Sea Change - Ian Dickens

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breathless lunges, they promised that nothing untoward was about to happen. They just wanted me to wear something a little different for whatever awaited me in the club.

      Out from a suit bag came the outfit of a Royal Navy ordinary seaman, circa 1942, and as my suit, shirt, trousers and tie were stuffed away, I was transformed into a jolly Jack Tar with huge bell bottoms and jaunty cap.

      Dressed as a sailor out for an evening in deepest, gayest Soho. Ha, bloody ha!

      I was led to a door and, amid a lot of stage coughing and banging, it swung open and I was pushed through, to be greeted by a great cheer.

      I stood, mouth agape, taking in the scene in front of me. I had anticipated that there would be a bit of a work send-off and had expected to see familiar faces from my office, the agency and one or two other companies I worked closely with. What I hadn’t expected was the breadth of the turn-out and the generosity that such a commitment involved.

      As I scanned the room, I could see photographers David Bailey and Bob Carlos Clarke. Alongside them were Richard and Susan Young, Jane Bown and Barry Lategan, chatting amiably with Carol White, head of the Elite Premier model agency. Judy Leden (who hates coming to London from her Derbyshire home) was there, as was Charlie Shea-Simonds, leader of the Diamond Nine Tiger Moth display team. There were Damon and Georgie Hill, giggling at my outfit, mingling with Ron Smith, who had come up from the Isle of Wight especially for the night. By the time he got home it would be way past midnight. Mountaineer Paul Deegan was there; so was TV presenter Chris Packham. Everywhere I looked, I saw the faces of people I had worked alongside over the years, and they all had happy, smiling, laughing faces, genuinely pleased to be able to share the moment.

      There were speeches, of course, and as I stood on a chair I spotted more and more precious people who had made time in important schedules or travelled long distances to say goodbye. I was truly humbled by what I saw and taken aback by such simple and genuine signs of friendship. It meant a huge amount to me and I was moved to tears by such kindness.

      The party flowed and everyone seemed to have a great time as I went from hug to kiss, handshake to embrace, toast to banter and back to hug again. One hard-boiled ad man said goodbye with tear-filled eyes, clearly expecting me to be washed overboard somewhere far away, and saw this as the last opportunity to say a proper farewell.

      It was a fantastic night – especially as Anne had been smuggled into the club (thank heavens the stripper fear had been unfounded) and she was as touched as I was to witness the generous outpouring of support that filled the room.

      Perhaps I had become too close to the job and, as it became an all-enveloping task, I had been unable to stop and appreciate the numerous good qualities of the people around me. That extended to my family as well, and the exhausted and drained father who sat silent in front of a large glass of red wine at the supper table every evening, too tired to speak or truly listen to the playground news that was being shared with him, had clearly missed so much.

      Bugger. Maybe I was wrong to leave after all.

      Too late. The deal was done, the letters written, the lawyers happy, the Germans ecstatic, the President sad and I guessed that my still-warm seat had designs already on it.

      If the sole result of my decision was to witness such honest declarations of support, then that alone was already enough, even if the race itself were to turn into some sort of ghastly nightmare. The leaving party had been a bit like attending my own funeral, where I could look down and witness the people I care about, saying all the nice things that the pressure of everyday life normally holds back.

       4

       GETTING A PROPER JOB

      I had a couple more days of work in London before I was formally due to leave, but I took advantage of the last holiday allowance and headed off for a final break with the family. We rented a simple little cottage beside the sea in Norfolk. The four of us pottered over picnics on Holkham beach, strolled through the narrow streets of Holt, sat on a steam train to Sheringham and had long barbecues on the pebbles at Salthouse. Some gentle sailing through the muddy creeks out into Blakeney Pit was a fun prelude to the challenges ahead and as we headed out into the North Sea chop off Blakeney Point, I was urged to pay attention to the skills of the skipper at the helm.

      There was a lot of ribald banter from my cousin and her husband as I trimmed the small tan sails of their tiny open boat, and they were laughingly adamant that the shingle spit just off the starboard beam was a test equal to that of the Cape of Good Hope. Marion and Jonathan may well have been right, although I imagined that off the African coast there would probably be fewer boats crammed with day-tripping, ice-cream-licking seal-spotters watching us slip purposefully by.

      Behind the happy-family-on-holiday image lay a growing momentum of departure. We all knew that the moment was fast approaching where serious goodbyes would have to be said and no one wanted to face up to the prospect. We pretended it would never come and put on brave faces, laughed overeager laughs, and the hands that gripped mine on either side held on with extra strength as Holly and Michael refused to let go. The goodnight hugs were extra firm as the days were counting down but, while they struggled, my focus remained firmly on the adventure ahead.

      We were able to test the emotions again in a trial separation, when I went off to complete the last part of my training, competing in four races around the British Isles. The entire fleet came together for the first time and we headed for the start line of the first twenty-four-hour event.

      The eight entries in the Clipper Ventures race – each a sixty-foot, cutter-rigged ocean-going yacht – looked the part, badged up with sponsors’ names, along with the colours of the eight UK cities who were supporting the boats. On board London Clipper, with our blue and red stripes, the crew who would share so much together over the next year set sail as a team for the first time.

      Unfortunately, our skipper was not with us. Stuart Gibson was the name the website listed as the man in charge and the fact that he was currently paddling a sea kayak around the frozen wastes of Alaska suggested he was not shy for a bit of adventure.

      As it turned out, circumstances worked in our favour. A missing leader forced us to work harder to forge a team and a really strong spirit of togetherness began to take hold on board. The drafted-in training skippers commented on it as we bashed around the English Channel, rounded Land’s End and fought our way up the Bristol Channel, before returning to Southampton via Plymouth. By the time we returned from the final race to Jersey with Stuart now with us, we were well on the way to establishing a solid bedrock of stability among the eight individuals signed up to go the whole way around the planet.

      Just like the earlier training, I was amazed and moved at the sacrifices people had made in order to get on board. We were a real mixed bag of individuals from a broad range of backgrounds, jobs and disciplines, with ages spanning forty years.

      There was Ellie Matthewman, an A&E nurse turned marketing consultant who had sold her flat to raise the funds. With a buyer found in July, she had to move out and now listed her UK address simply as ‘London Clipper, Shamrock Quay, Southampton’. All her possessions were in her mum’s attic, the boot of her car or on board the boat. Already this was her home.

      There was Jane Gibson, a young PA who wanted to get away from a desk in London, see more of the planet and hone her small-boat racing skills. She too would sell her flat to pay for it all and, while the vital buyer was sought, her parents agreed to underwrite the participation fee.

      There was Alistair Baxter, already known to one and all as Ali Baba. A larger-than-life, shaven-headed, fanatical Arsenal supporter, he was the sort of chap you would cross the road to avoid if you saw him heading out of the tube station on his way to his beloved team’s Highbury ground. But crossing the road would have led you to miss out on meeting the most gentle, perceptive, deep-thinking, funny, caring, gregarious and huge-hearted football supporter in London. Flogging advertising space for a

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