It all started with an innocent conversation. A friend’s friend had swum the English Channel and wouldn’t that be the ultimate challenge! Next thing the ‘Turnchapel Swimmers’ WhatsApp chat starts pinging and quickly a six-person relay team emerges - Hannah, Laura, Louisa, Lucy, Nina and Philippa, and Nicky C as Support Crew. The journey has been quite something, we have swum hundreds of miles in the swimming pool.… and immersed in the cold sea every week… imminently to be hundreds of miles training in Cattewater/Plymouth Sound. During the event itself, we each swim for an hour in strict rotation, in total the swim will take 12-18 hours depending on the conditions. We will face night swimming, seasickness, jellyfish, shipping tankers, flotsam and jetsam, as well as very strong coastal currents as we near France.

We have paid ourselves for all the entry fees, safety boat hire, coaching, medical fees and the essential (!) swimming paraphernalia. On the day we can only wear a standard swimming costume (no wet suit!), a pair of goggles and a swim cap. We are simply asking you to dig deep and donate to Mencap and what has already been a mammoth achievement to get to Dover.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.