A lot of people say it takes a long time to fly to Australia from Europe, well you should try sailing it…
Born and raised in Jersey, where my parents, brother and sisters still live, work took me to London which broadened the mind, but somehow restricted the view. I had sailed and surfed as I grew up, so when a friend offered me a spot on his yacht racing across the Atlantic in 1989, I was off.
I had always believed you should have a plan. It can change – but at least have one. Mine was to hitch hike on yachts to see friends in New Zealand, then return to Europe. Two things got in the way, love and ballet.Arriving in the Caribbean I found work on yachts as a permanent crew, cruising and racing with the owner and guests, criss crossing the Atlantic and Mediterranean. A fairly complex job, that has to run smoothly.
One of the guests liked what I did, and offered me the job as his personal assistant. As one of the greatest ballet dancers in history, Rudolf Nureyev was a complex, demanding and precise individual. When he heard I couldn’t start work until I had delivered a yacht across the Pacific, he was unfazed. ” Call me when you are done.”
The six month trip from Panama to Australia was with two sisters from Jersey I had known for years. One, Heather Allan was engaged to Neil, the skipper of the yacht. Her sister Jane, now living in Sydney was single, and I had fallen in love with her when I was 17. Jane sailed with us as far as Tahiti, and by then I knew I was never heading back to Europe.
The trip over, I stopped over briefly in New Zealand (to see the friends I had meant to see), then flew to Cleveland Ohio to start with Nureyev. “Difficult” would be a good word to sum up the next twelve months.
In what was later to become the book “A year with Rudolf Nureyev”, I described how he was ill with HIV when I started working for him, which developed into full blown AIDS after six months, needing me to bathe him and carry him up stairs, yet he still maintained a furious work load of Choreography and Orchestral conducting.
When he needed nurses and hospital care, it was time for me to say farewell. Jane in Sydney – who had never been far from my thoughts, flew to Europe, then I joined her in Australia, where I proposed on a Pacific beach side balcony, whilst a great friend from the Chamber Orchestra of Europe played the prelude from Bach’s Cellos suites. It went very well…
I still surf, sail and write. Books, yachting articles and website work. My day job is for an Australian family on board their 90 foot motor-yacht as crew and engineer.
Jane runs her own business, and rides her horses through the Australian bush every moment she can. I sometimes join her, trying to keep up, dodging startled Wallabies and slender silver Eucalyptus trees.
The town of Manly on the north of Sydney harbour has a very Jersey feel to it. At various times all my family have visited, and I return to Jersey every couple of years to see friends and relatives – and check the Smugglers beer is still good.
• Pictures: Blue and Jane with horse Rain at the Sydney Olympic Equestrian Centre and Blue ready for the surf
Blue and Jane with horse Rain at the Sydney Olympic Equestrian Centre
Blue ready for the surf
