Janice Meek

Janice (Jan) Meek (maiden name Janice Cooper, first married name Janice Byles) FRGS (British, born 1944) is a Guinness World Record holding adventurer, ocean rower, international motivational speaker and polar adventurer. In 1997 she took part in the first ever Atlantic Rowing Race, the Port St Charles Barbados Atlantic Rowing Race, successfully crossing the Atlantic Ocean unsupported in 23-foot (7.0 m) wooden rowing boat in 101 days with her son Daniel Byles. In 2007, she and her son were united in adventure once again when, together with Richard Profit, they successfully walked and skied 350 miles (560 km) from Resolute, Nunavut to the Magnetic North Pole in 20 days and 5 hours. She currently holds three Guinness World Records.

In the 1960s and early 1970s Meek worked (under her previous surname Byles) in the British film industry, initially in continuity and later as assistant to the producer. She worked with many household names including Roger Moore, Ian McShane, Sammy Davis Junior and Jerry Lewis, and helped to make some iconic British television programs including Randall and Hopkirk, Department S, The Champions and Catweazle. Her film credits include the 1970 film Puppet on a Chain and the 1972 film Pope Joan. After leaving the film industry to start a family, Meek moved to Saudi Arabia with her husband and two children where she worked for a time for the United States Geological Survey. In 1983, after separating from her husband, she returned to the UK and settled in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire where she opened a children's clothes shop. Over the next ten years, Meek became the first female Chairman of the Chipping Norton Chamber of Commerce, was elected as a Town Councillor and then Town Mayor. She bought and ran a local restaurant, and was headhunted to become the small business representative on the Heart of England Training and Enterprise Council (TEC). Since moving on from Chipping Norton, Meek has owned and run several restaurants, including the prestigious De Courceys in south Wales, and has been a wedding organiser and events manager. In September 2013 when she married the leading international public relations expert Peter Walker she became the first mother of a sitting MP to be married in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster.

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