I have always enjoyed a challenge. As well as various open water swims I have run a marathon, done the '3 peaks challenge', I enjoy winter mountaineering, but the one that has always been at the back of my mind, which for me is the ultimate challenge, is to swim across the English channel. However I had always immediately discounted this as being too difficult, too time consuming, too expensive, and too far away. Sea training is an essential part of channel training, and living in Ashby is not an ideal location, being about as far away from the sea as you can get! However, as I got more and more into open water swimming, the thought came increasingly to the fore – 'maybe, just maybe, I could do it? Possibly?'.

And eventually I took the plunge (pardon the pun) and got myself a channel swim booking for 2020. As I started to ramp up the training in early 2020......yes, Covid arrived. Fast forward 2 years and I have a booking for August 2022 ... the training has now started in earnest.

I am passionate about how important swimming is both in terms of an essential life skill and to be able to enjoy the water. In the UK we take a lot of pleasure from the water but in developing countries, living near the water is very different. Without the essential life skill of being able to swim, every year 360,000 people drown, many of these are in developing countries and are children. That's equivalent to 42 drowning deaths every hour, every day. Drowning is a silent epidemic.

However charities such as SwimTayka work within developing nations providing essential swimming skills lessons to those who are most at risk. I am hoping through the generous donations to this page SwimTayka can provide more lessons to those who most need it . Thank you , by donating you may be saving someone's life.