Jock joined the Foundation after a series of serious health challenges that began with testicular cancer, stomach cancer, a blocked aorta and ending, for now with an above knee amputation. After meeting one of our sailors at a prosthetics club run by the NHS on the Island, he attended an open day at the Foundation. His love for the water and sailing returned full force. Two months after his first visit he, with a very experienced crew was sailing a Foundation Sonar doing Cowes Week 2024.
Coming to the Foundation shortly after his amputation means that Jock has been able to use his experience with the Foundation to demonstrate to show his prosthetists and orthotists that he was a great candidate for a highly advanced prosthetic leg. He’s been surprised by the positive response from the NHS team to his engagement with the Foundation. He said: “
See with me being active, they notice … that I’m being active, I’m taking part in something. I’m walking down my first ramp and walking up my first ramp, I’m going up my first ladder to get into a boat and down the ladder to get out of the boat. All these things, all those things have helped me get my new leg. My new leg is very expensive and
[they]don’t give it to just anybody. You have to earn it, and by me coming and doing this helped me to earn my leg as well. Just because I took the activity to go and do something.
Jock has already established himself as a sailor committed to his fellow participants, something which the Foundation looks for and cultivates in its attempts to ensure the atmosphere of a supportive family. As he puts it in his inimitable style: “I turned up to all of the sessions didn’t miss one of them Because I thought if I don’t go I’m just going to sit there going, why didn’t I go to the sailing? Like so many of our participants he is always hungry to learn
The contribution of the NHS to getting him back on his foot is something that he can’t praise enough. As he said ‘Well, they came down and saw us what we do… just to see if we could get any pointers or some to help in different ways and get a different insight of how, might deal with ladders or other challenges’. He is sympathetic to the challenges that the NHS faces but is now an enthusiastic advocate for sailing as a rehabilitation tool.. He pointed out that on the Isle of Wight there isn’t a lot of disabled sport available – but ‘we have the water’ the medium the Foundation exploits as its playing field, and he revealed how having participants with other disabilities around him furthers a drive to achieve:
” Lawrence does all these things. He’s got one leg, so there’s this inspiration. You know, George, he’s only got one leg, and he’s doing it with me.
Jock is a veteran who’s post service background is as a builder who learned his trade on sites through his commitment and work ethos. After his first episode of cancer he worked at the precision casting company Trucast, now owned by Doncaster – a major UK manufacturer, but the second episode of cancer, serious problems with circulation followed by this amputation left him unable to work and struggling with the basics of living. As he said after losing his leg ‘you know, … you’re more interested in how am I going to get to the toilet and how I’m going to get dinner and deal with all these things where I’ve lost my leg”. He shared how the overwhelming impact on every aspect of life had left him in a poor state mentally:
“Every single thing you do, you use your legs. Theres no way you can just nip up and get some tomato sauce in the kitchen anymore. It’s not a case of that for me. I have to get in my chair, go to the kitchen, get my saucepans, get everything out. Everything turns into a bit of a chore. And so you’re not thinking about sailing and doing this and kayaking or whatever. You’re not thinking of these things. You’re thinking, how the hell am I going to get dinner tonight? How am I going to cook it and get about on my own.”
Jock was encouraged to keep participating with the Foundation after his first taste simply because the team enabled him to work out how to board a Sonar. It’s typical of the grit he’s displayed during his career and through surviving the severe medical challenges he’s faced.
I was stood there trying to get in the boat and it was like a wee bit of mental block. I couldn’t get my leg to work the way I wanted it to, to step onto the boat so I thought, right, I’m going to get on the floor And I’m putting climb into the bloody boat. So I did I got myself on the floor and got in the boat And I thought: well that means I can now get in the boat.
Jock went on to say that at times sailing with the Foundation is a raw, intense experience, something that he will get to experience more of during the winter training programme where in addition to the theory of tide, wind and and the finer technical details of the Sonar, he will join the teams sailing in every kind of weather when the conditions are safe to operate the Sonars. The Foundation encourages our volunteers and participants to share the skills and expertise they have and Jocks appetite for learning was stirred by a volunteer who shared some of the complexity of tide, wind and water during short course racing in the Solent, as well as by realising some of the complexities of flying the spinnaker which as he puts it ‘isn’t just a flappy sail’. His participation to date has encouraged him to get fitter in all aspects commenting ‘who wants to be a 20 stone big fat guy trying to get on a boat to go and sailing. No I want to be I don’t want to be that, I don’t want to be the loose wheel’.
His experience with the Foundation has also inspired him to try new sports and explore sailing in different boats. He’s even been prepared to face the scary but necessary task of getting back in a swimming pool to check how well he floats after his amputation. He’s disco era that he floats ok in a buoyancy aid, rather than needing a full life jacket in calm conditions, which means he can race harder, and move round the boat more efficiently.
Jock finished by telling me how much he was looking forward to the winter training programme, and how he’d been missing the sailing since Cowes Week – a month when the Foundation has a very necessary break to allow key volunteers and staff to recharge and for the team to focus on strategy and the path forward.
