'He is the Prince of the Anglesey beautiful set and another wizard - he can do things in a sea kayak that defy nature'
Chris Reed, is that guy who if I see on the attending list of an event, it’s enough motivation for me to sign up. It could be a boring old lecture or a holiday I can't afford, but if Chris is going, it’s going to be worth my time and he will make it a great experience.
In the early days of knowing Chris I had a few sporadic encounters with him at different events like the SKUK symposium. I thought I must just be catching him at his absolute best, always on point with top-end wit. But as the years have passed I have realised that that’s just Chris.
I was a young penniless 15 year-old when I first started paddling, coached by the Famous Tom Thomas. There were 5 of us young lads. We were all from the same school, failing education to various degrees, at an infamous school in the county of Northumberland. With his experience in youth work and paddlesports, Tom Thomas ingeniously combined the two to put on several years of the best development work that we youngsters could have ever asked for. None of us lads would have admitted it but Tom was our role model, we all wanted to be Tom at the time. Part of that adulation was what he wore, which was of course Reed Chill Cheater kit that he proudly endorsed and boasted about to us. Wanting to be Tom Thomas wasn't our only motivation. He had an army-like style with us lads, which some might have said was harsh. But I look back and think it was exactly what we needed. Part of the harshness was drilling Rescues every session, and it didn't matter if there were icicles hanging from our helmets. We’d be capsizing, jumping from river banks, swimming through the surf into countless rescue scenarios with Army Major-style roars and shouts from the shore. Tom never allowed us to complain about the cold as we looked up at him head-to-toe in Reed gear.
We were all collecting our pocket money for the same thing: ‘Reed kit’. But it felt like an eternity in our crappy club kit of long-john wetsuits and waterproof tops.
This is true by the way, I know it’s sad - but I really did have a Reed brochure next to my bed that I would flick through most nights after days on the water.
As the years went by developing under the wings of Tom, three of us from that motley crew decided we wanted to circumnavigate the UK - me, my brother Craig, and Lee Wilson. It took us 2 years of preparation to get all the equipment we needed. We hosted fundraisers like pub gigs and coast-to-coast bike rides to get the cash we needed for kayaks, paddles, clothing, tents, the lot. But it was just too much for our fundraising efforts to cover.
Then Tom Thomas floated the idea of asking for sponsors - a concept that was new to me and one I thought would never work. But we timidly approached Chris Reed. He didn’t just say ‘Yes’ - he seemed overjoyed that we’d asked. We wanted a couple of bits of kit each but he said “you’ll need more than that lads” and plonked a Reed brochure on our laps and got us to said write a list of what we wanted. Our dream had finally come true.
We became the first team to paddle anti-clockwise around the UK, and the youngest team to ever do it.
I quite often thought about why Chris chose to sponsor us with all that equipment.
At the time, my young ego told me it must have been because we were so good. I never asked him in the end, but I realise now that psychologically the interesting part wasn’t ‘why’, but what it meant and did for us lads. When a young person’s role models invest in them, there becomes a psychological commitment those young people make to them. For myself it was ‘we need to complete our circumnavigation’. I did not want to fail myself but more so everyone else that has invested in me.
We are all motivated in different ways, and at different stages of life we need different forms of motivation. With an expedition like paddling around the UK, you first need encouragement to come up with the idea. Then during the expedition, you need motivation to keep pushing through the hard times. The thought of not wanting to let down the people that invested in you is such a crucial form of motivation when you’re young, and it feels like a nugget of wisdom that I have collected from reflection on this stage of my life. I’m not sure that Chris did it with this intention, but it is something for all of us to be aware of as potential role models to young people ourselves. I'm very thankful for all those that invested in me at that stage.
Since then, Chris has become a good friend. I’ve even had the pleasure of staying at his family home for a few days while on a surf trip. It was here, I realised he isn't just a successful businessman loved by his customers and the paddle community. He is a family man too, who has raised two amazing kids - well, accomplished adults now. I had the pleasure of meeting his son, Alfie, who like Chris, was a great guy to be in the company of. I have never felt so welcome staying in someone else’s home.
A few years ago, my wife Molly and I shared a sea-kayaking holiday with Chris on the Costa Brava in Spain. I’ve never seen her laugh so hard at some of the jokes Chris would pull. Not being much of a paddler herself, whenever I ask her if she wants to come on a paddling event with me, her response now is “will Chris be there?”.
I'm now a full-time sea kayak coach on the Isle of Anglesey in North Wales. I’m still living my dream, in Chris Reed Chill Cheater kit as a sponsored paddler.
Thanks again Chris for all your support.
