SPECTATOR SPORT
In the swim
Frank Keating
LAST WEEK was the 107th anniversary of Captain Webb's pioneering -Channel swim. The nutters of both sexes are still at it. On Sunday, Alison Streeter, a 28- year-old foreign exchange dealer from the aptly named Nutfield, in Surrey, crossed for the 19th time to equal the women's record for Channel swims set by the Canadian lawyer Cindy Nicholas ten years ago.
Swimming the Channel is no doddle. Since the Shropshire merchant seaman Webb dived off Admiralty Pier, Dover, in August 1875, wearing a cherry-red cos- tume of the same silk with which Ranji had tailored his cricket shirts, more than 6,000 attempts have been made by just over 4,000 swimmers. But only 420 have completed the crossing. With the neap tides of August and September the most propitious, they are queuing up again on Shakespeare Beach to lard themselves in a Vaseline-lanolin mix of greasy gunge to keep themselves warm and waterproof for the zany zigzag through filthy waters which, depending on luck with the cur- rents, can take anything between ten and 20 hours.
Last year, 50 had a go. This year, 70 have registered for the attempt with the Channel Swimming Association secre- tary, Mrs Audrey Scott, a delightfully homely cottage-loaf of a granny, who has for years run the whole wondrous, water- logged enterprise with her husband, Ray, a retired schoolmaster, from one half of the dining-room table in their Folkestone bungalow. It costs about £1,000 for the dubious privilege — to hire the accompa- nying guide boat and crew, including a CSA observer — and once you have stag- gered ashore at Cap Gris Nez or Dover, even before you can call for the largest brandy known to man, there is Mr or Mrs Scott asking for another £25, which is the cost of the prized gilt-copperplate scroll from the CSA to prove you've joined one of the world's most masochistic elite.
A few years ago I slept in the same bed as the then 'King of the Channel'. Not on the same night, but in the converted tool- shed at the bottom of the Scotts' garden the day after Mike Read, an agricultural scientist from Ipswich, had stayed there before getting up at dawn to make his 31st Channel crossing. Astonishing. What possible pleasure could he derive from hour upon hour in that evil, pollut- ed water?
`None whatsoever', grinned the affable, highly intelligent Read.
`Every crossing has been hell. Around 15 hours is my average. The only way I can describe it to you is to imagine you are driving from Penzance to Aberdeen — and back — on a filthy night, not only without windscreen-wipers, but at the same time suffering from, say, acute and excruciating indigestion.'
Ah, but the feeling when you've fin- ished. Bliss. You've beaten the bastard again.
Alison Streeter says she goes on doing it lust because it's there — well, it is our Channel after all, isn't it?' A pal of mine, John Goodbody, senior sports hack at the Times, heroically did it for the first time last year at the age of 48. The dar- ling nut says he savoured every moment: `It might seem as boring as a motorway journey to Scotland without a radio ... but when you get into a steady rhythm and you glimpse the boats around you and the hills above the shore, you feel as though you could go on for ever. The joy is not only in getting there, but in the journey.' It sure does take all sorts.
Previous page
