Gold Medal Flapjack, Silver Medal Life , livre ebook

Troubador Publishing Ltd - Alison Mowbray

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351 pages

English

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"Being an Olympian was not my first choice of career, or even my second."Alison Mowbray wasn't a sporty kid and thought that being good at sport was a pre-requisite for going to the Olympics. She thought she might be a doctor, a teacher, a Blue Peter presenter or maybe the first ever female naval submariner."Then at 18 I discovered rowing. From that point on, for the next 15 years, I didn't have a choice anymore."You don't choose to go to the Olympics. You lay out everything you have and let the Olympics take it - no deals, no bargains, no questions asked, no hope of return. Maybe it will be enough and the Olympics will choose you, and maybe it won't. If you thought about the number of things outside your control between yourself and your dream, you'd never start. You just think about the things you can do, the things you can control and you start doing them and keep doing them until you get there or until control is wrested from you. That's what you do. That is this book."I never planned to be inspiring so really this is just the story of how I did the things I love, the verybest I could do them, and how very far it took me. And if you too were not a sporty child, and you've never raced an Olympic final, maybe I can take you thereThis is a Silver medal life of achievement, addiction, alcoholism, anorexia and Alzheimer's. But a Gold medal story of passion and perseverance and not letting anything or anybody get between yourself and your dream. Gold Medal Flapjack, Silver Medal Life is a fascinating sports autobiography that will appeal to fans of rowing, the Olympics andsports psychology. Written 8 years after that medal winning moment, it also deals with what happens next in an athlete's life. There are many themes that will particularly resonate with women, and anyone who enjoys cooking will love Alison's flapjack recipe and the many food references throughout the book. This is a book for people who lovesports autobiographies and for those who never usually read them.

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	02 janvier 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781783066964
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

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Gold Medal Flapjack Silver Medal Life
(The autobiography of an unlikely Olympian)
Alison Mowbray
Copyright 2013 Alison Mowbray
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
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ISBN 9781783066964
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
For my mum who taught me how to cook And for Nell and Lily who are teaching me how to be an Auntie
Acknowledgements
In a way, writing this book negates the need for an acknowledgements section since most of the people I would have wanted to thank for the part they played in helping me achieve my dreams will find themselves written about at some point within these pages. What I have hopefully done therefore is create an immediate group of people who will rush out to buy this book to see if they can find themselves mentioned. This is a great plus for a book about someone of such little fame. It would therefore be wasteful of time and book sales to mention you all on this page. If you want to see if you are in this book, you are going to have to buy it and read it - in one case right to the end - to see if you can find yourself. Don t cheat and look.
What I will say is that sharing this book with some of those people has already made it worth writing. One of the first friends I showed any of this with was Jo. For Jo s 40th birthday a couple of years ago I printed out the chapters that tell the story of how we met and our time learning to row (and drink) together at Liverpool University. I tied them up with a ribbon, put them in an envelope and sent them on their way (this wasn t her only present; I m from Yorkshire, but I m not that tight). I was worried when I sent it that 1. Jo wouldn t like what I d written about her, and 2. She wouldn t like my writing full stop. I didn t hear anything back for three days, by which point I d convinced myself that she hated it, was too embarrassed to tell me it was rubbish, and that it would now forever be awkward with one of my very best friends. Instead on the fourth day I had a text telling me she loved it, had read it straight through three times without stopping, could not put it down, it had given her goose bumps and made her cry and she had had no idea that I thought all those things about her. Similarly when I sent my school friend Gail her chapters I got a text back You ve made me cry, I had no idea you thought that about me . On re-reading this I would like to point out that I made her cry in a positive way - I ve only said nice things. When people stand up and say nice things about a friend at their funeral I always hope that they also said those things to them when they were alive. It seems a bit of a waste otherwise. In a very non-morbid way (if there is a non-morbid way of talking about funerals), I hope this book prevents me having to stand up and speak at very many funerals, because they will already know.
However, there is a specific group I owe a great deal to, most of whom don t get a name check. With all my heart I would like to acknowledge and thank Penny Mavor, Tom Battye, Rachel Dulai, Nicola Moodie, Annie Thomas and Francesca Zino (and also Jo Shindler (nee Dowman) and Gail Hutchinson again) for being my practical help and positive-thinking posse in the production of this book. At the same time as I sent a first draft of this manuscript to dozens of literary agents, I fortunately had the back-up plan of sending several chapters to each of these very good friends and, using the bribery power of flapjack, got them to read chapters and give me feedback. So at the same point as I was getting dozens of rejection letters, basically telling me that I wasn t famous enough to write an autobiography (or famous enough for them to be able to sell it anyway), I also had calls, texts and e-mails from these friends telling me 1. How much they loved it and 2. Which bits they didn t love quite so much and I could cut out or change.
It s been about a year and a half to get from that point to this, the brink of sending a finished and much improved manuscript off to be published, and I really could not have done it without them. I didn t realise at the time but the seven years writing this book was the easy bit. In rowing terms all that did was get me to the start line. The hard bit was the endless sequence of things I never even knew I needed to do to turn my typed pages into an actual book. Practically these friends have helped me turn those pages into something I think I m more proud of than anything I ve ever done in my life (including winning the medal that inspired it). But emotionally I have turned myself inside out, both in terms of the effort of keeping going alongside a full-time job, and in committing to print much that I ve rarely if ever told anyone before. Every time I ve most doubted myself or what I ve written and so nearly given up on the effort of taking it to the next stage, I ve thought about their wonderful feedback or I ve had another call or e-mail encouraging me to go on. They are my friends so they were always going to tell me they loved it, but they didn t have to tell me it gave them goose bumps, or made them cry, or made them laugh, or they couldn t put it down, or they d been up half the night reading it, or could I send them more chapters.
Thank you to my editor Martin Cloake - my professional help and encouragement in the past year and a half for his sound advice and also his flexibility in letting this remain uniquely mine. Every time you read something and think it was really slick - that was probably a Martin edit. Every time you read something a bit clunky - that was likely a sentence where I ignored his advice.
Thanks to Peter Spurrier for the wonderful rowing photos that are more than the specks in the distance my parents took. And to Jerry Lebens and Tangobootcamp for the dancing pics.
Massive thanks to Olympic Gold Medallists David Hemery and Allan Wells for reading this book, writing such wonderful Forwards and for their encouragement and feedback. I will always remember waking up to a text on New Year s morning from David saying he d just spent the last week of his holiday reading my book out loud to his wife and Wow! We loved it! and Allan taking the time to call me and spend about an hour on the phone after he d read it. I feel honoured and thrilled that they have even read this book, let alone contributed to the text.
Thank you to my brother and sister, John and Catherine Mowbray. Most people who have read this have asked What do your family think? Are they OK about you publishing all that? When I gave my siblings the first draft to read (as their Christmas present two Christmases ago - yes I really am that tight), I totally expected that they would want me to revise some sections (particularly the sections about them) but they have been totally accepting and asked me to change nothing. In fact again, sharing this with them has already made it worth writing. As you read this story you ll see we ve not always been close. John and I were already doing better the past few years but when I gave the draft to him I didn t expect that he would spend the next three days reading it, right in front of me, every spare moment, quoting sections occasionally in a teasing brother but totally appreciative sort of way. Or that when he d finished he would say I feel embarrassed, I never knew anything about you. I never even knew about the rowing really. I m a PE teacher and I love sport and I never even asked. I don t know what I thought you were doing all those years. Catherine already knew pretty much everything but I m glad to have been able to tell her story as well as my own. She is an Olympian in her own way.
Finally, thank you to everyone who has ever heard me speak and come up to me at the end, or e-mailed me afterwards, to tell me the impact this story has had on you and how it has helped you. Even if it was to say, as often happens, I feel so inspired. I don t know what I m inspired to do yet, but I m going to do something! The first few dozen of you gave me the confidence to start writing this down, but I ve needed every one of the rest of you to keep me going to this end.
Foreword
I was pleased to have Alison Mowbray become one of our speakers and coaches for our educational charity 21st Century Legacy and the Be the Best you Can Be! programme. Now, having read this book, I couldn t be more delighted.
With great pleasure, I highly recommend her autobiography. It is true that life can be viewed as a journey. Alison takes us on hers, allowing the reader to see what it takes to explore and fulfil some of our human potential. Her observational and descriptive powers enable us to see and feel deeply into her experiences. Most will be awed by the volume and intensity of an international rower s training regime.
With great humour and remarkable honesty, Alison allows us to travel through her life with her. Some of us will be able to clearly identify with the obsessive nature of an individual with a powerful dream. Some will find it incomprehensible that anyone would put themselves though so much. The extent to which Alison ha