by Gil McNeil
GERVASE PHINN
Professor Gervase Phinn is an author and poet. He is also a freelance lecturer, educational consultant, visiting professor of education and school inspector, and was voted Speaker of the Year in 2004. His books include The Other Side of the Dale, Over Hill and Dale, Head Over Heels in the Dale, and Up and Down in the Dales (which won the Customer Choice Award at the Spoken Books Awards), plus several children’s anthologies and poetry books. Gervase is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, York. He is married and a father of four.
JAMES LANDALE
James Landale is an experienced journalist who currently works as chief political correspondent for BBC News 24. Before joining the corporation in December 2002, he spent ten years at The Times. James has also messed around in boats most of his life. In 2000–01, he sailed from the UK to Hawaii in a round-the-world yacht race sponsored by The Times, his weekly dispatches describing the realities of life at sea. He lives with his wife, Cath, and daughter, Ellen, in south-west London.
SIR ROBIN KNOX-JOHNSTON
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston joined the Merchant Navy in 1957. In 1969, after 312 days at sea, he became the first person to sail around the world single-handedly and non-stop, in his 32-foot ketch Suhaili. In 1994 he won the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest circumnavigation under sail: 75 days. He was president of the Sail Training Association, a youth development organisation, for nine years. He lives in Devon and still sails competitively.
JULIE MYERSON
Julie Myerson was born in Nottingham in 1960, read English at Bristol University and worked for the National Theatre and Walker Books before becoming a full-time writer. She has published five novels: Sleepwalking, The Touch, Me the Fat Man, Laura Blundy and Something Might Happen (which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2003). Her latest book is HOME: The Story of Everyone Who Ever Lived in Our House (HarperCollins). She and her partner Jonathan have three children, all of whom have grown up in the house in Clapham
DREW KAMPION
Drew Kampion is a former editor of Surfer, Surfing, Wind Surf and Wind Tracks magazines. He is the author of The Book of Waves, Stoked: A History of Surf Culture, The Way of the Surfer, The Lost Coast and Waves: Echoes of the Storm. A regular contributor to The Surfer’s Journal and other magazines, he is currently American editor of The Surfer’s Path, the first ‘green’ surf magazine. Married with two children, he lives on an island in Washington State.
MIKE GAYLE
Previously an agony uncle, Mike Gayle is a freelance journalist who has contributed to a variety of magazines including FHM, Sunday Times Style and Cosmopolitan. His five novels: My Legendary Girlfriend, Mr Commitment, Turning Thirty, Dinner For Two and His ’n’ Hers have all been in the Sunday Times Top Ten bestsellers list. His new novel, Brand New Friend, is published in 2005.
LIBBY PURVES
Libby Purves is the author of ten novels, the latest being Acting Up, and various non-fiction works, including an account of sailing round Britain with children aged five and three, One Summer’s Grace. She is also known as a Times columnist and presenter of Radio 4’s Midweek. She was educated in Thailand, France, South Africa and Tunbridge Wells, and finally at St Anne’s College, Oxford. Her children are now students.
SARAH WHITELEY
Sarah Whiteley is a former British, English and Junior European Champion surfer. She has spent the last ten years travelling and competing all over the world, searching for perfect waves along the way. Sarah has recently set up Walking on Waves surf school at Saunton Sands in north Devon with her partner Dave Meredith (www.walkingonwaves.co.uk).
RUSSELL CELYN JONES
Russell Celyn Jones is the author of five novels, including Soldiers and Innocents (David Highäm Prize), The Eros Hunter (Society of Authors Award) and Surface Tension. His new novel, Ten Seconds from the Sun, is published in 2005. He is a staff reviewer for The Times and the Course Director of the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, London University. He was a Booker Prize judge in 2002.
PETER HILL
Peter Hill is a Glasgow-born artist and writer. In 2002 he exhibited his fictional artworks in the Sydney Biennale. In 2003 his book Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper was launched at the Edinburgh International Festival. His contribution to this anthology is drawn from his latest book, Ocean Necklace: Journeys to the Lighthouses of Australia and New Zealand. Peter Hill is the art critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and senior lecturer in the School of Creative Arts University of Melbourne.
ERICA WAGNER
Erica Wagner was born in New York and lives in London; she is the literary editor of The Times. Her stories have been widely anthologised and broadcast on the radio. Her books are Gravity: Stories, and Ariel’s Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the Story of Birthday Letters.
ALLAN WEISBECKER
Allan Weisbecker is a life-long surfer, novelist, screenwriter and award-winning photojournalist. His memoir, In Search of Captain Zero, reflects his profound love for the sea, which was passed to him by his father, an all-around waterman and poet. His short story in this anthology was inspired by his respect for commercial fishermen. Allan lives at the end of the road in outback Costa Rica, overlooking his own private perfect wave. For more of Allan’s sea-related writings (and photographs) go to his website, www.aweisbecker.com. His newsletter about life in paradise is free.
JOSEPH O’CONNOR
Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin. His books include the novels Cowboys and Indians (Whitbread Prize shortlist), Desperadoes, The Salesman and Inishowen. His most recent novel Star of the Sea received international acclaim and has sold upward of six hundred thousand copies to date. A number one bestseller in Britain and Ireland, it won the Prix Littéraire Européen Madeleine Zepter for European Novel of the Year, the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Honorary ‘Hall of Fame’ Award, Italy’s Premio Giuseppe Acerbi for Literary Fiction, France’s Prix Millepages for Foreign Fiction, the Irish Post Award for Literature, a citation on the New York Public Library’s prestigious annual ‘25 Books to Remember’, an American Library Association ‘Notable Book’ listing, and was first runner-up in the British Book Awards ‘Best Read’ Category (voted by viewers of Channel 4’s Richard and Judy Book Club programme). Star of the Sea is to be made into a film.
PiggyBankKids
PiggyBankKids is a charity that creates opportunities for children and young people who would otherwise miss out.
It is an umbrella charity that runs a number of projects, often in partnership with other charities. All its work is in the UK.
PiggyBankKids’s work includes:
The Jennifer Brown Research Fund
The Jennifer Brown Research Fund has created a new research laboratory in Edinburgh to solve pregnancy difficulties and save newborn lives. The fund finances four separate research projects – looking at pre-eclampsia, early labour problems, curing blindness in premature babies and reducing incidences of brain damage in premature babies.
PiggyBankKids has recently launched a new popular appeal to raise a further £1 million to continue support for this research. Designed around the theme of babies smiling, the appeal will combine ‘Smile’ with ‘Million’ to become the ‘Search for a Smillion’ campaign, and will be featured on our website and in our newsletters during 2005.
The Big Night In
Launched in 2004 this fundraising initiative invites people to host a party or an event at home. Our next Big Night In is scheduled for Thursday 10 November 2005. All money raised during the Big Night In goes directly to projects ranging from the Jennifer Brown Research Fund to mentoring and family support services and charities focusing on improving sports provision for vulnerable young people.
Mentoring and volunteering
PiggyBankKids works with a number of charity partners supporting the mentoring of young people providing fundraising, PR and marketing advice. To support this work we published Moving On Up, edited by Sarah Brown, where famous people wrote about t
he mentors who had most influenced their lives. Free copies of Moving On Up were sent to every state and independent secondary school in the UK.
Child Poverty
PiggyBankKids has given grants to a number of charities including one-parent families and family service units, and edited two anthologies of stories, Magic and Summer Magic, both published by Bloomsbury, with royalties going to one-parent families.
Sports Provision
PiggyBankKids is supporting Special Olympics Great Britain – which provides sports facilities for young people with learning difficulties – with the publication of this book.
You can read more about PiggyBankKids projects at www.piggybankkids.org
MISSION OF SPECIAL OLYMPICS
The mission of Special Olympics is to provide a year-round programme of sports training and competition for people with a learning disability, giving each person, regardless of their ability, the opportunity to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy and participate in a sharing of skills and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community.
BACKGROUND
Special Olympics was founded in the USA in 1968 and now has programmes in more than 150 countries throughout the world.
Special Olympics Great Britain was established in 1978 and annually caters for over 7,000 athletes. It has 600 registered coaches and 2,000 volunteers actively and regularly taking part in England, Scotland and Wales.
Special Olympics GB is a Registered Charity (no. 800329).
SPORTS TRAINING AND COMPETITION
Special Olympics seeks to provide the highest possible quality of coaching and competition for its athletes. Athletes are able to choose which sports they would like to participate in from a range of more than twenty-six summer and winter sports.
Special Olympics world games are organised every two years, alternating between summer and winter games. At the 1999 World Summer Games, GB was the largest team from outside the USA, with 147 athletes competing in fourteen sports. In 2003 the World Summer Games was held in Dublin and SOGB sent a team of 260.
Special Olympics GB organises national summer games every four years. In the intervening years local, regional and national single-sport competitions are staged. SOGB also has the opportunity to enter teams into European Special Olympics events.
STRUCTURE OF SPECIAL OLYMPICS GB
The majority of Special Olympics training and competition is organised by a network of more than 130 locally based groups. Groups also affiliate to one of ten regions in England (corresponding to the Sport England Regions), eight regions in Scotland or to Special Olympics Wales.
WHAT MAKES SPECIAL OLYMPICS SPECIAL?
All Special Olympics competition is ‘banded’. This allows all athletes the opportunity for achievement based on their own level of ability. This philosophy is carried right through to the selection of teams for international events, where all athletes and not just the elite have the chance to be chosen to represent GB.
Special Olympics therefore gives opportunities for athletes with a learning disability of all ability levels. Apart from the normal Special Olympics programme in team and individual sports, Special Olympics also offers Unified Sports to promote the inclusion of athletes with a learning disability into mainstream sport, and the Motor Activities Training Programme for people with profound or multiple disabilities.
EMPOWERMENT
Special Olympics is committed to the process of empowering people with a learning disability and is seeking to involve its athletes in decision-making processes at all levels of the organisation. Special Olympics also provides opportunities for its athletes to qualify as sports leaders, coaches and officials.
PARTNERSHIPS
Special Olympics GB is committed to working in partnership with other agencies to further promote opportunities for people with a learning disability.
OUR GOAL IS CLEAR
To involve 5,000 new athletes, 1,000 new volunteers and 400 new coaches by the end of 2006, and to raise £1 million to fund this aggressive growth. This will enable us to appoint a much-needed regional development structure at grassroots level, including appointment of regional development officers to support our indefatigable volunteers and increase awareness of our programme and the abilities of those with learning disabilities. We want to increase outreach to schools and universities, both mainstream and learning disability, and promote attitudes of acceptance and inclusion of people with learning disabilities in the community.
For further information please visit www.specialolympicsgb.org or contact the National Development Office at 18 Grosvenor Gardens, London SWIW ODH. Telephone: 020 7824 7800. Fax: 020 7824 7801. Email: [email protected]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Our grateful thanks to the authors who have contributed to this collection, and to their agents; to everyone at Ebury Press, especially Gail Rebuck, Hannah MacDonald, Sarah Bennie, Rae Shirvington, Fiona Maclntyre and Claire Kingston; Chris Hooper and Karen Bunton at Special Olympics Great Britain; and the PiggyBankKids Board of Trustees, Swraj Paul, Mary Goudie, David Boutcher and Helen Scott Lidgett.
Personal thanks are due to Gordon Brown; Joe McNeil; John and Sally Tagholm; Sarah Coombs; Margaret Foster; and Anne-Marie Piper.
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