I sail through the air like a bird before landing with an almighty ‘splosh’, into cold, dark and wet.
“SWIM”, I hear and I clamber to get to the top, my arms trying desperately to claw the surface. My mouth opens but makes no sound; water is everywhere. I open my eyes and see his big, hairy legs, standing on the side. I rise again and hear the angry voice, “SWIM”. I want to do as he says, I want to please, but nothing is working. I thrash around but it’s not happening. I try and try to stay on top of the water but it’s everywhere and I cannot get to the side. I can see it. I can see the legs but they seem so far away. Everything is heavy. The water will not go away. My body hurts, my arms are tired, my legs won’t work any more.
I try to scream but the water fills my nose, my ears, my head. I cannot breathe. As I go under again I think I hear him yell “S W I M” but I can’t be sure. I can see the legs standing there. They do not move. My eyes close. No more yelling.
I am coughing and retching. I feel embarrassed; I have been a bit sick. I cannot stop shaking. There is lots of shouting and yelling. A man is crouching beside me, his big hand is on me and he is really cross with him. He is saying things that make me more frightened, I can hear his really angry voice in response. I know this is not good. I know I will be punished for not doing as I’ve been told. I want to move but want to stay still, stay there, stay safe. I know what’s waiting for me when I go through the changing room door…
I am four. 
It’s many years later, yet I am still shocked by my reaction as I write this. The recollection is so vivid, the colours, the smells, the emotions, the sounds. At four years old, from that moment – the moment of welcoming nothingness – I learnt silent screaming, outright terror, fallibility, self-reliance and ultimately to stay safe.
I shower so water never touches my face, I avoid swimming pools unless I can stand up in them, I paddle in sea water no more than 3 inches deep. I watch from a large boat, deck chair or shore as friends dive head first into blue-green water. My fear condemns me to the position of watcher and waiter. 
Pretending that I am fine to stay dry but, inside, dealing with the mix of jealousy, self-loathing and anger.
And then I meet Craig and one of the first memories we share is of a public information advertisement that the Government of the time was prone to inflict on the population. Craig remembers it word for word and copies the accents with precisional accuracy. I am in tears of laughter and it is a real bonding moment. The advert is “learn to Swim”. And of course it would be the perfect time to explain that I haven’t learned to swim but I am embarrassed and still wanting to impress, so I say nothing. A few weeks later, and as friends, we take a trip to the West of Uganda, as Craig has some diplomatic reason to visit a prison near Fort Portal. We are staying in the beautiful Ndali lodge, in Kibale Forest. 
Perched on the side of an old volcanic crater ridge, Ndali also has a private lake at the base of the crater. So when Craig suggests that we hire the (only) rowing boat, I agree. Perhaps this is the point, when it’s just we two in the middle of a crater lake, that friendship may turn to romance? Reality dawns when we are standing by the side of the murky water, the Colobus monkeys shaking the trees with laughter. We are going out on a sliver of a canoe, small enough for only two people and rackety enough to have been there since God was a boy. But I am in full show-off bravado mode and clutch my overly large camera bag for comfort as I gingerly sit down. 
We push-off, Craig seems to expertly wield the paddles and in no time at all we are away from shore heading like some Victorian steam boat towards the middle of the lake. Just as my anxiety is subsiding, I become aware that my feet are damp; err, they are definitely getting wet and I look down to see, to my horror, the swirling green of the lake comfortably filling the bottom of the canoe. Surely not?!! No. Its got to be my crazy imagination. It is coming in, it’s not the splash of canoe paddles. “Craig”, I practically shout, “water is coming into the boat” He glances down, and laughs, “Yes, we might have to swim for shore”. Even at this point, where I can feel the terror rise, I still don’t want to admit I cannot swim. “What about my camera, it will be ruined”. ” Haven’t you got insurance”? he responds calmly. Only now do I have to confront my reality. Only now do I confess. And I feel so ashamed. He responds by telling me to bail as fast as I can and, somehow, miraculously manages to get us back to the safety of shore. I am astounded that we did not see the hole at the bottom of the boat before we set off. And although I’m a bit shaken, I’m laughing as we trudge back up to the lodge while he regales “Learn to Swim” once again.
Determined to make sure that I don’t pass on my fear of water, I take Roscoe to a Mother and Baby swimming class when he’s just 6 weeks old. By the time he is 18 months, he can only go with Craig as I can no longer keep up. When he is two and a bit, I nervously watch as Craig takes him into the warm Bajan sea water so they can swim with the turtles.
Roscoe is shrieking with delight and as the boat bobs up and down, I realise that I am going to miss out if I don’t sort out what is a completely irrational fear. But the years pass and I am relegated to the side once more as they jump into pools, career down water-slides, run into the sea. Roscoe barely hiding his irritation that I am unable to join in.
Then comes the side effects of my cancer. To take out my lymph nodes, the consultant surgeons have to cut into the nerves and muscle surrounding my neck and shoulder. Some damage is done and as it turns out I am having problems with raising my left arm as my rotator cuff has stopped working and my Levator scapulae is so knotted that it’s making my Trapezious do its job. I find myself in the warm waters of the hydrotherapy pool doing exercises to get the ball of nerves to loosen and these muscles back to work.
I like this warmth and its great to be able to move my arm more freely. Water is now no longer an enemy; it is part of my support system to get better.
And so, emboldened and enlightened, I take a big deep breath, put my pride and fear to one side and sign up at our local gym. Every Sunday morning, I meet Vicky, and we slide into the cooler waters of the pool where she encourages me to put my head underwater, breathe though my nose and swim.
It’s not easy learning to put a long-term fear to one side. And some weeks it’s easier than others. Thankfully Vicky has infinite patience, delivers the right amount of encouragement and has a command voice of steel. Today, I almost didn’t go. I got caught in traffic, had left my gym card behind and it almost seemed just too darned difficult. But I talked myself off the ledge, got into my swimming ‘cossie’, snapped my goggles over my head, gritted my teeth and got into that pool.
And now I’ve ‘come clean’ and shared this, I’m going to have to continue. I will front crawl the length of the pool by lesson 10.
For it turns out that – for me – the fear of admitting failure to do something so simple is far greater than the fear of the water itself.
I talk about Scottish Morton rolls, close in texture and taste to French baguettes but in a high round crisp roll dusted with a light touch of flour, stuffed with butter and honey or spicy square sausage or bacon and runny egg. This recollection makes my taste buds tingle and my salivary glands work overtime. In this one discussion, my eyes are opened to how bread is a metaphor for home. And that home is very different for everyone in the room. 27 differing points of view, each one valid, each one connected and rooted to that taste-memory of comfort, safety, family.
We are all foreign to each other. Cast in our own small island, keen to be listened to, liked, loved, counted for and understood.
and decide that it is only our point of view which has validity and truth.
I went back into work this week. Scheduled to meet a Shell senior executive, first, I found myself standing shoulder to shoulder with all my other colleagues in our canteen turned conference room, listening to the news that the decision has been made to close down our HQ campus and move all activity to London by the end of 2016. And that the voluntary redundancy process starts in May with the compulsory process to follow thereafter. None of this comes as a surprise to any of us in the room. Like other companies, operating in low dollar priced oil, Shell need to trim their costs. In addition, they also have the additional pressure of recouping some of the £45bn they have spent acquiring BG Group. And more broadly, the energy industry is undergoing another seismic shift, an urgent need for a lower and more productive cost base and more innovative thinking to secure cleaner and more easily replicable energy sources for all. Our Townhall meeting explained context and rationale, the leaders were open, engaged and responsive. The respect and care they demonstrated goes a long way to softening such difficult news. I feel proud to have belonged, to still belong. And my loyalty is shifting, away from the old and embracing the new.
Sometimes loyalty is not earned – “My parents always voted this way”. “My friends always go to this venue”. “We always go to the supermarket closest to home” etc. These are cases where loyalty is the default position, leading to complacency and sometimes malpractice.
Demonstrated by the extent that leaders will blindly and categorically refute wrong doing within their command structure and will actively seek to apportion blame elsewhere. A situation where right and wrong and the personal values which bind the 23 pages of
I don’t believe that all of these police officers blindly follow their leaders when untrue stories are being concocted and shared. I don’t believe that they all lack integrity and commitment. So what happens to force their silence, to bind them to their senior officers? How do you break the ingrained systemic behaviour and belief that if “I look out for you, you will look out for me”, no matter what it takes and the consequences it brings?
It’s two weeks before my operation. The weight and enormity of my cancer diagnosis is behind me. I’m focused on the practical. All I have to do, prepare for, organise lies ahead. There are lists in every notebook, on every large magnetic surface. I am a whirlwind of efficiency, able to project risks, variabilities, possibilities and solutions. More loquacious than I’ve been for a long time, I ask for and receive help, love, support, kindness. In amongst this maelstrom, I open an email. Would I like to participate in IC Fight Night? An industry event where four executives postulate on various topics and be red or green carded by the audience. Immediate feedback. Immediate discussion. Immediate interaction and debate. Four leading industry executives. One winner. It’s in April next year. Months away. I think about it for less than a minute before typing “I’d be delighted” and pressing send.
I’m playing one of my sing-a-long playlists, everything from Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Carly Simon, James, Taylor, Fleetwood Mac through to John Legend, Bruno Mars, Phil Phillips, Coldplay and even Johnny Cash singing the Old Rugged Cross – my Nana used to sing this as a soloist in church and I still remember sitting in a hard wooden pew listening to her voice soar while silently
as the pubs had closed, we would stand importantly at the front of the pulpit
and trill 
And without the ability to hold the notes, my ability to let go in the music is diminishing. It’s fine being the funny guy – Craig and Roscoe roll around laughing as I try to get the tune out- but inside it hurts.
Founded in 1974 as a response to violent conflict in Irish society, Glencree was where all of the political parties from Ireland, North and South, and the main parties from Britain, participated in inclusive and multilateral dialogue workshops to bring about the Irish peace process. This learning and talking, which took patience, time and perseverance, was then built on and shared with the likes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the South African peace and reconciliation team, survivors of Rwandan genocide and many others from all over the world who are involved in, or victims of, acts of religiously motivated or political violence.
We would wrap ourselves in the knitted patchwork blankets, created by survivors of these many atrocities and share our stories, tell our tales, practice our learning and be reminded of our amazing lives and opportunities. And the love, fear, memories and hope bound into every stitch, enveloping me in every moment, turned out to be more powerful and transformative than any facilitation certificate. Although I did receive the certificate too!!
not at all like the chaotically colourful, soft, patchwork yarns of Glencree! Wrapped inside, I look like a larvae who has enjoyed his fill of plant life. My half head protruding from its layers, I lie quietly trying to empty my mind and not fall asleep.
The research being conducted into the potential damage to the brain by holding a mobile phone near the head is a great cause of concern to the execs of the mobile phone companies. And, increasingly, Doctors like Dr Erica Mallery-Blythe are publishing their 
we are re-learning to connect without the constant glancing at phones, electronics and gadgets.
There is much to be said for the routine of habit.
I own my behaviour or as Roscoe often says “you only own your own self”.
The need, the habit of attaching self-worth to the work, has shifted.
Click 
Living in Africa, you breathe differently. Its a hunger for breath, a joyous grasp for every drop of air, it makes you feel so ALIVE! Every day, every night, every trip could be your last, particularly if outside of Kampala, driving in the dark, when locals believed that using headlights was burning fuel, so did without! 
Once, driving out of Kampala in the musky light of pre-dawn, on my way to a 6am flight out of Entebbe, I followed a large lorry and a couple of cars, over an unexpected hump in the road. I recoiled when I saw a man’s head roll into the side of the reservation. It was too dangerous for a single Muzungu woman to stop, so I had to carry on, badly shaken and with a heavier heart.
My dearest friend, Jill, sold her cottage in Wales and emigrated to a new life in Vancouver Island in her late 70’s. She is one of my role models. This is how I intend to be! Watch the best Exotic Marigold Hotel 1 and 2 movies and let me know if you’re interested in joining me…
So saying this, I know I need to consider growing older with an attitude of positivity, health and well-being. There is an interesting article in 
I’ve watched people letting go what they once belonged to and take new, tentative steps into the un-known.
Well, all the visualisation, tapping, swallowing tablets, drinking green juice and attempts to walk 10,000 steps a day, have not paid attention to my mind’s bidding. I have to let go of my desire to be better 
Yet these patterns are now being broken and in the letting go of the matriarch there is letting go of the family machinations.
Our energy, creativity, innovation and passion don’t exist in walls, places, stock prices, shareholder opinions or the BG employee brand, these attributes exist in us.
