"I thought I wasn't scared, but that jaws soundtrack kept swimming around my mind. Just do it! was all I could think."
I am 40 years old and my full time job at the moment is to keep my 2 year old son Harry out of mischief. I live near to my mum in Bentilee. I am interested and absorbed by photography and writing. I love the sound of poetry and the impact that words can have.
My story is about swimming the channel in 1999. It was always an ambition of mine, since I learnt to swim at the age of 7. My sister and I were both good swimmers, we trained with the Stoke team until we were 16 years old. It's the only sport I can do! The Channel experience was so surreal, I feel it is something people may be interested to hear.
Inside Lives was excellent. Meeting people in the workshop was fascinating, as was hearing their stories. I am more convinced than ever, that we 'ordinary' people have valuable memories that should be treasured. I feel I have learnt a lot!
I swam the channel. With five other ordinary working people. We left behind the kids, the housework, the bills and all that normality, and we launched ourselves from Dover to do it. Like the advert: just do it! It took us 18 hours and four minutes. We raised £30,000. It was horrible. The worst bit was at night. I'd never considered that. Climbing down from the boat at 2.15am again, into that dark sea. The light-stick on my hat made strange colours in the water. When I turned my head to breathe, I saw ferries with what looked like Christmas lights on them--although it was August and not December, thank God, 'cause it was still really really cold. I thought I wasn't scared, but that jaws soundtrack kept swimming around my mind. Just do it! was all I could think. When you can't feel your hands and feet anymore swimming becomes something different. When you have to time breathing with the waves, swimming becomes different. Arms need to reach out further...keep going...reach...pull...breathe...are we there yet? Then suddenly we were there. We had done it. And we just had enough energy to cry and cheer and open the champagne. Swimming the channel was mind over matter. None of us were athletes. We raised that money for charity, and raised a lot more inside ourselves. Ordinary people can do such extraordinary things...and still do the housework after.
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