Four Mums in a Boat by Janette Benaddi

Author:Janette Benaddi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

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.

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