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ABREAST IN LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND It was an incredible experience and honour for Brenda Hochachka and me to be at the Linda McCartney Breast Cancer Centre in the Royal Liverpool Hospital on Wednesday September 15th. We were there to bring greetings from Abreast In A Boat, the World’s first breast cancer dragon boat team, to a group of English women who hope to soon be members of the first British breast cancer dragon boat team. Eve Pearson and John Edwards are the two individuals largely responsible for organising and chairing the evening seminar. How their paths met is a delightful story. It all began at the 2001 Philadelphia International Dragon Boat Festival where Eve, a competitor on one of the British teams, was curious about the constant laughter coming from a tent inhabited by paddlers wearing fuchsia pink. To her amazement, she learned that they were breast cancer survivors. On returning home to Liverpool, Eve (herself a breast cancer survivor), was determined to set up something of the sort there and got in touch with our own Sandy Smith. However, life took over
and Eve’s plans went on the “back burner”. Moving
forward to November 2003, Sandy Smith was at the Singapore Dragon
Boat Festival where she met John Edwards, a British dragon boat
paddler and coach who was currently working in Singapore. Turns
out John wanted to get a breast cancer dragon boat team organised
in … yes … Sandy began to think back, remembered Eve, put John and Eve in touch with each other and – voila! – the seminar to organise a breast cancer dragon boat team in Liverpool was arranged for September 15, 2004. The evening began with a viewing of the Abreast In A Boat DVD; its impact was huge and reduced the audience to tears. The DVD was followed by a presentation from Angie Ong of the Singapore breast cancer dragon boat team who related the story of the founding of their team in early 2003. Angie also described recent developments and the cultural challenges involved. The audience enjoyed seeing images from the 2003 Singapore Dragon Boat Festival which showed the Vancouver and Singapore crews hard at work. The English women were very encouraged to see all that had been achieved by the Singapore women in a relatively short amount of time. I spoke about the origins and founding
of AIAB by Dr Don MacKenzie and his
team, and the value and rewards that dragon boat paddling brings
to those living with breast cancer. In a live hook-up with Vancouver,
Dr MacKenzie himself answered a variety of questions and touched
on medical issues. We never did see her on screen, but we know Sandy
Smith was there – off to the side! Eve and John spoke about
the excellent facilities, coaching, and support available for the
dragon boat programme in the Liverpool area. - Jenny Yule
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