The sister of tragic north-east kayaker Dominic Jackson is donating her new book about safety at sea to every school and nursery in the UK.
Ellie Jackson, a children’s author based in Cornwall, paid for ‘Sami’s Beach Rescue’ to be produced and published out of her own pocket.
It is being released to Aberdeenshire schools before the rest of the UK, in recognition of the ‘special bond’ Ellie still feels to the region.
The book tells the story of how the simple but vital advice of ‘float to live’ can save your life in the sea.
In the fictional story, a young boy named Sami soon finds himself further from shore than he’d like when swimming in the sea.
By floating calmly on his back like a starfish, rescuers were able to get to him. If he had tried to swim against the current, he would never have made it.
King Charles and Sir David Attenborough among fans of Ellie’s work
Thankfully, Sami’s story has a happy ending, but many more children and families are not so lucky.
Ellie’s brother Dominic – known as Dom – drowned while kayaking off the coast at Portsoy in 2017, aged 35.
Originally from East Sussex, he fell in love with the north-east and had been living there for more than a decade.
Ellie realised her dream of becoming a children’s author using money her brother left in his will.
She has published seven children’s books which focus on true stories about climate change, plastic pollution and habitat loss.
The books have received letters of congratulations from Sir David Attenborough and King Charles III, reaching almost two million children around the world.
‘Sami’s Beach Rescue’ lies particularly close to her heart, and not just because it is the latest.
She told the P&J more.
‘I felt this amazing connection with Aberdeenshire’
“I was living in Australia at the time [of Dom’s disappearance], with a new baby,” said Ellie.
“But I felt this amazing connection with the Aberdeenshire community, particularly along that coastline.
“I was in contact with a lot of the people there, on Facebook and so on, including the person who found Dom – she was on the clifftop and saw the RNLI boat come down to pick him up.
“Even though I was thousands and thousands of miles away, I still felt this connection to these amazing people who had helped my family and helped look after Dom.
“You can still feel a connection to a place without knowing it very well, particularly the people. I often want to go up there to visit but it’s just so far from Cornwall.”
Finding meaning in Dominic’s death
Ellie said ‘Sami’s Beach Rescue’ ‘wrote itself’, and helped provide a sense of meaning in Dom’s death.
“I wanted to make sense of the loss of my brother, and have something positive come out of it, so that his death is not meaningless and there’s a reason for it.
“If his story can help other people think about how to be safe on their adventures, then that makes me feel better about losing him.
“I’ve wanted to write this book for the last six years but I just haven’t had the time.
“I wanted to give it out free to all schools so that every child can have some kind of understanding of what they should be doing in the water.
“I’ve seen from my other books just how powerful a children’s book can be, so hopefully this one will make a difference and save lives.”
Ellie donated first book to all coastal schools from Fraserburgh to Lossiemouth
She added: “I would love to donate all my books, but that’s my income!
“I did donate my first book, ‘Duffy’s Lucky Escape’ to 70 primary schools along the coast from Lossiemouth to Fraserburgh, as a way of saying thank you to the communities who helped search for Dom.”
‘Sami’s Beach Rescue’ is being launched to coincide with Royal Life Saving Society’s (RLSS) Drowning Prevention Week, which runs from June 19 to 24.
Schools and nurseries can download their free copy at: https://wildtribeheroes.com/sami/.
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