NO "TYPICAL" vicar's wife - if there are such beings these
days - Estelle Reed, who is married to the Revd Adam Reed, the
Vicar of Emmanuel Church, Saltburn, in York
diocese, runs DanceFit, a dance-and-fitness business in
Saltburn.
Last year, she says, "I challenged some of my customers, male
and female, to do some cabaret dancing in high heels to raise money
for cancer care. The guys who did it said it was the most
terrifying thing they had even done, and challenged me to do
something equally terrifying to raise money for a good cause. So I
decided to have a go at Tough Mudder."
This is an endurance event
designed and created by British Special Forces to test mental as
well as physical strength. The 10-to-12-mile-long obstacle course
involves fire, water, electricity, and heights, as well as plenty
of Yorkshire mud.
In church, Mrs Reed says,
her husband was using the Parable of the Talents to encourage
people to raise money for the community, and was giving out £10
notes to use as seed money. "Our family," she says, "decided to use
our £10 notes towards the entry fees for Tough Mudder. It [was] a
real family effort."
Mr Reed and the children
helped with the publicity, but it was Mrs Reed who had to complete
the course, together with several of her DanceFit customers,
because Mr Reed was leading a pilgrimage of young people to Taizé
at the time. "I love the Tough Mudder ethos - that it's not all
about winning, but working together to overcome obstacles," Mrs
Reed says.
Muddy it certainly was. But there were many other obstacles,
and, at one point, Mrs Reed was up to her shoulders in muddy water
(pictured). But "I loved it," she says, and is signing up to do it
again next year, when she thinks that there should definitely be a
clergy and spouses' team.