I was born in a tiny village in Northamptonshire but had a fairly nomadic childhood, eventually settling in the industrial town of St Helens in the north west. As a child I was horse mad, so boats never got a look in. Apparently ‘horse’ was the first word I said and despite the fact that we could never afford a horse, my dream was always to ride and work with horses.
It’s perhaps an early indication of my goal-oriented side that I got a Saturday job as soon as I could. At the age of 13, I’d cycle a 12 mile round trip, twice a day, just to go and ‘muck out’ at a local farm where they bred Welsh ponies and Arab horses! There wasn’t even any riding.
Later, I found myself working for the family of a young girl who would go on to represent Great Britain in dressage at the Olympics. The work was physically hard and the standards high. No corners were cut and I learnt the skills I needed the old fashioned way. I got to travel all over the UK in the branded horsebox which was pretty exciting for a teenager. But I think I will always be grateful for the solid work ethic and sense of responsibility that this job instilled in me.
I always planned to leave school at 16 and go to ride racehorses. But I got quite reasonable exam results and a new degree course was announced in Equine Science and Business which changed the plan. So, after taking the required year out, when I worked in an eventing yard in Yorkshire, I started the 3 year course. For the two work placements, I opted to go abroad, to Italy and the USA, which supercharged my desire to travel.
I continued working in the equestrian world for a couple more years, but the poor pay and prospects, plus a dose of pneumonia pushed me onto a different path. I got a job in telemarketing for a bank, and after putting forward the idea of finance for horses, I found myself transferred to Marketing for 6 months. 16 years later, I was still there!
So, where do boats and maritime fit into this? Being quite outdoorsy, my first boat trips were holidays on the Norfolk Broads. I took up canoeing and kayaking in 6th Form, and this led to a 25 year career in Dragon Boat Racing where I represented Great Britain multiple times and won 25 World and European medals, plus 2 world records.
In the meantime, the bank I worked for had Marine and Shipping divisions and when I took over the marketing for them, there seemed to be a natural fit and I could understand and really get under the skin of the slightly fickle marine finance marketplace. Consequently, I looked after the business area for 12 years until I left.
Being ‘in the business’ proved quite handy too, after entering the Atlantic Rowing Race 2007 with my best friend. Together we rowed 3,000 miles from La Gomera to Antigua in 76 days, 11 hours and 12 minutes, in our 24 foot rowing boat, Barbara Ivy. We raised over £65,000 for Breast Cancer Care and hold 2 Guinness World Records.
Life changed after the row. The credit crunch happened while we were at sea, so the job I came back to was very different to the one I left. I was eventually allowed to take voluntary redundancy in 2009 and headed off to work a 12 month contract at the UK Hydrographic Office for the MoD. I then had a few years of trying to decide what I wanted to do next and after a few contracts, I was asked to join a small team to create a $70 million start up company. But, I’d already decided that I wanted to become a Paramedic, so I took the job knowing that I wouldn’t be staying for too long. I also joined Cheshire Search and Rescue team in 2010 and have been a member ever since.
One of my previous managers always said, ‘if you don’t like it, you know where the door is’. I actually take this to be a positive statement - if you don’t like your current situation, then only you have the power to change it.
So, I put it out to the universe that I’d love a job that involved Marketing, Medicine and Marine. But those jobs don’t exist. I did contact a couple of well known companies, but we were in lockdown and no one even replied.
A chance conversation during lockdown led to me being introduced to Liz and Red Square Medical. I did some teaching, wrote a mini marketing plan… and it led to a 2 days a month retainer while I still worked full time frontline. But the marketing worked and 12 months ago, we were in a position for me to go part time with the NHS and work 2 days a week for Red Square Medical. This increases to 3 days a week in 2024.
But it wasn’t that simple and my Trust and I couldn’t agree on how the part time Ambulance work would look. Then an unexpected meeting with Outreach Rescue solved the problem and meant that I could leave the NHS altogether. Now when I’m not working with Red Square Medical, I’m generally found halfway up a mountain in Snowdonia, teaching first aid and medical training up to Paramedic level, and for a number of Search and Rescue organisations globally.
My job title for Red Square Medical is Medical Operations Manager and it happily combines my rather unusual skill set of Marketing, Medical and Marine! Who would have thought that my dream of 4 years ago would turn into reality!
Previously I’ve worked on and around a wide range of power and sail boats, and now I can include Superyachts, cruise and expedition ships on the list.
A typical day will depend on where I am. I could be teaching for one of our clients - this year students have ranged from leisure sailors to solo ocean racers, chefs to captains and everyone in between. I carry out the medical audits for some of our clients, which involves being onboard for a few days, going through the medical facility from top to bottom and making sure the high standards are met and maintained.
If I’m working in the office, I generally start quite early to get to grips with emails, then I could be booking in courses and instructors, developing or reviewing courses, creating marketing content and writing blogs, interviewing guest bloggers, managing the regular reports that come in from the ships we look after, writing processes or policies, and managing the many client and supplier relationships that make it all happen.
I truly love what I do, so it’s hard to pick on a least favourite part of the job. I guess it would be the stress caused if an instructor lets us down at the last minute and I have to start scavenging around to find someone suitable for. It’s incredibly hard to find reliable instructors that work at the level we require, and have relevant offshore experience.
I love the fact that this is a job where all of my weird and wonderful skill set is used and challenged, and that I work for a company that appreciates me. I love taking a group of students through a course and seeing the difference in their confidence and skills from start to finish. I love seeing the results of the marketing and knowing that it’s working. And of course, I love my time onboard vessels out at sea.
My 2 days a week is variable and not always 2 full days, but may be split into a few hours over several days. I probably spend 75% of my time in the office and 25% with clients, though that changes month by month!
Having worked frontline means you really do get to see everything and Paramedics are a pretty unshockable bunch! Even on land people get themselves into all sorts of problems and being the smallest, inevitably it was me who had to crawl under the sink, into the car wreck, or climb through the window I’d just smashed open. In a frontline role you can experience anything from birth to death from one job to the next and you never know what’s coming. In my last shift on the road I went to a cardiac arrest, a child having a seizure, chest pain, critically low and unstable blood pressure, amongst other jobs. You literally have to be ready for any medical emergency at any time.
Playing midwife was my most feared job and I know I’m not alone. Paramedics have limited training in delivering babies and until the baby is out and you’re sure that baby and Mum are OK, it’s the worst job in the world. Of course once it’s born, breathing and healthy, it’s the best job in the world!
Sometimes it’s not just the medical side of the job that gets you. Dealing with the aftermath of a suicide is tough. Dealing with end of life patients. Or taking someone to hospital and leaving their husband or wife of 60 years at home, knowing that’s probably their last goodbye. Or fighting to save someone and not being able to. That’s tough, but it's all part of the job.
There are too many funny incidents to mention, and of course many were probably only funny at the time - Paramedics are known for their dark sense of humour! As Liz said in her guest blog, Morphine can act like a truth serum with hysterical results! Then there was the guy who cut the tube of his catheter and wondered why he couldn’t stop peeing! And the lady who had an alien spaceship over her house! The list goes on…
For anyone interested in this line of work, being a Paramedic can be frustrating and rewarding in equal (sometimes unequal) measure. But now is a great time to be a Paramedic because the medical world is starting to understand the place of these strange creatures. There are still several routes into the job: a 3 year university degree, an ‘on the job’ training program offered by several Trusts, or completing modules with an organisation such as Outreach Rescue to gain an equivalent qualification and apply for registration. Relevant experience helps - so first aid, customer service, or care work can help you to stand out from the crowd, and a bit of life experience helps.
Frontline work is where you earn your stripes and develop that fantastic foundation. Then, the world is your oyster as more and more jobs are opening up for Paramedics in primary care, hospitals, training, prisons, TV and film, mental health, offshore and cruise, expedition, remote and humanitarian. It’s a good time to be a Paramedic.
But be realistic. It’s not all blood, guts and trauma. Frontline, much of your time is spent dealing with the elderly (falls, UTIs, dementia) and mental health of varying severity. You may have to treat those who you have very different morals, ethics, politics and opinions to you, or those who come from backgrounds, races and religions that you don’t understand. You will go to thousands of calls that do not need an ambulance. It can be stressful, frustrating beyond belief, emotional, exhausting, and the shifts are brutal. But just occasionally there’s a great job, or a special patient, and you’ll remember them forever. You need to be curious and a people person.
But, you never know where it might take you! I had no idea 5 years ago that I would be sitting here, writing about how my dream of combining Marketing, Medical and Marine might just come true!
