Former Marine to face the high seas alone, for homeless charity
This is the extraordinary story of a homeless boy who became a Royal Marine, then a businessman, and is about to sail singlehandedly across the Atlantic in aid of a Gloucestershire homeless charity.
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Dear Readers,
We hope you have had a great weekend.
Last week was a busy one here at The Raikes Journal, with the grand reveal of the first of our founding partners, QuoLux, a business that has helped hundreds of county business leaders and middle managers develop skills to help them make their companies more productive, more efficient, even better places to work (read the story here). And now itâs helping Raikes too.
That was followed up by coverage of the Randall & Payne Budget Live event, staged at Gloucester Rugbyâs Kingsholm Stadium. This was the accountants and business advisors offering businesspeople a chance to hear the detail in the company of their peers, plus a little analysis, and remind everyone they are part of a community there to support one another. It was staged in partnership with wealth management firm Rathbones (read more here).
And then came the celebration of International Womenâs Day on Friday, with articles written for us by members of the business community and third sector about why the day means something to them (you can read more here).
This week thereâs another key event on the minds of most business people - GFirst LEPâs annual review. You can read our pre-piece on its fate here. And you can read more about the event on Tuesday in our Business Briefing shorts.
Remember, we also send editions on Thursday and Friday, with the main story generally paywalled. If you become a member you can read those stories too.
We hope you have a great week.
Please do continue to bear us in mind for your stories and ideas. The best email is andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk. Or telephone 07956 926061.
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* Everything you read on Raikes is made possible by the generous support of our partners (weâve already let you know about QuoLux and more partners will be revealed over the coming weeks) our founding members and our paid-up subscribers. A massive âthank youâ to all our other subscribers too. The support from all of you is invaluable! For commercial opportunities visit our About page. To get in touch email andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
Why todayâs main story?
Anyone seeking a common pathway for how you become a business founder and owner will probably be left wanting. Common elements are always there, of course - hard work, more hard work, luck, a brilliant idea, timing, good advice etc. In the case of Ross Brady, we would absolutely not advise copying the path that led him to found Sailing Scallywag, the sailing business he began in 2021.
But, we would advise reading his story. It is extraordinary, and we also hope it might provide hope and inspiration not just for former forces people - who will possibly see what is realy going on beneath the surface here - and young people who experience homelessness, like Brady.
Despite everything else he went through, including serving his country in the Royal Marines, he has not forgotten and in a valiant tribute he will set sail in April across the Atlantic, on his own, to raise funds for Gloucestershire Nightstop.
The charity supports homeless people aged between 16 and 25.
We hope you are inspired too, like we were, by his determination to live and to make a difference doing so.
Your Raikesâ briefing
In last yearâs March Budget (2023) Jeremy Hunt unceremoniously announced GFirst LEP would go the way of all the other local enterprise partnerships nationwide, that it would be merged into a local authority (in this case the county council), or be disbanded. For GFirst, a catalyst of so much change in the county, from infrastructure projects to The Growth Hub business support centres, to say the timeline was a shock was an understatement. Since then everyone, including those who work for GFirst, has been asking what the future holds. We will find out on Tuesday, from 4.30pm, at the University of Gloucestershireâs Business School when the LEP stages âThe One about Evolutionâ. If you are a member and can see beyond our paywalls, you can get more insight into GFirstâs future here.
Reaction from businesses you care about often seems more interesting than the mainstream analysis when it comes to the Budget. Greg Pilley, founder and MD of the popular Stroud Brewery, reacted with disappointment and frustration at the Government's lack of support for the pub and brewing trade shown by Jeremy Huntâs Spring Budget. The Chancellor froze alcohol duty for another year, but Pilley is adamant this won't make any difference to the large economic pressures that pubs are dealing with at the moment, and which led to 508 pubs around the UK shutting in 2023 with the loss of over 6,000 jobs. Stroud Breweryâs electricity bill is currently near ÂŁ116,000 â up from ÂŁ49,000. And thatâs just one factor Pilley is wrestling to overcome. Weâll be running a full story on Raikes this week.
Raikes reported earlier in February (read it on this edition here) how Cheltenham-headquartered fashion house Superdry was facing some tough decisions after a long battle to re-establish itself on an upward trajectory, effort which was then sideswiped by the Covid-10 pandemic. Now the firm, famously founded by veteran entrepreneur Julian Dunkerton, has brought in advisors from restructuring specialists Teneo. According to reports the two parties have been working together on a turnaround plan over the last few weeks. Dunkerton, the firmâs chief executive officer, is understood to have held talks with Laura Ashley owner Gordon Brothers and Oakfurnitureland backer Davidson Kempner to see if he can move forward with a takeover bid for Superdry.
What with GFirst LEP's event tomorrow (March 12) dominating this week we've skipped our usual round-up for diary dates for the next few days that we normally run under the main story. However, we can't help referring you to this one - on Monday March 18 next week. This is all about how your business can be a force for good. Three speakers from county firms will tell us how they managed it; George Herbert, managing director of Hobbs House Bakery, Martin Holmes, people director for Creed Foodservice, and Stewart Barnes, chief executive officer of QuoLux. Due to take place at Brickhampton Court Golf Complex, Cheltenham Road East, Gloucester, from 5pm to 8pm. Find out more here.
Former Marine to face the high seas alone, for homeless charity
This is the extraordinary story of a homeless boy, who became a Royal Marine, then a businessman and father, and is now about to sail single-handedly across the Atlantic to raise money for a Gloucestershire charity that helps young people struggling with homelessness. Â
By Andrew Merrell
If ever first impressions could be misleading yours will probably fool you if you meet Ross Brady. And if ever anyone has it in them to survive sailing single-handedly across the Atlantic, that man is Brady too.
In April he plans to sail from Antigua in the Caribbean to the UK to raise money for Gloucesterâs Nightstop charity, which supports homeless young people.
It is a trip that will see him tackle 4,500 nautical miles and will make for some incredibly challenging days (possibly as many as 45 days, hopefully less), he will keep in touch with his family on the one piece of tech he has reluctantly allowed on board - a satellite phone.
We are sat drinking tea on the sofa in front of the wood burner at the home he shares with his partner, Lucie, and their son, Pip. His house is frugally furnished, and spotlessly clean.
âWe spent every penny we have on doing things and on the business,â said Lucie, catching me looking around while she offers me cake.
âWe donât even have a TV. We prefer this,â she adds, laughing, pointing at the piano as if itâs where others would had made way for a wide screen television.
Brady has long hair and today is wearing glasses and sporting a beard that makes him look somewhere between John Lennon and a creative visionary, and with his calm nature he has the air of someone who still carries with him the benefits of a Buddhist retreat â not someone about to risk his life for a charity close to his heart.
Raikes already knew something of his extraordinary background, but he manages to astonish us further by suddenly revealing that despite all his experiences he has ânever actually sailed soloâ beforeâ.
If this was someone you loved this is the point you may get down on your knees and beg them to raise money in any other way â preferably a safe sponsored walk. But, as we have said, Brady, has already been to other worlds and come back and is not easily phased.
Lucie is completely behind him, explaining that she knows this is something he has to do - and that she will look forward to him coming home.
Those âother worldsâ he has already travelled to include life as a Royal Marine (42 Commando), serving in Afghanistan, and somehow surviving a conflict that took many friends from him.
âJoining the Marines was something I always wanted to do. One of my earliest memories is of walking with my grandfather across one of the bases where he was stationed,â said Brady, whose father was also in the armed forces.
For him, to follow in their footsteps was his destiny, but home life was difficult, and Brady found himself homeless aged 15. He does not tell it like a hard luck story.
âIt didnât work out,â he said.
Somehow he completed an apprenticeship in bricklaying and waited out his time until he was 18 to try to gain a place in the Royal Marines.
It would surely be an impossible leap, for a homeless boy whose trade was bricklaying to secure a foothold in the elite of the British fighting force, if not for Bradyâs seeming ability to calmy do what he sets out to do and ignore the odds.
It could still all have been so different, if only for a meeting with a stranger. It is another connection for Brady to the work done by the staff and volunteers of the Gloucestershire charity Nightstop.
âIn those initial rough days, a compassionate lady crossed my path changing my trajectory. As a community support worker, she listened, encouraged, and, above all, showed me kindness,â he said, adding that he wished he could recall her name.
Brady has come so far since and survived so much. Leaving the Marine in 2015 he briefly returned to bricklaying and other jobs, and then found himself trying his hand at sailing for the first time in Cornwall. It changed his life
âI was for me,â he said.
The experience was with the charity Turn to Starboard, that supports armed forces personnel affected by military operations. Brady was so smitten he realised he wanted to pursue the RYA Cruising Instructor qualification and work in the sector.
âI was travelling down to Cornwall for two weeks, sailing and doing the course, then coming back to work for two weeks, but I felt I needed to completely focus on the sailing.
âI went all in, quit my jobs and drove down to Cornwall and lived out of my car on cheese sandwiches,â he recalled, as if that kind of single-minded determination was every day.
He did odd jobs to earn money, working on boats, in boats, painting boats, until he passed the course â in record time - and began working in the industry proper, something that led to freelancing for schools like First Class Sailing.
âIt was only when I did a season in the Greek Aegean working on a boat that I suddenly thought, âI could so thisâ,â he said, meaning he realised he could run a sailing business. It seemed another impossible dream, but this is Brady.
In 2021, with a cheeky reference to his distant past, he had raised and saved enough capital to launch Sailing Scallywag, a bespoke sailing company which offers yacht delivery, own boat tuition, sailing instruction, boat handling, skills, introduction to sailing and heavy weather sailing tuition.
For the days when he is away from home working on boats Lucie is there on shore, managing the business and dealing with family stuff - and helping make sure the detail for his forthcoming trip is on course.
âThis business isnât just about sailing; itâs about breaking barriers and making the beauty of water and boat life accessible to everyone,â said Brady.
âI feel very grateful to have found sailing. And I really only stumbled across it.â
He and Lucie laugh when they acknowledge they are anomalies in the world of sailing where high society moves freely. But Brady has earned huge respect and made some very unusual friends.
Social media posts announcing his forthcoming challenge attracted comments from a certain Sir Dusty Miller - retired senior Royal Air Force officer, Air Marshal Sir Graham Anthony 'Dusty' Miller, KBE. Also a former High Sheriff of Gloucestershire.
In a rare moment in which he comes close to complimenting himself, one of Bradyâs social media posts talks briefly about the âgrit and determinationâ that has allowed him to launch Scallywag Sailing and drive it forward.
It was met online by this comment from Sir Dusty Miller, acknowledging all Brady has been through: â...and laughing in the face of adversity. Well done Ross, you are an example to us all.â
Since launching his business he has been interviewed and quoted in magazines about sailing, and delivered newsletters packed with encouraging tips and instructions and knowledge on how to sail and be safe and enjoy adventure, never dwelling on his own personal journey or using his background in the Royal Marines to sell himself, choosing instead to be humble and rely on his abilities.
How will he cope alone, on the Atlantic, and no ordinary sea, for a month and more?
âI donât know. I do know what it is like to go without sleep. I know what it is like to go without food. I know what it is to have to keep going to get to where you want to be,â he says, with not even a hint of the melodrama or the drama ahead.
On Saturday he teams up for a special charity event, Yarns of Sea and Sky, with Sir Dusty Miller, and featuring an introduction from pirate historian Mark Steeds - to be staged at The Royal Southern Yacht Club. It will raise funds for his trip.
Elaine Person, executive director of Gloucestershire Nightstop, said: âOur local charity has been providing a strong foundation for homeless, or at risk, 16 to 25 year olds in Gloucestershire for 20 years.
âOur holistic approach includes providing emergency and medium-term accommodation, advice and support, befriending, small hardship grants, and enrichment activities, as well as kitchen, shower and laundry facilities at our Gloucester headquarters.
âWe are honored that Ross has chosen to fundraise for this important cause and can't wait to follow his journey.â
Find his Gofundme page here.
* Everything you read on Raikes is made possible by the generous support of our partners (weâve already let you know about QuoLux and more will be revealed over the coming weeks) our founding members and our paid-up subscribers. A massive âthank youâ to all our other subscribers too. The support of all of you is invaluable!
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