Dame Di Ellis: The First Lady of British Rowing

Dame Di Ellis. Photograph British Rowing.

HTBS’s Tim Koch writes from London,

On 14 June Buckingham Palace published the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for 2013. These awards ‘recognise the achievements and service of extraordinary people across the United Kingdom’ www.gov.uk/honours/overview and rowing received on of the highest honours. The title of ‘Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire’ (DBE) was given to ‘Mrs. Diana Margaret Ellis CBE, Executive Chair, British Rowing, for services to rowing’. In more informal terms, Di Ellis has become a Dame, the female equivalent of becoming a Knight and having the title ‘Sir’. She thus joins the exclusive club that consists of Sir Harcourt Gilbey Gold (‘Tarka’), Sir Steve Redgrave, Sir Matthew Pinsent and Sir David Tanner. On Twitter, Sir Matthew @matthewcpinsent wrote:

Great news that DI Ellis has become a Dame. One of rowing’s softly spoken heroes.

Dame Di ended her final term of office as Chairman and later Executive Chairman of British Rowing last February after fifty-two years in the sport which included time as an international rower, cox, umpire, official and always dedicated servant of rowing in the UK. There are very few complete lists of the posts that Di has held as she has worked so hard for so long. She became Chairman of the Amateur Rowing Association (now British Rowing) in 1989, and in 1997 she became the first woman to be elected a Steward of Henley Royal Regatta. Di has been Chairman of a large number of committees, including the British Rowing Championships and the ARA Women’s Commission and she has served on the organising bodies of seven world events (including the 2005 World Cup and the 2006 World Rowing Championships) and was part of the London 2012 bid team. She has been a representative to both the British Olympic Association and to FISA.

The Grand Cross Star of the Order of the British Empire. It is impressive even if the British Empire no longer exists.

Other past honours that Di has received include a CBE in the 2004 Queen’s Birthday List (also ‘for services to rowing’), and in 2012 FISA awarded her the Distinguished Service to International Rowing Award. If you have the idea that she is ‘in retirement’, think again, Di is currently President of the Organising Committee for the 2013 World Cup. An interesting recent interview can be read here.

In Di’s time as head of the ARA / British Rowing she led the sport in Britain through a period of enormous and unprecedented change and growth, resulting in a level of international success undreamed of not many years ago. Rodgers and Hammerstein once observed that ‘There Is Nothing Like A Dame’. This may or may not be true but few would dispute that there are very few people like Dame Diana Margaret Ellis CBE.

In an investiture held last April (and similar to the one Di will attend later this year) Helen Glover and Heather Stanning were made MBEs by the Queen following their winning the Women’s Coxless Pairs at the London Olympics. Stanning’s uniform is that of a Captain in the Royal Artillery and she is currently on active service in Afghanistan. The pair intend to defend their title in Rio in 2016. Photograph from Metro.

(Perhaps HTBS readers would allow me to include a non-rowing story about a famous Hollywood actress of British birth who was to be made a Dame by the Queen in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace. Her ‘people’ telephoned the Queen’s Private Secretary with two questions from the star. Could her security men check the Palace over first and would the Queen wait if she was late? Thankfully the answers were ‘no’ and ‘no’. The lesson here is, do not try and be more Royal than Royalty).

Gold Fever, Episode 3

Here is the 3rd and last episode of the BBC documentary Gold Fever about Matthew Pinsent, Tim Foster, Steve Redgrave and James Cracknell way to the 2000 Olympic final in the coxless four ~ the road to Sydney proved not always to be straight... Enjoy!

Gold Fever, Episode 1
Gold Fever, Episode 2

Gold Fever, Episode 2

Here is the 2nd episode of the BBC documentary Gold Fever about Matthew Pinsent, Tim Foster, Steve Redgrave and James Cracknell's way to the 2000 Olympic final in the coxless four ~ the road to Sydney proved not always to be straight... Enjoy!

Gold Fever, Episode 1.

Gold Fever, Episode 1

OK, we all know how it ended, the Olympic coxless four race in Sydney 2000, but it is still from an historic point of view darn interesting to watch the build-up that Matthew Pinsent, Tim Foster, Steve Redgrave and James Cracknell went through to reach the Olympic final. There are three episodes of this BBC documentary, episode 2 will run tomorrow and episode 3 the day after that. Enjoy!

Tim Koch: Facing The Press

The CUBC Press Conference. Steve Trapmore (Coach), George Nash (President and No. 5) and Henry Fieldman (Cox).

HTBS’s Tim Koch writes from the Boat Race Media Centre,

Yesterday, the final pre-Boat Race press conference was held at the ‘Media Centre’ (otherwise known as Thames Rowing Club), two days before the big event. These are inherently unsatisfactory occasions as the chosen representatives of the two boat clubs are very unlikely to say anything but that they are well prepared and confident. If they have any doubts, they are not going to share them with the wider world – though this would make for a much more interesting event. Even when were given the chance to ‘trash talk’ their opponents (like boxers at a weigh-in) they decline the opportunity (when Sean Bowden was asked what he thought of the fact that Oxford were the favourites, he replied in words to the effect that he did not gamble). Fortunately, the Umpires, Matthew Pinsent and Boris Rankov, were slightly more informative.

Sir Matthew Pinsent (Boat Race Umpire) and Professor Boris Rankov (Reserve Race Umpire).

Matthew was asked if any changes had been made following last year’s incident when a protester swam into the path of the race causing it to be restarted after a long delay. He declined to talk about security but said that the Boat Race Umpires’ Panel had analysed the incident in great detail and decided that the existing rules were adequate and that the race will not be run differently. The only change would be that, if the race was obstructed for whatever reason, the procedure would be:

1) To stop the race.

2) For the umpire and the crews to pass what the rules refer to as an ‘outside agency’ i.e. an obstruction in the water such as a person or an inanimate object such as a log. If the ‘outside agency’ was a person he or she would not be picked up by the umpire's boat (as happened last year).

3) Once the obstruction was passed the race would be restarted as quickly as possible with both crews in the relative positions that they held when the race was halted (last year the crews were sent back to the point where the race had been stopped and had to wait a long time for the churned up water to subside). When the obstruction was passed it would no longer be the umpire’s concern and what the following flotilla did would depend on the prevailing circumstances.

The OUBC Press Conference. Sean Bowden (Coach), Alex Davidson (President and No. 3) and Oskar Zorrilla (Cox).

Matthew stressed that none of this was a criticism of the 2012 Umpire, John Garrett, who had to deal with an unprecedented situation. He also understood that the general public wants excitement but that he, as the umpire, wants a clean race. The Boat Race is, Matthew continued, a most complicated and unpredictable event. The ‘acid test’ is for him to be able to get out at the finish and be ‘pretty much ignored’ so he can ‘slip off to the bar’. Boris Rankov added that ‘the umpires are the only people involved who cannot win’. Responding to an attempt to draw him on the subject of security, Matthew said that he would not like it if the public were denied access to the river. He held that among the joys of the event are the facts that it is free, that the riverbanks are packed and that the pubs are full.

I feel that this year the biggest defence against idiot swimmers may not be the fast boats of the Royal Marines stationed along the course, but will be the freezing temperatures. A bigger danger may be from debris swept into the river by recent high tides. Strangely, another problem may be an attack by angry otters.

Light or Dark Blue?

I guess, most of you HTBS readers who follow the Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge have already chosen which crew you support, this whether you studied at any of these two universities or not. But are you really certain that you deep down are supporting the right team?

The other day, HTBS-arian Greg Denieffe sent along a quiz from the Boat Race new sponsor, BNY Mellon, the large investment firm, and despite that the company claims that this is a highly scientific quiz, I have my doubts. Of course, this should not stop you from doing the quiz ‘Which Blue Are You?’ as you can also sign up to try to win £30,000. Go to the quiz here.

Good Luck!

More On The Great Spectacle

The most popular blog posts on HTBS right now are the ones about the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant. We do not want to stop when we have a good thing going so here are some more about The Great Spectacle.

The Henley Standard published a very nice article about some of the local rowers who took part in the River Pageant for Queen Elizabeth II. Mentioned in the article are the stroke pair in the royal barge Gloriana, Sir Steve and Sir Matthew, but also the former Olympian Guin Batten, and ‘a mixture of Olympians and Paralympians, watermen and injured former servicemen’. There where more than twenty boats from the Henley area that took part in the festivities on the Thames. Read the whole article here.

Earlier today, my fellow HTBS-arian Greg Denieffe also pointed out a marvellous 6-minute slide show about previous water celebrations on the Thames on BBC News Magazine. View it here. Of course, for those of you who has a special interest in the previous Royal River Pageants, in 1919 and in 1953, HTBS posted some film clips on those occasions on 30 May, 2012.

HTBS would also like to remind the readers in and around Henley-on-Thames that there is going to be another River Pageant on 25 June when Queen Elizabeth II visits the town.

Sir Matt: “It’s a bit rich”

Sir Matt

On 3 June, HTBS posted a silly little piece about complaints from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and USA about the unfairness of Great Britain’s rowers’ advantage of staying closer to the Olympic rowing course at Lake Dorney, while all the rowers from the other nations have to live in the Olympic village and travel back and forth to the course.

On Eurosport.com Sir Matthew Pinsent now has left some comments about the criticism. He said: “It’s a bit rich for Australia to complain about the home advantage, to be honest. During the 2000 Games in Sydney, our team had to use a bus service to get around while the Australian athletes did not.

“It isn’t the sort of thing you allow to bother you when you are focused on what you are trying to accomplish.”

Read the whole article here.

Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant

The 'Gloriana' with Sir Steve at stroke on starboard side and Sir Matthew at stroke on port.

HTBS’s Royal Correspondent Tim Koch reports from the River Thames in London:

In the last few months HTBS has posted several items about the Thames Diamond Jubilee Flotilla, the 1,000 plus Amerada of small craft planned to be one of the highlights of this summer’s celebrations to mark the 60th year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. Yesterday, Sunday 3 June, two years of planning came together. The main interest for HTBS were the ‘manpowered’ boats, those that were rowed, sculled or paddled. These led the flotilla and at the head of this section was the Gloriana, rowed by Steven Redgrave, Matthew Pinsent and sixteen others. The BBC has a nice online report, here.

HM The Queen (in white) arriving by launch. The Queen's Watermen are in red. The Waterman on the starboard side is the Queen's Bargemaster.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh boarded a small launch at Chelsea Harbour and this took them to the Royal Barge which was to take them from Cadagon Pier to Tower Bridge. Usually a ‘Royal Barge’ is something more like the Gloriana, that is a craft rowed by the Queen’s Watermen. However it was felt this was not a practical or secure type of boat for this particular event and the privately-owned charter vessel, The Spirit of Charwell was converted for the occasion. However, even though the Royal Party was not rowed at any stage, they were still accompanied by Queens Watermen. Enough text, with an event like this the pictures speak for themselves.

The Queen's Bargemaster, Paul Ludwig.

The Queen's Watermen in the bow of the Royal Barge. The Royal Standard flies from the bow staff.

Manpowered boats.

More manpowered boats.

And some more manpowered boats.

Even more manpowered boats.

Australian Surf Boats

18-oared gondola

Skiffs

(Photograph & copyright: Tim Koch)