamping. I wasn’t sure of the laws around this and actually trying to find somewhere out of the way was interesting – all that space in Ontario but all the lakes have loads of cottages. I eventually found somewhere and tucked my tiny tent behind a wooden hut – I was woken in the morning by a lady cleaning the hut and thought “uh oh, I’m in trouble, I shouldn’t be here” – but not so – she was getting the hut ready for the kids who would come swimming later and she took me home for breakfast – spoiled me! And my travels were full of similar experiences – so many people took me in, looked after me and supported my adventures. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I am still in contact with a few of the wonderful people I met.

The companies I visited were diverse in location, activities, funding and age groups but all of them were extremely dedicated and passionate about their work. I remember coming home was hard – I am a burn out, stress head who crams in a lot and it took me the first month to really arrive, the 2ndmonth to begin to chill out and the 3rdto begin to get the hang of it – I really felt I could have done with a 4thmonth to absorb it. On returning to Scotland and my job I was disappointed to find that a project I had set up (involving skills based training for long term unemployed) had not been delivered and I was to rewrite the funding application – bringing up much frustration and a promise to myself that never again would I get involved in such complex funding applications – a promise I failed to keep – every job since has involved exactly that. As a result of my travels I decided to leave my job at the Canal and return to Canada the following year to work for one of the companies I visited (maybe I’ll write a 20 year reflections post about that next year ;) …). 

The companies, the people and the landscape from this time continue to inspire me to this day. I learned loads about working with different groups on, in and around the water. I learned a lot about myself too including the 2 sides of travelling alone – I meet more people but visit less places with no-one to share the experience. On what sounds like a really shallow thing to say - I renewed my entire wardrobe – Mountain Equipment Co-op being my first experience of a big outdoor store and more importantly they made and sold kit and proper outdoor clothes made specifically for women – but this was revolutionary to me back then. In the past, I often struggled with the whole being a woman thing – often being driven to prove I can do something - feeling bound to that old adage of ‘you have to be twice as good as a man to be thought half as good’. ​

The art and history spoke my soul in many ways. Visiting Peterborough Canoe Museum and seeing Bill Reid's amazing sculpture of the first people at the Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver  were real highlights. Facing the irony of people out west commenting on recent immigration and yet first nations peoples living in reservations was a real quandary for me perhaps highlighting the irony of Scotland as considering herself a welcoming nation yet an underlying culture of England bashing still pervades and our own history in the tobacco, sugar and slave trades is often left out. We are all complex nations and connected in our histories and at the end of the day - we are all human and as they say - only 6 degrees of separation...I feel I digress, where was I, oh yes....let's catch up to the here and now..

My jobs over the last 20 years have involved less water but still been based around landscapes and communities. ​Working for Community Woodlands Association took me to the 'real' Knoydart and the opportunity to support the wonderful Knoydart Forest Trust. Although not waterbased, the Trust and the whole peninsula is full of dedicated people, passionate about their community and their landscape. I love how transferable these qualities are.

​It is fantastic to see the new paddlesports centre at Pinkston Basin, Glasgow – I like to think that somehow the aspirations of the Forth & Clyde Canal Community Project - we undertook a feasibility study for a watersports centre at Firhill Basin, tried to encourage polo pitches at Pinkston and took 100s of local we’ans paddling every year; and a report I produced when working for ROCK DCM on the social inclusion benefits of an artificial whitewater course may have had added some slight influence out in the ether, tee hee…

My paddling has mostly become confined to a hobby and yet still there are always opportunities – 10 summers ago I helped restart kayaking and canoeing as part of Craignish Boat Club. Again, the people involved are dedicated and passionate; and over the years we have shared the paddling experience with most of the children in the area. In 2016, the club was recognised as SCA (Scottish Canoe Association) club of the year which was a great boost to all of us. This summer, the club is out on the water without me – our newer, homegrown coaches and assistants now leading the way. 
 
Where does time go? I am so grateful for the experience and opportunity this travel fellowship gave me even if I can’t quite believe that it is now ‘ancient history’ in the journey of my life. I am the sum of my experiences and yet I am not defined by them – they are only my interpretation of what happened. Stories, reflections and memories – snap shots of time. The experiences become part of the cells of my body and the stories part of my personal myth...
 
I am still working on becoming less of a burn out, stress head – still working on creating space in my life, letting go of old patterns of business although I do believe I have made some progress towards living my intentional path of ease. Inspired by the companies and people I met, I will remain forever passionate about creating opportunities for young people through watersports, landscapes and community.