Roaring 40s

Next month she will throw her knickers at the lead singer of a rock band. As Ruth Campbell discovers, these are only a few of the 40 daring challenges this gutsy former midwife is taking on to mark her 40th year.

ATEARFUL and emotional Marie Hoskison, determined to overcome her fear of heights, just managed to reach the top of the 2,276ft peak of Pen-y-ghent when the idea came to her. She was approaching her 40th birthday, couldn’t swim, had never run a marathon and hadn’t sung in public before.

In a flash of inspiration, she decided this was the year to face up to her fears and bring on whatever challenges life, and her family and friends, threw at her. “Getting to the top was such an achievement and I just thought, wouldn’t it be great to do more? Life is short, you’ve got to grab it while you can,” she says.

Since then, the former midwife, from Kirkby Malzeard, near Ripon, has had swimming lessons, climbed to the top of a 100ft fireman’s ladder and is learning the words to Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights in order to be filmed, dressed in a white gown and long, black wig, singing it on the moors.

By the time she and her group, including friend Anna Ashfield, had got to the bottom of Pen-y-ghent last August, they had come up with 14 challenges and decided to set up a website so family and friends could add more.

“It just spiralled,” says mother-oftwo Marie, who set herself the target of completing 40 challenges in her 40th year and says she will do whatever people ask of her, as long as it is clean, achievable and doesn’t cost a lot.

The enthusiasm with which everyone responded to her request took her by surprise. And now she has her own inspirational blog – complete with photographs and video links – so we can all follow her exploits Some of the challenges are straightforward, tough and physical – such as running a half marathon and swimming across Lake Windermere.

Others are slightly wacky, even bizarre – like the Wuthering Heights performance and throwing her knickers at a live band – but they all share a common theme: “They have got to make me grow as a person,” explains Marie.

A few have been particularly emotional.

“I wasn’t able to swim properly, I used to do a lot of flapping and panic at the thought of my head underwater.

After taking swimming lessons, I swam in the sea at Mumbles in South Wales for my first challenge.

I just burst into tears,” she says.

But she is dreading a canoeing challenge as she has to learn to capsize safely before she can go out. “I have to go underwater and come back up.

I am not looking forward to that.”

She admits there have been quite a few tears. “I’m not the sort of person who cries easily. But I cried when I got to the top of Pen-y-ghent as well. It was such a big achievement. I was absolutely terrified of heights before, my toes would tingle and my legs would literally buckle underneath me.”

Marie tried to climb Cnicht, a peak next to Snowdon, 17 years ago but had to give up after hyperventilating.

“This time, everyone chivvied me along, even people I didn’t know, who could see how nervous I was. I felt so fantastic when I got to the top.”

She went on to climb Snowdon, another challenge. “I felt fantastically fit, climbing up quite fast and really focused. My husband held onto my hand. When I saw the drop on the way down I was really scared but my legs didn’t turn to jelly as usual. It helped me overcome fears I had had for years.”

She had to grit her teeth again when she climbed a West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service 100ft ladder.

“I felt sorry for the poor guy operating the ladder. He was younger than me and I taught him a few new swear words,” she says.

When Marie, who has two daughters, Lil, 11, and Eve, eight, and is married to Richard, a pilot, started her challenges, she decided not to do it for charity.: “It is not often as a wife and mother you do things just for yourself.

I decided to do this purely for my own development, without the pressure of feeling it was another job to do.”

She has turned only a few challenges down, including organising a girls’ break at a health spa “That wasn’t a challenge, just something nice to do,” she says. “But if I accept a challenge, I must do it, I can’t drop out – although I reserve the right to ask the challenger to do it with me.”

One of the easiest, she says, was set by daughter Eve. “She said I had to eat five gooey chocolates in a row, which wasn’t a challenge at all, but it was so cute I just had to do it for her.”

SHE is also busy writing a song about what it is like to be 40, which friends, who have access to a recording studio in Scotland, are going to put on disc and play on the website. She is going to have painting lessons to create her own watercolour of Fountains Abbey and is also doing a pencil drawing of her children. And she has to learn to play The Entertainer on piano.

She has watched 17 hours of subtitled Indian films, both light-hearted Bollywood musicals and serious dramas: “My friend lived in India for a year and embraced the culture. She wanted to me to share it too.”

Another friend has given her an empty glass jar and challenged her to fill it with sea glass from the North- East coast. “That is so exciting, something I have never done and we can do it with lots of children on the beach.

It’s all about family and friends and not just about me.”

Another challenge is to do 100 situps in one go. “I am working my way up to that,” says Marie. “I can manage 75 now.” After giving up running about four years ago following a bout of glandular fever, she is now back in her trainers, covering six mile routes about four times a week. One of her challenges is to run the Burn Valley half marathon, about 13 miles, in under two-and-a-half hours.

“This is the challenge that means the most to me. I’m running more seriously than ever before. I absolutely love it. It has made me feel so much better about myself, younger than I did ten years ago, completely energised.

“I can now run ten miles in one go,” she says.

One of her favourite challenges is going to see a live band, 30 Seconds to Mars. “I’ve got their CD, so I know all the words. But I’m a bit concerned about having to twang my knickers into the crowd. I’m going to buy a new pair of sexy chick knickers, in size eight, for that one.”

She is also learning to box. “Taking on these challenges has made me want to go out and do lots of different things. I thought I knew my limitations, but this has made me think there aren’t any. I learn something new each time. I’m not frightened. It is too easy to sit on your backside.

This forces me off my butt.”

She aims to complete her challenges before her 41st birthday on August 12 and needs just a few more to reach her total. “I like being 40. You are more confident, comfortable in your own skin and don’t give a toss what anybody thinks. It is really exciting.”

■ Do you want to challenge Marie?

Find out how you can contribute to her 40 challenges on Marie40at40challenge.blogspot.com

Is love in the air?

COULD love be in the air this spring? When the Music Stops (WTMS), one of the UK’s leading dating event organisers, is about to be unleashed on the North- East to help you find out.

New franchisee, local girl Lisa Thompson, 37, has secured use of the Slug & Lettuce Bar in Durham City’s Walkergate area for her debut WTMS event on Thursday, April 29, at 7.30pm. The evening is aimed at busy professionals between the ages of 25 and 39.

Lisa is well placed to play Cupid for Durham’s singletons. She was single until four years ago, when she met husband Paul via an online dating site. The two married a year ago and decided to start their WTMS franchise to help others find love.

“This is the first in a long series of events we have planned,” says Lisa.

“We’ll be running events for older singles aged 40-plus and 30 to 45, as well as dinner parties, murder mystery evenings and Sunday morning strolls followed by a pub lunch.”

Tickets to the Durham evening cost £20 from whenthemusicstops.com, calling the booking hotline on 0845- 230-3199 or calling Lisa on 0770-220- 7542.

Search for a stylist

ELLE magazine is launching a nationwide search for talented shop girls and boys who have what it takes to become international stylists.

Shop Girl to Stylist is a six-month nationwide talent search to discover a shop girl or boy who has what it takes to make it as a fashion stylist. It is British fashion’s answer to The X Factor.

ELLE editor in chief Lorraine Candy says: “They deserve more credit for what they do, and we’ll give them that in the pages of ELLE.”

The winner will get the chance to style an ELLE shoot, plus a magazine internship and expert mentoring from ELLE’s internationally renowned fashion director, Anne-Marie Curtis.

“Our winner will get the big break she’s always dreamed of. She’ll have the profile and the contacts she needs to start her life as a fashion stylist,”

she says.

Entrants can register at elleuk.com/shopgirltostylist and the winner will be announced in the October 25/anniversary issue of ELLE.