Imagine spending nine days riding 3009 miles - coast to coast - across America. What makes this group remarkable is not just that they are one of the first British teams of women to take on this feat of endurance, or that they will cycle in continuous relay but that their average age is 60.
The members of the team are: M argaret Sills, Age 57, Hilary Webber, Age 60 , Hilary Walker, Age 55 , Eddie Brocklesby, Age 65 and Ros Young, Age 64 (Reserve rider and team manager).
One of the team members, Eddie Brocklesby (centre, in orange) is the granddaughter of Georgina Landemare, who throughout the war was the Churchill’s private cook in No. 10 and the Cabinet War Rooms, doing weekends in Chartwell or Chequers. Georgina took up the post when she was 50 years old. She was in the kitchen in No. 10 Downing Street in October 1940, just before the bomb fell on No. 11. Churchill describes in his War Memoirs his premonition and going to fetch her out of the kitchen and send her down to the shelter. She de-sisted, ‘Sir, the soufflé isn’t quite done’!
The team, calling themselves ‘Serpentine Golden Girls’ are members of London’s Serpentine Triathlon Club and they are all accomplished older athletes. Between them they have clocked up, 27 World and European Championship Medals, 182 Marathons, 172 Half and Full distance Ironman and Ultra races and have represented Great Britain both as elite athletes and in their age groups 80 times.
They are undertaking this amazing task with two aims: to help older women understand the importance of sport and to raise money for charities close to their hearts.
Georgina Landemare wrote a book, Recipes From No. 10, in 1958, for which Eddie has the final proofs that Lady Churchill had gone through, helping to correct the French spellings. Georgina and Lady Chruchill remained good friends after Georgina retired. Eddie recalls Lady Churchill wanting to come over to her parents’ home, to which Georgina had retired, to bring one of the first of the colour TV’s. Richard Burton had given it to her after he’d made the film about Churchill. Georgina put her off as Eddie’s parent’s home was the election HQ for the local Labour Party, which was covered in posters imploring everyone to “Vote Labour”!
The Race Across America Marathon (RAAM) is in aid of charities close to their hearts. Eddie is raising funds for Parents for Children, www.justgiving.com/goldengirleddie. Parents for children specialises in finding loving, caring families for children with exceptional needs. They work throughout the UK to find permanent homes for children who have profound emotional, learning or physical disabilities.
Visit the Race Across America Marathon website at www.sggdoraam.org.uk for more details.
The race takes place in June 2008
Here's the actual route for 2008!
http://www-archive.raceacrossamerica.org/Default.aspx?tabid=230
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