Sport: Women in Rowing

Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, it is most unusual for anyone in this House to hear me say anything derogatory about the Member of Parliament for West Worthing—but on this occasion I feel a need to do so. There are magnificent rowing clubs in Worthing and I salute and pay tribute to them, but my condition for getting married was that my husband would come to Henley, because I come from a rowing family. My son is a member of Leander, my father was a member of Leander, my great-uncle rowed in the Blue Boat, my nephew rowed in the Blue Boat. This was a very important matter and his rowing is quite appalling— shameful. He swims well, he has joined British Canoeing, but rowing is not him. When I was first in the other place I rowed once in the parliamentary eight, but had to abandon it because there was no way I could row in the boat which would not encourage him to do so—and then there would be more ignominy on the way.

I am an oarswoman. Coastal rowing is me; the Seaview regatta on the Isle of Wight. I have won skulling races, particularly randan races. That is a very exciting form of rowing, with three of you in a clinker-built boat. I have even rowed in the Great River Race, which is an incredibly long distance. I fear that we have a stranger in the Room who should not have been here. I have identified a very poor rower in this Room. Nevertheless, be that as it may, I then discovered recently, preparing for this critical debate, that my cousin rowed in the women’s Blue Boat in 1941. When I put this to my male relations, they all denied all knowledge of it. There is a long-standing problem in the relationship of male oarsmen to very distinguished female oarswomen. Penelope Poulton, now aged 92, is delighted that she is being mentioned here today. Similarly, my wonderful colleague, Clare Glackin, won in the Cambridge Blue Boat on two occasions in 1992. So this year is a triumph. It is quite a dilemma as to why it has taken so long for the women’s Boat Race to row on the tideway.

With others here I pay the warmest tribute to Helena Morrissey. She has been such a force. In the Chamber we have been debating female empowerment. I have already spoken there, as has my noble friend Lady Brady, and we paid tribute to the voluntary movement—not quotas—that has resulted in the quite extraordinary increase of women on boards, so that we are now in a very good place indeed. Helena Morrissey is entitled to a great deal of that credit. She founded the 30% Club and she said the other day, very interestingly, that,

“the relatively low proportion of girls participating particularly in team sports at school has a bearing on many aspects of how women’s lives develop—not just our health but our careers, too, and in business. It’s all part of a continuum that starts very early in life, leading to different experiences and expectations for women compared with men … the importance of learning to be part of a team, depended upon and depending on others, playing to personal strengths and respecting the complementary skills of others”.

Sport teaches people,

“to deal with performance nerves, to overcome disappointments, to have the strength of character to carry on when losing—and to enjoy victories. If girls have less opportunity to develop these skills, that surely puts them at a disadvantage in many other situations”.

From my perspective, rowing, of all sports, is the ultimate team game. There is no space for a prima donna at all. However good your stroke is, if it is not in time with the next person’s stroke, you are out of the boat. The other reason why I particularly enjoy rowing is that it is the one very competitive, very intense activity where you spend all of your time going backwards—totally trusting your future to the cox at the other end.

Good points have been made about the importance of coaches. I am particularly pleased that my local rowing club at Guildford has done a lot of work on encouraging volunteers to have more knowledge and information. People who do not feel that they understand the sport do not know how to be a volunteer, but the club has shown some wonderful examples.

I will quickly speak about Hull—because rowing is not just a southern, elite sport. As chancellor of the university, I pay tribute to Matt Evans, who is on British Rowing’s Young Person’s Panel. He is very involved in the Hull University Boat Club, where there is a great deal of enthusiasm and a growing participation by women. Similarly, community rowing in Hull is equally important. Of course, they could do more and I shall be writing about them getting a lottery award in the near future.

April 11 will be a wonderful day. The best person in my family at the moment is our son who has bought a house exactly on the finishing post at Mortlake. He is having a tremendous party to celebrate the women rowing down the tideway—and no male rowing supporters will be admitted at all.