Profile
Boats Not Bars
Imogen Walsh
Words: Tom Ransley
PHOTOGRAPHY BENEDICT TUFNELL
“I’ve worked with murderers and drugs lords,” Imogen Walsh says pensively, sat on her sofa, with an old, beautiful, greying Vizsla at her side, a coffee table piled with paperwork and a laptop in front of her. “And no, I’ve never really felt scared in there.”
The ‘there’ in question is prison, but this is not a story of athlete transition gone bad. The former World and European champion retired as an international lightweight sculler eight years ago and her repeat prison visits – three to four times a week – are in the name of Boats Not Bars. “Now, the metric I'm chasing isn't boat speed, it’s reoffending rates.”
Boats Not Bars (BnB) is an award-winning initiative designed to reduce prisoner reoffending rates. It is run by Walsh as part of the Fulham Reach Boat Club charity. BnB delivers sixto eight-week in-prison indoor rowing courses, as well as providing prisoners with outdoor rowing experiences and ‘Through the Gate’ support.
Walsh is a petite, softly spoken Scot with a fierce sense of fairness. “I get really wound up by something unfair happening to somebody else.” She grew up in Inverness and studied at Glasgow before swapping both for London to pursue her rowing ambitions. To underestimate her, particularly her resolve, determination and capacity for hard work, is a fool’s errand.
“Just because I've never ended up in prison, or someone I love hasn’t, doesn't mean it doesn’t matter.”
How did this ex-international oarswoman come to have an interest in the prison system? “John McAvoy,” says Walsh. McAvoy, who featured in Issue 09 of Row360, is a former high profile armed robber turned Nike-sponsored triathlete, and an absolute evangelist when it comes to the redemptive power of sport.