I first met model and TV anchor Sarah Jayne Bedford en route to the Diani Reef Beach Resort & Spa, Mombasa, Kenya. She was there to shoot a TV show called Life is a Beach for a leading lifestyle channel in India. As expected, her job required her to visit various parts of the globe, strip down to a sexy bikini and take camel rides or jet-ski along pristine beaches, as the cameras rolled.
Tall, leggy and stunning, Sarah Jayne turned quite a few heads everywhere she went, and as part of the same group for almost a week, she and I had plenty of time to chat. What I discovered is that behind the seemingly easy profession and unfairly gorgeous looks lay a hardworking, sincere woman with all the complex experiences that accompany unconventional life choices.
Constantly surrounded by her crew of three to four male producers and camerapersons, Sarah Jayne was self-educated in the nuances of fashion styling, television makeup, scripting and all the other stuff young girls need to learn when they travel around the world alone with a group of men for company. (Of course, each of those men was a thorough gentleman, but it was also their job to holler out to her to lift a leg higher or bend lower so that the camera could get a good, titillating shot.) The result was a mature, reasonable, witty and down-to-earth young woman with a mind of her own and a willingness to embrace every joy of life.
Travel teaches us about places on the map, for sure. But it also teaches us about people, whether they belong to those places or they’ve travelled with us there. What’s a voyage unless you’ve made a few friends along the way? Happy discovering!
CORALESQUE 
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