A different view of ocean voyaging

[laika]

I hope no parents are put off by her whining.

Did you read the article? And is your disbelief be based simply upon the notion that a nomadic sailing upbringing can be good therefore anyone who experiences something different must be lying?

I don't dispute the possibility of giving children a rich and adventurous upbringing but that is not what is being described in this article. She was denied a fully varied curriculum, made to be a sailing hostess when she should have been studying and then dumped in a holiday park miles from civilisation with little money and tasked with looking after her brother while her parents were off for months fulfilling her father's dream.

While accommodating the notion that anyone's account of their childhood may not be accurate, with just this article to go on, how can you possibly say it's a distortion of the facts?

 

[Adios]

Did you read the article?

Did you read the rest of my post?

Yes I read the article in full, maybe the book is more balanced but the article was entirely negative. Does it seem likely that the experience was entirely negative? No, so she's whining. I think its also worth separating the initial part of the journey from the years later spent being abandoned in various places. Thats not going to be most cruising parents itinerary so isn't relevant to the question of whether homeschooling kids on a boat is a bad idea. As I say I hope no parents are put off by the article.

 

[laika]

Thats not going to be most cruising parents itinerary so isn't relevant to the question of whether homeschooling kids on a boat is a bad idea.

Am I to deduce that you believe in home schooling, have seen the article as an implicit criticism of it and are therefore discounting her account as untrue because you see it as critical to one of your beliefs?

This isn't an article discussing the merits of home schooling. It's about one person's experience of childhood. That she had a difficult experience isn't a comment on everyone who is doing it, only her own family. And sure the article is going to be some selected highlights because it isn't the whole book and that may be the newspaper and/or her publishers doing that (I don't claim to know how these things work). I think it's grossly unfair to accuse someone of "whining" by giving an account of their past which you have nothing to suggest is not true.

 

[capnsensible]

 

[WindyWindyWindy]

If you judge any activity by the product then it seems to have been unusually successful. She might lack the perspective of what a "normal" childhood would have been like.

 

[Adios]

I think it's grossly unfair to accuse someone of "whining" by giving an account of their past which you have nothing to suggest is not true.

Where did i say anything was untrue? You seem to be wrongly projecting a lot onto what I'm saying.

 

[Bouba]

I’m sure her parents recollect things differently

 

[laika]

Where did i say anything was untrue? You seem to be wrongly projecting a lot onto what I'm saying.

she's dramatising the downs, and going opposite to the usual expectation for effect and book sales. I hope no parents are put off by her whining.

An exaggerated account is misleading. The account is clearly "dramatised" in that obviously no-one remembers dialogue and the details in there decades later. For all I know it may be misleading but I have no way to know the truth of it and unless you can say otherwise, I suspect neither do you. In the face of lack of contradictory evidence, I see no reason to accuse people of being misleading

 

[Adios]

dramatising is not the same as lying. If I meant that I'd have said "making stuff up for effect".

However focusing solely on the negative is whining

 

[Kelpie]

She's got an estimated net worth of £5m so I don't think she's going to be too bothered about book sales. Maybe she just wants to tell her story.

 

[finestgreen]

If you read about someone brought up in a semi-detached house who once got injured in an accident and had a difficult relationship with their parents as a teenager, you wouldn't conclude anything about the desirability of living in a semi-detached house.

 

[mjcoon]

If you judge any activity by the product then it seems to have been unusually successful. She might lack the perspective of what a "normal" childhood would have been like.

Yes, let's hope no-one deviates from the average...

 

[dunedin]

Am I to deduce that you believe in home schooling, have seen the article as an implicit criticism of it and are therefore discounting her account as untrue because you see it as critical to one of your beliefs?

This isn't an article discussing the merits of home schooling. It's about one person's experience of childhood. That she had a difficult experience isn't a comment on everyone who is doing it, only her own family. And sure the article is going to be some selected highlights because it isn't the whole book and that may be the newspaper and/or her publishers doing that (I don't claim to know how these things work). I think it's grossly unfair to accuse someone of "whining" by giving an account of their past which you have nothing to suggest is not true.

I can’t be bothered to read the full article, but if her education was so badly impacted how did she get so quickly from the boat to being accepted for Sommerville College, Oxford ?

 

[Biggles Wader]

I suspect her education was just fine but her parenting was rather less so. I also suspect that would have been the case wherever she was brought up.

 

[Adios]

If you read about someone brought up in a semi-detached house who once got injured in an accident and had a difficult relationship with their parents as a teenager, you wouldn't conclude anything about the desirability of living in a semi-detached house.

The whole point was to portray it as undesirable. Title says a lot "round-the-world voyage stole my childhood"

Actually it was an "endless round-the-world voyage stole my childhood" not that she ever provably exaggerates for effect.

 

[finestgreen]

The whole point was to portray it as undesirable. Title says a lot "round-the-world voyage stole my childhood"

Actually it was an "endless round-the-world voyage stole my childhood" not that she ever provably exaggerates for effect.

Yes, I agree. We should treat this the same as an article claiming "living in a semi-detached house stole my childhood".

 

[Adios]

Yes, I agree. We should treat this the same as an article claiming "living in a semi-detached house stole my childhood".

Who couldn't write that book.

But it might take the sort of connections she's got to get it promoted in the Guardian. Poor lady. Sorry, Poor baroness.

 

[KeithMD]

Some might say it's fairly normal teenage-tantrums?
More bankable as a book or article if it's in an unusual setting.
But it can go from one extreme to another...
"I wanted to be a Princess but my heartless parents live in a council house - they just don't understand me - I hate them!"

 

[Adios]

Haha well blow me down. In 2016 before she's realised the best dishonest flex to sell her book (her Unique Selling Point) was how miserable she was and what a hinderance it was, this was her story

A life on the waves in the South Seas

"This week, his daughter Suzanne Heywood returned to Fiji to retrace the steps of their beloved Wavewalker after it was left behind in Lautoka more than 20 years ago.

MRS Heywood said her most memorable times as a voyager included days she spent in Fiji.

“We spent time in the Pacific with my parents sailing on Wavewalker while I educated myself through a correspondence program.

“Eventually I did well enough at that to get a place at Oxford University to study zoology, which was inspired by all the whales and dolphins I had seen in Fiji and the other Pacific Islands, and I then did a PhD in that field at Cambridge University.”

Growing on board a schooner might have been considered unconventional but for Mrs Heywood and her brother, it was a way of interacting with people from different communities and being exposed to a world of cultures.

This includes her time in Fiji.

“We visited many of the remote islands. We also spent time watching whales and dolphins and playing with Fijian children.

“At one stage, I briefly attended a Fijian school on Vatoa Island. I loved learning about different cultures when I was growing up and particularly loved the Fijian culture where things are shared within the village in a very open way.

“The Fijian people were always incredibly welcoming to me and my family when we were sailing in the islands.”

[challenges that shape a strong character described]

After this, the family did not continue their sailing adventures but Mrs Heywood is not deterred.

Now, she is nursing dreams of returning to sail the seas alongside her family. And she is one step closer to achieving this after she gained her yacht master qualifications recently.

A consultant at present, she is now in the process of penning down her experiences on board Wavewalker. This is similar to her father Gordon, who has written a few books about his days as a voyager.

Mrs Heywood says she will focus her novel on her experience of growing up as a child on Wavewalker.

“The book will focus on how we survived being shipwrecked, the wonderful places like Fiji that we visited and how I managed to then educate myself to go to university. Much of the story is set in Fiji as it is the place that we sailed to possibly most of all the Pacific Islands.”

While in the country, Mrs Heywood is also hoping to meet people who will have information about Wavewalker.

“I hope that I can find someone who can tell me what happened to Wavewalker. I really hope that I have the chance to see her again as I was never able to say goodbye after she was my home for so long.


A full of BS civil servant, what a surprise.

 

[KeithMD]

I wonder if she will be selling the film rights sometime soon?