I confess that when my review copy arrived in the post, my heart sank a little. This is a doorstep of a book, and I expected that at best I would manage a skim read. Yet within a page I was hooked. A week later I had read every word, snatching breaks from my work to read just a few more pages and reading late into the night.

The Boys in the Boat is the true story of a bunch of rough-and-ready, working class boys who start rowing at the University of Washington in Seattle in their freshman year, and who end up – against the odds – winning a gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The book focuses largely on the man in the seven seat, Joe Rantz, whose extraordinary personal story explains the fierce determination required to beat all the competitors they have to face along the way.

It’s also a vivid and brilliant portrayal of 1930s America and Germany that had me rooting for Seattle and for the University of Washington and marvelling at how a country so deep in economic crisis, suffering one catastrophe after another, ever managed to restore itself again. Brown takes us to downtown Seattle, a city struggling to survive the Depression. He shines the light on the heart of Nazi Germany, with its monstrously deceptive propaganda that used the Olympics to deceive the outside world.

But more than that, he writes a love story to rowing – from the sleek, wooden crafts that the boys rowed to the trust and loyalty that turned a crew from just nine men in a boat into something truly sublime.

If I have one niggle, it’s that the paper quality doesn’t do the photos justice – I would have loved to have seen clearer versions of them as they lend extra insight into the dramatic sequence of events, but that’s a small point and shouldn’t put you off. Really, do buy this book – it’s brilliant.

Take a look at this video if you want to learn more:

The Boys in the Boat is available in the UK from Amazon and in the US from a variety of outlets (see the author’s website)

Happily, I’ve recently been sent three brand new rowing books to review, all very different – one novel, one historical account and one manual – so over the next few weeks I’ll be showcasing the latest writing talent in the rowing world.

First up is Flat Water Tuesday by Ron Irwin, a novel telling the story of a thirty-something documentary maker with a messy private life and a shameful secret. Bit it by bit we are taken back to his painful past when, as a surly teenage rower from the wrong side of the tracks, he turns up at a swanky Connecticut prep school, famous for its rowing, to complete a postgrad year and do his bit for the rowing club.

The author knows his rowing, and fans of the sport won’t be disappointed as they follow the crew in the ups and downs of training for the race of their lives. There’s plenty in it for the rowing aficionado, with detailed descriptions of the protagonist’s challenges on the water that will be familiar to anyone who, like, me, has struggled with their technique (slow catches, anyone?), though I did wonder if a non-rower might glaze over during some of the more technical passages.

The characters are well drawn and darkly complex – a far cry, I have to say, from most rowers I know who, though fearsomely determined and single-minded, are for the most part cheerily uncomplicated – but engaging enough to make for a good read, and the story whips along nicely.

If there is one thing that is missing from this book, it is the sheer joy and poetry of rowing. This isn’t a cheerful tale, and the best the protagonist seems to get from his rowing is a grim sense of satisfaction. I fully acknowledge that I may have become overly sentimental about the sport in my two months away from the river, but what I really miss about it is the changeable beauty of the water, the thrill when a stroke goes well, the sense of completeness when the crew moves as one. For all the traumas and pain and discomfort and frustration (and I know all about those), rowing is, for me, something uniquely beautiful, and that beauty somehow didn’t quite shine through the pages of this book.

But hey, look, that’s splitting hairs. It’s a good yarn, and there are precious few out there that focus on our sport, so give it a whirl.

Flat Water Tuesday goes on general international release on 4th June for $24.99. To purchase it click here.

Now, obviously rowing is important. Very important. And rarely more so than at the time of year when the evenings get longer and warmer and regatta season beckons. What I’ve had to come to terms with in the last month, though, is that sometimes other things prove more important. I know, who knew?

So just at the moment, for family reasons, I’m having to take a little break from rowing, probably for a few months. I can’t deny it’s a challenge, and there are times when I gaze longingly at the river of an evening, wishing I were there. But I’m reliably informed that the river will still be there when I return, even if the temperatures aren’t as glorious or the evenings so perfect.

How the club will manage without the frankly Amazonian strength that I provide to my crew is another matter. Let’s just hope they keep eating those flapjacks.

For some – namely the businesses who relied on the events to earn a crust – it was more than disappointing. What about all those HORR and Vets’ Head T-shirts that Rock the Boat had ordered in? And what about the photographers, suddenly finding themselves with nothing to photograph (and no photographs to sell)? There’s no denying that they were the real losers.

So, did they really have to cancel it? Well, stepping out into a biting wind yesterday, safely wrapped up in coat, boots and hat, I stopped to wonder for a moment what it would be like to be sitting for hours in these conditions on a river, clad only in lycra, waiting for the race to start, and I silently gave thanks that I wasn’t getting frostbite. Better to suffer from disappointment than from hypothermia.

But did they really have to cancel it so far in advance? Well, again, I was glad of this when we managed to get our deposit back on the minibus. Getting to London can be a costly business, and getting there only to find you’ve got to go home again without racing would be ten times worse.

And what about all that training that’s gone to waste? Well, here’s the thing. It hasn’t. Those of us who trained for the heads are fitter and stronger as we head into regatta season. That training is all in the bank and I don’t regret a freezing minute of it.

So, the show must go on. You never know, one day the temperatures might even rise and we might row in – just imagine – warm weather. Let that thought cheer you and keep you going.

Girl on the River rocks the Rock the Boat Vets’ Head t-shirt

So this weekend it’s finally happening:  I shall be rowing the Tideway for the first time, at the Vesta Vets’ Head – four long miles of the Thames, following the Boat Race course downstream. Like everyone else, we’ve invested a fair bit of time and sweat into this event, and have a shiny new race plan all ready to go. Heck, I’ve even gone crazy and bought the T-shirt.

But for all the training and the preparation, it’s still my first time, and it’s pretty damned daunting. So for once, instead of me doing the talking, I’m going to throw this one open to the floor. So, tell me:

What do I need to know?

What should I expect?

How will it be different from doing a long piece on the River Wye (other than the view, obviously)?

Which is the hardest part? The longest stretch?

And, above all, what are your top tips (food, fashion, best places for a pre-race emergency loo stop, mental strength, whatever)?

Oh, and if you see me on Sunday (we’re crew #190), give me a shout. I might not wave back, but I promise I’ll smile. Even if it looks like a grimace.

So, tell me. You can row… but what else can you do? I want to hear all about your other skills, however random. Can you recite the Kings and Queens of England in under a minute? Do you hold the Guinness World Record for hula hooping? Can you throw a boomerang and actually get it back? Pick a lock? Recite Pi to 4,000? Or has rowing taken over your life that you literally don’t do anything else?

Charlie greeting his wife and children at the end of the challenge

There was a time when completing an endurance event for charity was Big News and would have people immediately reaching for their wallets. The fact is, though, that rarely a day goes by when news of yet another person or crew embarking on a tough challenge to raise money for a worthy cause. Heck, when even Davina McCall has done it you know it’s going to be hard to make your adventure stand out enough to get people donating.

So why is it, then, that I’m so impressed by Charlie Pitcher, enough to be writing about him for the second time (I blogged about him here, back in September)? Well, it’s partly the charities he’s raising money for. One of them is Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children. One of my children was once admitted to GOSH as an outpatient and it was a truly humbling experience to see the kids there. The other charity is C Group, which helps to re-educate injured Royal Marines and seeks to get them back into work.

The main reason, though, that I have felt compelled to write about Charlie is that as soon as I heard about him I had a feeling that he was just the kind of extremist nutter I could relate to. And boy, was I right. Charlie has not only completed the challenge of rowing solo across the Atlantic – at the age of 50 he just smashed the record by a massive five days, nine hours and 11 minutes. Blimey.

Along the way he turned turtle twice, had something of a physical meltdown and at times averaged over 90 miles a day. 90 miles a day. Rowing solo. Think about it.

So let’s have a massive round of applause for Charlie. Better still, go to his website and donate. Go on, you know you want to.

This uncompromising quotation, from a wartime speech by Sir Winston Churchill, is pinned to the wall of our rowing club gym, and has kept me going through many a tough erg session when my body and mind were screaming at me to stop.

It’s there on the wall because giving in is just not an option in rowing. You keep going, through pain, discomfort, discouragement and – at times – humiliation – because giving in tells your crewmates that you might give in during a race. Giving in breaks the trust, and crew racing is all about trust. If you’re a quitter no one will want to row with you.

Except that last night I did quit. Seven minutes into an erg session I stopped. Just like that. I got off the erg, walked out of the gym and went home. It’s never happened before. I hope it’ll never happen again. But the point is it did happen.

So what caused someone who isn’t a quitter to quit? Well, it was partly that I felt terrible. I was as weak as water and felt wobbly, even hours after I’d got home. I clearly wasn’t quite right and needed a rest, which I’m having today.

But it wasn’t just that. I’ve kept going through plenty of sessions when I’ve been off my form and my better judgment has told me to stop. No. What was different last night was that I just didn’t have the fight in me. A tough few months and a run of sleepless nights had messed with my head. Even before the session started I was in the wrong frame of mind, feeling negative and slouching over the machine rather than sitting up. About a minute into the session I had tears smarting in my eyes. I was defeated even before the fight had begun. All of which goes to show that rowing is as much about mental strength as physical strength.

But here’s the thing. There are plenty of times when it would have been easier to give up rowing than to continue it: when I’ve lost yet another race; when my technique seems to be getting worse rather than better; when I can’t remember what warm fingers feel like – but I’m still here, stroke after stroke after stroke. So I guess I’m not, at heart, a quitter. All I can do is to pick myself up, dust myself off and climb back on that ruddy machine. As I say, giving in isn’t an option.

Last week it was the turn of the founder of the House of Campion, whose designer bags can often be seen on the arms of the Monmouth glitterati. We’d been promised flapjacks and were startled to find, on the ceremonial Opening of the Cake Tin, a neat collection of brownies, definitely spiked with something delicious and moistened by juicy prunes.

“Ah”, explained the Mary Berry of the Three Seat, “The flapjacks were too crumbly… so I fed them to the chickens.”

“Lucky chickens”, said we.

Cambridge supporter, Lydia (aka @scullinggirl), who wins a light blue, Cambridge scarf!

Although I chose the winner at random (assigning each entrant a number and then using an online random number generator to pick a number), I have to say I loved Lydia’s reason for choosing Cambridge: “because Oxford had rubbish coffee shops when I went shopping with my mother in the 80s”.

She is, of course, right about this. The only place you could get a half decent cup of coffee then was, perversely, in the tea shop Rosie Lee’s on the High St., where you would be distracted from your beverage-drinking by tourists spooning clotted cream into their cups of tea (under the mistaken impression that that was what constituted a cream tea – yeurgh! – all those fat globules floating on the surface *shudder*)

Anyway, I digress. You may be interested to know that Oxford won 65% of the votes to Cambridge’s 35% (could that be an omen?)

Reasons ranged from romantic (a schoolgirl crush on one of the Oxford crew members) to aesthetic (the light blue / aqua shades of the Cambridge crew attracting a lot of love). Some were rowing-related (a drunken win at Oxford City Regatta), but my favourite by far was, needless to say, cake related, from my new friend Lisa who chose Cambridge partly because of the colour, but partly because “there is a lovely blog currently being penned by some the lady’s boat race crew (Killing two birds with one blade). Their latest post is about the creation of a post-training session chocolate cake … with gratuitous cake photos …” A blog combining rowing with cake is always a winner, in my books.

So there you have it. Congratulations, Lydia. Thank you, BNY Mellon for providing the scarf. And good luck, Oxford and Cambridge. May the best crew win. Especially if it’s Oxford.