Maiden Light – Dare to dream
‘Everyone has dreams; few of us realise half of them. Tracy had a dream so vast it was beyond all but a few to appreciate what it was, what it could be. The force that made the dream come true was Tracy; it was her obsession and she has managed over the past four years to forge it into a world-scale production involving dozens of people in hundreds of roles, whilst capturing the hearts of hundreds of thousands more.
And, while she never intended that Maiden would self-consciously wave the flag for women that, inevitably, has happened. More importantly, though, she has shown that with faith, with honour and with courage, anything is possible.’ [1]
Tracy Edwards wanted to be part of the crew in a Whitbread Round the World Race yacht in 1989 but it was made crystal clear to her that women only sailed in this race as cooks. She decided that she would, in that case, have to get her own boat and have an all-female crew. The entire sailing establishment took this to be a joke to begin with and did their best to laugh her out of town. In the end, not only did she come good on her promise but she gave the men a serious run for their money and only just missed winning her class. She received many accolades, including a MBE, for her extraordinary achievement. It’s an amazing story - and it’s real.
This is what it is – first, you have to have a dream. But to have a dream, first you have to dare to dream. You have to believe that it could – possibly – be possible. And then you have to start to have a little inkling of an idea that it might be possible for *you* and only then can you start to try to work out how you are going to get there.
These days it’s much easier in general for women to believe that they can achieve more. At least, you would think so. But what if you come from an area where teenage pregnancy is high and life on benefits seems to be a perfectly reasonable career choice, and one taken by your mother and your sisters before you? What if you don’t know any girls personally who stayed in school to the end, never mind went to university? What if the cultural expectations – spoken or unspoken – are that you will get married and produce heirs and that will literally be your entire life, with no option to deviate? What if the people you see on the television and on social media seem to have lives so galactically different to your own that you gave up dreaming at about the same time that you realized that no one ever seems to get out of your town? What then?
I was really lucky. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth – far from it - but I was born white, in England, into a seriously hard-working family who had had wealth which the generation before had (literally) gambled entirely away. It’s a long and pretty tragic tale that I won’t bore you with. My parents were hell-bent on making sure that our lives would be better than their own.
They strived – worked every single day (literally) – to make sure that my sister and I got the best education that they could source for us. We were also lucky, as young women, to have some extraordinary role models and we were absolutely not brought up with any sense of girls not being exactly as good as men – if not better – when they put their minds to it.
Me, age about 6. My aunt Debbie (R) was another fierce role model - smart and beautiful.
My mum worked just as hard – if not more so, to be honest – as my dad. She also somehow managed to be an attentive mother to us two girls and always worked really hard – often roping us in to help in some way. She opened a care home (definitely not with my father although I’m not sure to what degree it was against my father’s wishes) which ran for a while alongside the pub that they owned and we lived in – before it became quickly more profitable than the pub. She would work 12 hour shifts in the care home and then come home to the pub, have a quick wash and get changed, put some lippy on and go and serve behind the bar alongside my father. At various stages of my childhood, my mum was also taking in washing from old people, running a meals-on-wheels service, selling a variety of things to make extra money. She made saddle pads for horses at one point – I remember them selling very well through an advertisement she had placed in the Horse and Hound magazine. Anything to make money (within reason). My sister and I were both envious of our friends’ stay-at-home mothers who were there to make jam sandwiches when they got home from school. What we didn’t really twig at the time was that we had a mother who was – very quietly – building a little empire. She was making her dreams come true. No one had told her that she couldn’t do it because she was a woman – no one that she had taken seriously, after all. It definitely rubbed off on us although it didn’t always feel like a blessing at the time.
My sister and I didn’t have much sense of our gender being a hindrance to us. We went to good schools and we learned about some strong women – heroines floated out of books: Amelia Earhart; Marie Curie; Mary Seacole; Boudicca, Emmeline Pankhurst, Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale, Jeanne d’Arc. The ball-breakers of Dallas and Dynasty were thankfully offset by women like Tracy Edwards were making the headlines and winning awards. Margaret Thatcher was our Prime Minister. Strong women forging careers were nonetheless – in most communities - very much the exception and not the norm. I had a sharp, elegant grandmother who absolutely knew her own mind and who only praised me for my intelligence. As far as she was concerned, that – and a nicely turned ankle, would get a girl a very long way. I worked hard.
Me (aged about 18) with my mother, Bobbie
Honestly, I hated school but I was blessed with endless curiosity and I loved reading. That combination was always respected in our household and homework time was fiercely protected. I had little self-belief, but I knew that women had done the things I was doing before me. I knew women who had done these things before me. I had role-models. I could stand on the shoulders of giants.
My achievements in life are tiny in comparison to Tracy Edwards. I have never broken glass ceilings like she has. I have sailed across oceans but that is where the comparison begins and ends. She is amazing and I have been in awe for over 30 years.
When I realized that she had launched the Maiden Factor and had set about raising funds to support girls in education, what I had to do was a complete no-brainer for me.
I want to help girls dream of better things. I want girls to aspire to achieve, and not just to have bottoms like Kim Kardashian. Positive body image is important, but what goes on between your ears is much more important than how you look. I want girls everywhere to treasure their education and understand just how powerful it can be. I want girls to be curious, to ask questions, to challenge the established norms in their world. I want girls to believe that they can grow up to be Tracy Edwards, or even more extraordinary.
Me at the helm of SV Cesarina, our S&S Swan 55, somewhere off the coast of Panama before our Pacific crossing in 2017
The Maiden Light Collection
I already had a collection of sunrise paintings in my head back in the summer– it is such a powerful symbol of new beginnings and it felt so appropriate for me, launching myself into my brand new world when I left my day job to paint full time. I too had dared to dream, had worked really hard, had decided to do something out of the ordinary…
I had a brainwave though in early September – if I could pour my own light and courage and faith into these paintings, why not see if I could also weave the strength of other women into them as well? Sailors are among the bravest of all people (alongside mountain climbers, healthcare workers, pilots, steeplejacks, rig divers…) – full of blind faith and respect for Mother Nature.
Going to sea is an act of faith and courage, every time. You trust that the seas will be kind to you, particularly when you are crossing an ocean. You can choose whether or not to sail out into rough weather when you are still in port, but when land is more than 1000 miles in any direction, you have to hope that your boat will be able to withstand whatever Mother Nature and Poseidon choose to throw at it. Sometimes, it’s a lot. It’s like Life. And sometimes it is horrible, especially in the dark.
I’ve held on tight through some really tough night passages, where the waves seemed to grow ever bigger and the wind howled through the rigging. In the dark, when all you can see is the spray lit by your navigation lights and the occasional wall of water crashing over the deck, and your ears are full of whistling and clanging and creaking, you pray to gods previously unrecognized for your safe passage. So far, those prayers have all been answered. And often, the answer seems to come in the form of the sun beginning to rise – a soft dawn light threading into the darkness, proving to you that you are still afloat, still alive, still moving.
I reached out to my fellow female sailors and they answered me with their tales and their beautiful images of sunrises. The Maiden Light collection has turned into a collective project with many contributors – including Tracy Edwards herself. I feel very blessed. Each of my paintings has captured the fresh hope of a new day after a challenging period of darkness. They are literally – as well as metaphorically – bringing the sunshine. Each one is a talisman for a new beginning.
I can’t wait to share this all with you.
‘Galapagos sunrise’ - 40cm x 40cm, oil on stretched canvas
On Thursday 19th November 2020, I launch this collection of paintings. Some are very small, some are a little larger. Most are in oil but there are some small watercolours too. They are all a good size to fit on the walls of wherever you live, however big your dwelling is. 75% of the sale price of each painting will go direct to the Maiden Factor. I am donating all my time in this project to support this charity and just covering my costs. I am supporting a team of women, sailing an iconic boat (Maiden herself) around the world again, bringing education and a message of hope and possibility to young women and children everywhere. The magic of Maiden sails on. Tracy wrote to me that Maiden (the boat) has that effect on people, but I don’t think it is the boat– I think it is the message that you can achieve whatever you set your mind to, but first of all you have to dream that it is possible.
I really hope that you will help me to support this amazing charity. Even if you do not wish to purchase a painting yourself, you could please help me by forwarding the details of this collection to people you know who might. Every little tiny effort will make a difference.
With faith, with honour and with courage, anything is possible…
Very many thanks in advance for all your support, and thank you for reading. Let me know if you have any questions…
[1] Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Maiden by Tracy Edwards & Tim Madge, 1990