Four Mums in a Boat

by Janette Benaddi, Helen Butters, Niki Doeg

  One of the great advantages of doing the video was that we met a lot of the Talisker team. So when we turned up two months later in La Gomera for the start of the race, they greeted us as old friends, which, when you are severely out of your depth and on the point of expiring with nerves, was a great help indeed. We’d been out to the pub with race organiser Carsten, we’d met Simon and Ollie who’d be filming in La Gomera, and they’d all heard about Helen naked in the bath.

  By the time we got back down to York and our families, we were raring to go. All we could really think and talk about was the row. And eating. We had to eat like we had never eaten before – although when we say ‘we’, it was all of us except Janette. We’d been advised that we needed to put down fat before crossing the ocean, as we would end up losing quite a lot of weight. As none of us was particularly well endowed in the first place, we needed to eat as many crisps, chips, cakes, buns, bakes and chocolate as we could before going to La Gomera.

  ‘I would shovel it in on the sofa while watching TV,’ said Helen. ‘And then feel quite sick afterwards. It is an odd, counterintuitive thing to try to put on weight. I didn’t really enjoy it very much.’

  ‘I found it hard,’ said Niki. ‘I have more or less been the same weight all my life. I found it quite difficult to pile on the pounds.’

  ‘It was just another one of those things we had to do,’ said Frances. ‘I didn’t really enjoy how it made me feel, with all my clothes being tight. But we had to be practical. We were told we’d lose up to two stone on the Atlantic, which is not great if you don’t have it to lose.’

  By now the pressure was on, and with our departure approaching Niki set about ‘Yorkshire Rows proofing’ her house.

  ‘I went into full OCD overdrive. I held back from giving Gareth a full list of absolutely everything, but I did try to make a lot of stuff a whole lot easier for him. The first thing I did was stock the freezer. It was easy for Janette; Ben was used to looking after the children, so all she really needed to do was to pack her bags and shut the front door, but I was aware that Gareth was working long hours. So I bulk-cooked stew, lamb tagine and bolognese, filling the freezer until it could take no more. Then I moved on to the children’s clothes, raiding the secondhand uniform shop, piling up extra football kits, more rugby shirts, socks, shorts and spare boots, and laid them all out in the guest room. It was just so that if he came home late from work he didn’t need to wash their clothes – he had a spare set waiting, so he could pack their bags rather than sitting there till 2 a.m. watching the tumble dryer. I wrote lists of telephone numbers and schedules, with after-school clubs, and a homework schedule. Nothing would be left to chance.

  ‘I knew Gareth would be fine. I told everyone that he’d be fine. He’d probably be inundated with ready-cooked meals from concerned neighbours and friends. I think I was doing things I thought I should be doing, rather than saying, “Do you know what, Gareth? Good luck. See you the other side.” But I was worried. Then again, perhaps I thought I was indispensable. You like to think you contribute, that you are needed.’

  With the house covered in Post-its, the freezer full of cooked meals and the spare room decked out in enough school uniform to clothe an entire other family, Niki set about organising Christmas.

  ‘I put the Christmas tree up two days before we left, which was at the end of November, but the kids really like doing the Christmas tree with me. It’s my thing. I’d put the tree up, but I couldn’t find the star for the top that Corby had made with Gareth when he was three. It’s misshapen, covered in foil, with just the tiniest bit of glitter left on it. It’s the most ugly-looking star you’ve ever seen, on a skewer stick, but it goes on our Christmas tree every year and I couldn’t find it before I went. I was so upset; the tree isn’t complete without it. I looked for it everywhere, but I was in a rush. I thought that maybe all the stuff hadn’t been brought down from the loft and that’s why I couldn’t find it. I had to leave the tree with no star on it.’

  Helen shopped like she’d never shopped before. ‘I did all the Christmas presents, the stockings, the cards, as well as Lucy’s sixteenth birthday present for 20 January. I bought her a silver bangle with a secret engraved message. But other than that, I didn’t really do a huge amount. I didn’t do a list, or sort out a whole load of phone numbers, or buy any school kit. I just closed the door and went, which is actually, I think, a testament to how well I thought they’d all cope without me. I didn’t feel like I needed to do much, other than sort out the presents.’

  Janette and Frances did nothing.

  ‘No. I did a bit of Christmas shopping,’ said Frances. ‘I bought some family Christmas presents. I didn’t manage to buy any presents for my friends. I also bought some “Santa” presents for the boys, which Mark then proceeded to give to other people. Romantically, I signed a power of attorney so that Mark could deal with my tax return and pay my January tax bill while I was away. I put the Christmas tree up, but I didn’t need to do any cooking and no one needed new clothes or anything like that.’

  ‘I didn’t even do that,’ said Janette. ‘I didn’t do anything. I left it all to Ben. However, I did update my will. And, of course, I got Ben, Safiya and James one present each. They all got the same thing: an Apple Watch!’

  As the days ticked by, we had to focus on getting everything we needed for the row. We had equipment to check, sort and pack. Fortunately, we were able to enlist the help of Lee Fudge, a former ocean rower himself. He was a safety officer for the Talisker Challenge, and he had also been helping us plan and train for the race. He’d spent numerous evenings in Niki’s kitchen going over tactics. He’d helped us plan our route and given us various tips on how to survive whatever the Atlantic decided to throw at us. But more fortunately than that, he was the only one who noticed that our survival suits were not quite up to scratch.

  ‘We’d borrowed them from HOTA,’ said Janette. ‘They are very expensive to buy, so as a cost-saving measure we asked the centre if they wouldn’t mind lending them to us for a couple of months and we promised to bring them back. Unfortunately, or fortunately, when Lee was checking them over he found a label inside them saying: FOR POOL USE ONLY. They were only demonstration suits; they were full of holes and would not save our lives at sea. At all.’ Realising our mistake, Niki was dispatched at the last minute to purchase four fully ocean-worthy outfits. ‘They cost a fortune, about £800, but there was nothing else we could do.’ Luckily, Gareth’s firm, Stanford Rhodes Wealth Management, were one of our sponsors and bought the outfits for us.

  A few days later, Helen organised an all-important preparation for the race: an angel reading for us all at her house with her friend Dawn. Although none of us particularly believed in angels, the apparition of Great-Aunty Rose on the boat in the middle of the North Sea and our growing anxiety about the row made us all decide it was a truly excellent idea. After all, when you’re in the middle of an ocean, thousands of miles from anywhere in an 8.5-metre boat, who would turn down a bit of divine intervention? Although, as Frances pointed out, knowing that you’re rowing to a certain death on day 23 of the voyage would probably put us all off from turning up at La Gomera in the first place. But, thankfully, Dawn had no such news for us. Over shepherd’s pie and Prosecco, we each chose a crystal from a collection she’d brought and then went into Helen’s candle-lit dining room for our reading. We were going to make it, she said. Phew! It was going to be tough on all of us, there would be moments when we would be miserable, moments when we’d miss our families, moments when we’d be desperate to get off the boat, but we would all pull through. We’d all be fine and we’d all make it to Antigua! Suitably fortified by her positive predictions, we had another glass of Prosecco and toasted our sure-fire future success.

  With two weeks to go before we left from La Gomera, we had one of our final, final Yorkshire Rows meetings at Janette’s house and it was decided that not only should we assign roles on board ship, but we should also agree on some communal
visions and values. If we were going to work together as a successful team during what was bound to be a testing experience, we felt we should come to some sort of agreement. This is what we wrote:

  ROSE – Our on-board values

  • We will always look after our other team members, thinking of their needs before our own.

  • We will share our feelings and thoughts with the rest of the team.

  • We will speak out in a positive manner if we feel we need to.

  • We will be sympathetic to other team members when they are having a tough time.

  • We will always do our share of duties and helping out.

  • We will listen to each other and respect each other’s views, even if they are different to our own.

  • We will celebrate together our successes along our journey.

  • We will enjoy our journey and have fun.

  • We will do our best in whatever we do on board.

  • We will always be on time for our shifts.

  And remember: the strength of our team is each individual member. The strength of each member is our team. There is no ‘I’ in ‘team’. We = power.

  Our safety word to be used when needed is ‘PEANUTS’.

  ‘Peanuts’? We’re not sure why we chose ‘peanuts’, or who it was who chose ‘peanuts’ (no one will take responsibility for it), or even why we actually needed a safety word in the first place. Clearly one of us had been reading Fifty Shades of Grey… Anyway, ‘peanuts’ it was. We all just hoped none of us would ever have to use it (and, in fact, we never did use it).

  As part of our final preparation we made a hugely important trip to see a Maggie’s Centre in Newcastle. Unfortunately, given that it had been Frances’s wonderful idea to choose the charity as one of the causes we were hoping to benefit from our row, it was sad that she wasn’t able to go that day and see what amazing work they do.

  For the rest of us, it was humbling and uplifting to meet all the staff and see them in action. And as we were given a tour of the building where they offer practical and emotional ‘kitchen-table’ and ‘peer’ support, we were lucky enough to meet a lovely chap called Matt, who had lost his leg through cancer. He was a positive and inspiring young man who seemed to be so taken by our story that he, too, wanted to row the Atlantic. We loved meeting him and spending time in his company; he was a shining example of the power of positive thinking and his extraordinary energy was something we will never forget.

  Just as we were leaving the centre Janette received a phone call that stopped her in her tracks. It was her mum calling with bad news. She asked Janette to sit down and take a breath. Her Aunty Kay had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.

  ‘It was like I had been kicked in the stomach,’ said Janette. ‘I sat down on a wall and listened to my mum, but my brain was whirring, the world was spinning. She was so full of life and she’d only just got remarried. It was a huge shock.’

  ‘She should come here,’ said Helen, giving Janette a hug.

  ‘Yes,’ said Janette, fighting back the tears. ‘Now we know why we’re trying to get a place opened in Leeds. Everyone who needs it should have a Maggie’s on their doorstep.’

  With less than a week to go, we held a farewell party – or ‘Bon Voyage Barn Dance’, as Janette decided to call it (being married to a Frenchman) – at Barmbyfields Barns, just outside York. It was not so much a fundraiser as a thank-you to all our friends and families who had supported us over the last two years.

  Just before arriving at the party, we went to Janette’s local village, Burn, where they had given us the honour of switching on their Christmas lights. Not only was it touching to be asked, we were also following in the footsteps of Yorkshire legend, Coronation Street’s Hilda Ogden (the late Jean Alexander), Mr Yorkshire, Harry Gration and York Theatre Royal’s panto dame and author Berwick Kayler. They also gave us a giant golden key and scroll to share. They bestowed upon us the honour of Sports Ambassadors for the village. They presented us with a golden oar and said they were planning on keeping the lights on until we returned safely home. Whenever that might be…

  As we got into the car to leave Burn for the party, we sat in silence as it suddenly dawned on us all that we were really going.

  The barn dance was a mad, emotional night full of toasts and hot dogs and heartfelt speeches. Corby, Aiden, Henry, Lucy and Helen’s niece and nephew, Ella and James, all got together and gathered round a rather crackling microphone and made a speech about how proud they were of their mothers going to row an ocean, and it went something like this:

  Aiden: ‘As you all know we are here to support Yorkshire Rows before they depart on an amazing journey, that is the Atlantic Ocean.’

  Lucy: ‘We are all going to miss them so much but are so proud of what they have already done and are going to achieve in the near future.’

  Corby: ‘Seeing my mum do this is so inspiring and makes me feel like I can achieve anything.’

  Henry: ‘I never thought my mum would be rowing the Atlantic, but I will always support her 100 per cent and can’t wait to see her when she comes back.’

  ‘It was so very sweet to see them all up there, I did actually cry,’ said Helen.

  Everyone danced and mingled and drank wine and bought raffle tickets. Mark Brocklehurst (a friend of Frances’s), who was a competitor in a previous Atlantic challenge, cornered each of us to tell us what an appallingly brilliant journey it was. It was the best and worst thing he had ever done.

  ‘You’ll love it,’ he said. ‘And you’ll hate it. You’ll never be indifferent. It will take you to the edge and beyond.’

  Janette chatted away to Aunty Kay, who was there with her husband, Tony. Despite her diagnosis she was being very funny about Janette’s journey, making her laugh as they wished her all the best. They said they were very proud of her for doing such an extraordinary thing. Little did Janette know, as she hugged her aunt goodbye, that this was to be the last time she would see Kay. Sadly, she died two weeks later.

  At 2 a.m., when the four of us finally sat down together with our husbands, we toasted (not for the first time): ‘To Rose and all who row in her!’

  ‘Good luck and bon voyage. I have to admit that I never thought you’d get this far,’ said Richard. ‘I am so very proud of you. We all live such short lives, and most people do normal things like work-sleep-work-sleep-work-sleep, and what our wives are doing is something supreme and I am very proud of that.’

  ‘You are all complete lunatics,’ added Ben. ‘But I believe you can do it. There is nothing you girls can’t do together.’

  ‘Four mothers, rowing 24 hours a day. It is a spectacular achievement, a huge feat. There isn’t a weak link among you,’ said Richard, raising his glass.

  Gareth smiled warmly at Niki. ‘I know you can do it. I will be with you every step of the way. I will be thinking of you every night.’

  ‘I’m not worried about you, you’ll be fine,’ said Mark, looking at Frances, sitting on the other side of the table. ‘I’m just worried that you’re going off on an adventure without me. We’ve always done things together. And now you’re going to say, “Remember this? Remember that? Remember the dolphins? The whale?” And I won’t have seen any of it. You’ll come back changed.’ And he smiled at her.

  ‘She’ll definitely come back different,’ said Richard.

  ‘You’re hoping?’ said Gareth.

  ‘She’ll come back better,’ said Richard.

  ‘What? Blonde?’ laughed Gareth.

  ‘Just better,’ repeated Richard. ‘I think we will all be… better.’

  SHIP’S LOG:

  ‘Attaining your dreams and goals does not come easy; it takes perseverance, hard work, learning, sacrifice and the passion to succeed.’

  (JANETTE/SKIPPER)

  CHAPTER 11

  The Row

  ‘I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.’

  JAMES DEA
N

  We were three days into the row and Niki had fractured her coccyx. Not that any of us knew it was that badly damaged at the time or we might have been a little more sympathetic. She was knocking back the ‘diclofuckits’ every four hours and was thankfully unable to see the vastly increasing bruise that was slowly but surely engulfing her backside. Her bum was actually black, and there were various hues of purple, blue and yellow spreading like a Turner sunset up her spine. But she refused to acknowledge it. In fact, she blanked it out, and all the while she continued to row her shifts, sitting on one buttock, with her leg hoicked up, a bit like a frog. It was obvious she was in agony. She was barely capable of talking. We all kept on saying she didn’t need to row, she should have a rest, lie down, but all she did was ignore us, swallow a couple more ‘fuckits’ and get back on the oars.

  ‘I never said how much my coccyx hurt because I didn’t want them to think that I wasn’t pulling my weight,’ said Niki. ‘I didn’t want to be “the one who was injured on day three”. And I don’t make a fuss generally about anything anyway. It’s not in my nature. But I think I coped with the pain by keeping quiet. When I’m at home I can gripe on to Gareth, because I talk to him about everything, but I will very rarely do that with anyone else, not even my parents. I would never say to them, “I’m having a rubbish time.” I don’t really share grievances. But I was in terrible pain, and I had nowhere to offload it, so I just tried to deal with it. I didn’t want to put pressure on anyone else.’