Recent developments.
Hopefully these notes below will give the general public an idea of how the Fen Skaters keep in trim with very little naturalised ice in this country or indoor rinks.
We have been lucky enough to have a cold snap in the Fens; nearly all the Fen skating venues have been skateable. There was a slight drawback when it snowed, but we were lucky at Welney to have a local hero, Shaun Booth, who came down with his original snow-clearing board and cleared a track so skaters could skate directly on original Fen ice without any snow. This made Welney the favourite skating venue for the first day of the freeze, and over the following days of freezing we had some very interesting Fen skaters and GB members appear at Welney.
I mention this simply to make general readers aware that Holland has 17 large rink facilities, which allow training conditions similar to the oval courses used by fen skaters. By contrast, all other rinks are smaller, hockey-style tracks, and the UK does not have a single venue of the type I have just described. David Smith and Richard Badcock invited me to join them on various training trips in Holland, where we visited most of the major long trap rinks, including the Hague and many more.
Images (below) Tom Fell, giving instructions on nutritional programs to bring skaters into peek physical condition, some of these being Fen Skaters who were at the training camp at the Hague well prior to Covid. I believe I saw Tom on 06/01/26, skating at Welney, and on TV news. I am led to believe that Tom puts a lot of time into keeping the Short Track Speed Skating club in Cambridge going – keeping local skaters in good form for the odd occasion when there is real wild Fen ice.
Welney 06/01/26 – https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1DBn5ZxyMh/ (featuring various topline Fen skaters and various members of the Team GB).
It was great to see Tom at Welney, skating in early January.
(Image below) A group photo of a Dutch family – Grandparents, Parents and Grandchildren – all enjoying Ice Skating in Thialf ,Heerenveen. At the Thialf rink we watched some of the best skaters in the world training.
My lifelong passion for Fen speed skating has been central to who I am. Having served as Chair of the Welney Skating Club—the “Mecca” of Fen skating—for over thirty years, I’ve witnessed the magic that happens when the Wash freezes and people from all walks of life come together on the ice.
On my original Giles Landscapes business website, I included a few informative pages about Fen skating. They not only promoted the sport but also helped raise the profile of both my business and my family, who were all involved in skating. Rubbing shoulders with Cambridge academics and enthusiasts who flocked to Welney whenever the ice was good was truly inspiring.
By nature, I’ve never been one to quietly fit into the status quo. I enjoy shaking things up — putting the cat among the pigeons — and often find that this approach leads to memorable encounters and, occasionally, unexpected business opportunities.
One such episode took place in 2009. My landscaping office sat right next to Welney Wash, the largest natural ice rink in the UK. One midday, a television crew arrived to film the Fen speed skaters — but all the skaters had gone for lunch! Undeterred, they wandered over to our office, and my General Manager, Gary Evison, whose skates were conveniently under his desk, volunteered to give them a demonstration. The footage made it onto several national news programmes. It was great publicity for us, especially as Gary’s jacket clearly displayed the Giles Landscapes logo.
However, the story took a twist. Somehow, BBC’s Rogue Traders got hold of that same footage and used it to illustrate a segment about rising energy bills during cold weather — completely out of context! My staff were horrified that our company might appear connected to rogue traders, but I saw an opportunity.
At a business networking event soon after, I used the incident to great effect. During my 10-minute presentation, I began by explaining our company’s commitment to staff training and media awareness. Then, with a grin, I asked the audience:
“Can anyone guess what kind of recent project got my company national television exposure?”
After a few guesses, I revealed, “We were on Rogue Traders!” The room erupted in laughter. I went on to talk about our actual work, and closed by adding, “We redeemed ourselves a few months later — appearing on Rogue Traders in March, then winning Gold and Best in Show at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May!”
That mix of humour and honesty broke the ice — some attendees avoided me at the buffet, but most wanted to chat. I left with valuable Cambridge business connections and, more importantly, a good story.
And there’s one more happy twist: my longtime colleague Gary Evison, who worked with me for 20 years and mentored many younger staff, found his perfect new role after Giles Landscapes collapsed in 2014. He became the Manager of Skaters Inline Club at Walpole Highway, Wisbech, where he still runs Wednesday training sessions and continues to coach winning teams.
It’s fair to say that the Fen skating spirit — resilient, unconventional, and full of surprises — still runs deep in all of us.
(Image above) Adam Giles in 2003, on a flooded farmer’s field between Manea and Welney (Photo taken by Mark Bullimore)
I believe it would be true to say the image above kickstarted Mark’s career in photography, as the broadsheet newspapers picked up on this photograph.
(Video below) Gary Evison, of Giles Landscapes, leading out skating champions James Ashby and Michael McInerney onto Welney Wash, 18th December 2010.
Gary was drawn against Adam Giles in one of the heats of the Fen Centre Finals – This showed great determination from Gary as he had no skates and was racing on borrowed skates. As Gary was to gold medal standard on inline skates, but this was the first time he had raced on wild ice with speed skates, he did very well under the circumstances. This was the last fen racing we had under NISA rules in 2010.
Rink and Fen Skaters joining together at Sutton Gault 2022 – See Peter Carr, who was in the UK 5000m Championship at the Hague, Netherlands. He is pictured in the video dressed in the GB Kit.
Finally, I do apologise for drawing attention to my own personal problems. When my business crashed, I struggled physically and mentally for a period and suffered an acute loss of income. During this time, my friends from the Fen Skating Club, with whom I had long been involved, supported me by arranging a few trips and access to various 400 m training tracks in Holland.
I would like the general public to know what devastation these predator banks have caused by destroying rural SME’s who put in great social commitment within the local communities. For instance, in my village of Welney there were my business and two other businesses who all strongly supported/promoted grass root sports. The businesses went down purely by the corruption and organised crime Lloyds Bank perpetrated on us. In the case of the Post Office, eventually they did get their voices heard – mainly through the media – but getting very little support from the other parties that were responsible for white collar crime and cover ups in the UK.