Gosport isn’t just a dot on the map; it’s a town with salt in its veins and resilience in its soul. For Anna Wardley, who is originally from Sheffield and moved to Gosport in 2006, this coastal community has been the backdrop to a life defined by endurance, purpose, and transformation. From the Solent’s shimmering waters to the camaraderie of its people, Gosport has shaped her story in ways few places could.
“I call it Gos-Vegas,” Anna laughs. “It’s one of the most underrated places on the planet. I’ve travelled the world, but this is home.”
A role with Clipper Ventures, the organisation behind the legendary Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, sparked the Gosport move. “Gosport’s maritime heritage is incredible,” she says. “Working for Clipper meant being part of something global, but rooted in this community.”
Healing through the ocean
Anna’s connection to the sea runs deep. Her father, Ralph, was a passionate sailor, and childhood holidays were spent aboard their boat. When he died by suicide, Anna was just nine, and over the years that followed, the sea became a silent link to his memory. “I always felt closest to him through our shared love of the water,” she says.
That bond resurfaced powerfully in her mid-twenties when Anna signed up for the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race – a gruelling 38,000-mile circumnavigation on a 60ft yacht with a crew of 12. “My dad had dreamed of sailing the world,” she says. “He even bought a bigger boat for it, but it never happened. Doing the race felt like finishing something that he started.”
For 11 months, Anna sailed to Portugal, Cuba, Panama, the Galápagos Islands, Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Brazil, New York and Jersey. Life on board was raw and relentless: no fridge, no doors on toilets, showers once a week, and nights battling freezing gales between Hawaii and Japan. “It was brutal,” she admits. “But arriving in Cuba after weeks at sea with just wind and teamwork was life-defining.”
The race gave Anna more than adventure. “It helped me process grief,” she says. “It gave me an addiction to challenges and a sense of accomplishment when you do something really tough.” Sitting under the stars at night, dolphins dancing in the bow wave, Anna felt her father’s presence. “I used to sit there and think – if he could see me now, he’d be proud.”
The spark that changed everything
While working for Clipper, Anna stumbled across an article about a woman swimming the English Channel. “I didn’t even know you could do that,” she laughs. “I wasn’t a swimmer; I could only do breaststroke and had never swum more than 20 lengths head-up. But something clicked. I thought: That’s incredible. I want to do it.”
Determined, Anna began training while juggling her demanding job, rising at 4am for sea swims before work and even squeezing sessions in while travelling to ports worldwide. She taught herself front crawl at Holbrook Pool and spent countless hours at Stokes Bay – Gosport’s open-water gem – building endurance through six-day training weeks, 2–6-hour swims, and strength sessions. “I even did a 12-hour non-stop swim in the Solent,” she says.
Friends thought she was mad, and an open-water coach told her to rethink her goal and aim for 5km instead of the Channel. “That was the best motivation anyone could ever give me,” she smiles. “When I finished the Channel, through the night, stung by jellyfish, I thought of his face and I just wanted to prove him wrong.”
Her first attempt at swimming the Channel in 2007 ended in an overnight hospital stay where she had hypothermia and shock. “I realised if I was going to do this, I couldn’t have a demanding full-time job,” she says. So, she left Clipper, switched to freelance marine PR, and trained full-time. Two years later, Anna conquered the Channel. Then came bigger feats: the Strait of Gibraltar, the Catalina Channel in California, and her most audacious challenge – swimming solo around the Isle of Wight.
87,000 strokes. 55 nautical miles. 26 hours non-stop.
“The tide turned against me at 2am,” she recalls. “I was freezing, hallucinating, but I kept going. When I finished, I became only the fourth person to ever do it.”
Turning pain into purpose
Anna’s endurance feats are extraordinary, but her greatest challenge has been turning personal tragedy into a force for change. Her father’s suicide shaped her life in ways she couldn’t articulate as a child. “When my dad died by suicide, I felt like I wasn’t worth staying alive for,” she says. “No one spoke about him or what had happened. I carried that silence for decades.”
In 2019, Anna was awarded a Churchill Fellowship – a prestigious programme created after Winston Churchill’s death to fund British citizens who want to research ideas abroad to improve life in the UK. Her project? How to better support children after parental suicide. Over several months, Anna visited 19 organisations across Scandinavia, Australia, and America, gathering best practices and inspiration. The result was her report, Time to Count, which included a series of recommendations for the UK. Its final and most urgent recommendation: create an organisation dedicated to this work.
Anna acted. In March 2022, she founded the Luna Foundation, a not-for-profit committed to improving support for children and young people bereaved by parental suicide. For three years, Luna delivered vital change:
- Training for professionals, setting standards in an area that had long been a grey zone.
- Lobbying the government and running awareness campaigns to break stigma.
- Starting conversations about a subject society finds almost impossible to face.
“We shone a light on something that had been in the shadows,” Anna says. “There’s so much silence and stigma around suicide. We started conversations that needed to happen.”
Despite its impact, Luna closed on 31 March 2025 as a result funding challenges. “It was heartbreaking,” Anna admits. “The work was urgent and important. But we achieved so much, and many of our recommendations are now being taken forward by other organisations. We produced a legacy report and held an event to ensure the momentum continues.”
Since Luna’s closure, Anna has returned to her roots as a professional speaker, a role she’s held for over 15 years. Every talk she gives chips away at stigma and offers hope. “Every time I speak, it breaks the silence,” she says. “It’s about showing that pain can be transformed into purpose.”
Speaking her truth on the red dot
For Anna, speaking on stages across the UK and internationally has become a familiar part of life, but TEDx was different. “There’s something about TEDx that always appealed to me,” she says. “It’s raw, it’s honest, you speak your truth on that red spot.”
When TEDxGosport was announced, it felt like fate. “My talk was two days before my 50th birthday, right here in Gos-Vegas,” she recalls. “I even held my birthday party in the same venue, with the stage still up. It felt like a lightning bolt moment.”
The audition was nerve-wracking, but Anna got in and rehearsed relentlessly. Unlike her usual talks, TEDx demanded precision: 18 minutes, no notes, no autocue. “It’s more like a performance,” she explains. “Delivering a script word for word but sounding conversational. It was tough, but powerful.”
Her talk, “When the Tide Turns”, wove together her endurance feats and her personal journey through grief, resilience, and finding purpose. Standing on that stage in her adopted hometown, Anna shared a message that resonated far beyond Gosport:
“Tough times reveal your superpowers. When you realise the tide will turn, you can achieve more than you ever thought possible.”
Gosport: The Anchor
Through it all, Gosport has been Anna’s constant. “Stokes Bay has seen thousands of miles of my training swims,” she says. “It’s where I’ve come back to after big swims around the world.” The town’s maritime soul, its sense of community, and its understated beauty have shaped her journey.
What’s Next?
Now a mum to five-year-old Grace, Anna balances parenting with her passion for swimming and speaking. “I meet friends every summer for a 20km swim somewhere in the world,” she says. “But I’m itching for a big challenge again.”
Her mission to break the silence around suicide continues, alongside inspiring others to find strength in adversity. “We can’t choose what happens to us,” she says. “But we can choose how we respond.”
Message to Gosport’s people
“If you’re struggling silently like I once did, know this: tough times reveal your superpowers. The tide will turn, and when it does, you’ll achieve more than you ever thought possible.”
You can watch Anna’s Ted Talk here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-TJTDZn6_Q
For more information, please visit: www.annawardley.com