We heard today about the sad passing away of Fred Hammond

The Channel Swimming community was rather lucky when Lee Wakeham decided to train to swim the Channel in 1997, as he brough his parents Irene and Barrie with him.  He swam.  They stayed.  The rest is history!

However, prior to that, for many many years one wonderful man, Fred Hammond helped out on the beach in Dover with Channel swimmer training.  He was a keen swimmer himself, would get right in to feed swimmers, and was a huge wealth of knowegde and experience.

Fred and Molly were regular welcoming fixtures on the beach, and loved by all.  In the times before email and Facebook, many swimmers from around the world (including a very young John V-W in photo) kept in touch with them through prolific letter writing.

Today we lost a small piece of Channel Swimming history, and we are all the worse off for it.

Fred will always have my respect and gratitidue, along with the same from a generation of swimmers.

Big love
Nick