CANOEIST Juliet Fooks feared her race was over even before it had begun after her support bus was badly damaged in a crash involving a deer.

The mother-of-three was in the last couple of weeks of preparing for the Devizes to Westminster Canoe Race when the accident happened. But thanks to two Swindon firms – Motofix and A-Plan Insurance who went full steam ahead when they heard she was raising money for Brighter Futures, it was repaired just in time.

She was so grateful she said: “When I picked it up I went in with lots of cakes and flowers for everybody because it was just such a dream. Then I went to A-Plan with a crate of beer.”

Paddling ever since she discovered the sport of white water canoeing as a student at Exeter University 30 years ago, Juliet moved to Wiltshire in 2012 when her husband William left the army. She founded Devizes Canoe Club and coaches youngsters at Dauntsey’s School.

Three years ago she started planning to take part in the 125 marathon paddle up the Kennet and Avon Canal and down the Thames to Westminster Bridge and had been training hard in her final year for the senior single staged race.

She decided to use the challenge to raise money for Brighter Futures in memory of her friend Gill Hussey, who died in 2014 and by the time the race started she had smashed her £1,000 target by £260.“Gill was such a positive, lovely wife and mother with an amazing passion for life.”

Training was going well and Juliet had sailed through the sub-zero temperatures over the winter, but in February she was struck down with flu, which attacked her immune system leading to a lump developing on her spine. She had only just recovered when the VW camper she had bought as a support vehicle for the race, was badly damaged in a crash.

The vehicle was due to be carrying the Fooks Five support team – William and their three children Algie, 16, Tavius, 14 and Beatrix, 12.

She was driving into Devizes on March 7 when a large roe deer suddenly appeared in the road. “It came out of nowhere,” she said. “I think the impact of it was such that it pushed the radiator through the car.”

Motofix warned repairs were going to take time. “They said it would be a month and I nearly cried. It was a really low point, realising I had no vehicle.”

But when they and the insurers learned why Juliet was taking part in the race they put the pedal to the metal to get the paperwork and the repairs done.

Then last Friday, just a matter of days before the start of the race, they had good news. “I had a phone call to say it had been done and I nearly fell off my chair.”

The race, which started on Good Friday, finishes on Monday after 77 portages and a gruelling 17-mile final stretch on tidal waters.