Roger Allsopp swam the Channel on the 31st August in 17 hours and 51 minutes.

Roger's Story 

Even though the waters around the Channel Islands are a little on the cold side, the people of Guernsey are renowned for taking the plunge throughout the seasons. The island’s more mature sea swimmers are especially noted for their hardiness but this year one of them achieved something truly extraordinary by becoming the oldest person ever to swim the English Channel.

Aged 70 years and four months, retired surgeon Roger Allsopp completed his Guinness World Record feat over the final two days of August 2011. He swam the 21 nautical mile distance from England to France in 17 hours and 51 minutes, thereby overhauling the previous age record set in 2004 by American veteran distance swimmer George Brunstad, who just happens to be the uncle of Hollywood film star Matt Damon.

Following his superb personal achievement Roger was happy to bask in the inevitable media attention but that is not why he did it. When he set off from Dover’s Shakespeare Beach he was there because of his links with breast cancer research that go back more than 40 years. He was there because his greater goal was to raise £750,000 sterling (1,200,000 US Dollars) for state of the art equipment needed by a leading British research unit. In fact when Roger entered the Guinness World Record book this year it was his second successful fund-raising swim across the choppy Channel waters. He first completed the distance five years ago when he was a mere 65 years old, becoming the oldest British swimmer to do it - again in the name of cancer research.

“In 2006 the people who sponsored me were incredibly generous. We needed £15,000 and they provided a lot more than that. But last year when we invited the research team to present their results it was clear that they needed a new piece of kit to take their work on – a very expensive piece of equipment called a mass spectrometer that analyses blood in a very sophisticated way.”

With its half a million pounds price tag and a further £250,000 needed to cover the running costs over three years, Roger knew it would need an exceptional effort to secure the kit and get it up and running for the specialist research team at Southampton University.

“At first I thought this was hopeless – that this is way beyond anything we could possibly raise – but I remembered Nelson Mandela saying it often seems impossible until it’s done. We put a plan together and all I had to do was become the oldest person to swim the Channel.”

Central to the financial part of the plan was the support Roger received from his friend Derek Coates, the CEO and founder of the Guernsey based Healthspan mail order firm, which is the UK’s biggest direct supplier of vitamins and supplements.

“Derek came up with the incredible offer of £250,000 of his own money if I could do it, and he also offered to ask for an additional £100,000 in sponsorship from the company’s loyal customer base,” Roger explains.

With the support and encouragement of his fellow Guernsey swimmers, Roger set about preparing for the toughest swim of his life. But his world record bid got off to a highly stressful and uncertain start when he was forced to wait 11 days in Dover for the conditions to be right.

“It was like being on ‘death row’, thinking you’re going in morning, then being told you’re not. I was extremely anxious by this stage but when we did eventually get under way it was much better. The first hour is the worst, it seems to go on forever, but I didn’t feel unduly cold and I didn’t suffer from cramp, which I found extraordinary.”

He may not have felt the cold to begin with but as Roger got closer and closer to the French coast the day was turning into night and the conditions were beginning to take their toll. “I was on automatic pilot, I didn’t know where I was. Eventually someone pointed out the beach and in the dark it looked like a cloud to me.

“I managed to crawl onto the beach then I stood up and felt absolutely nothing. I was beyond shivering and beyond caring really and then I was very sick. They towed me back to my support boat and got me into bed. An hour and a half later I woke up and they said ‘Well done, you’ve just swum the Channel’.”

Looking back on his swim, Roger says it was Guernsey’s strong community spirit that gave him both the drive and the strength to complete his grueling challenge. “I was there because more than 40 years ago, 11,000 Guernsey women had volunteered to give samples of blood and urine for cancer research…. I was there because this year hundreds of Guernsey men have given blood samples to enable the research to extend to prostate cancer.”

As well as taking his inspiration from the people of Guernsey, Roger is clear that the island’s great natural features for open sea swimming were key to his preparations for conquering the Channel, both in 2006 and 2011.

“When you’re out swimming it seems to make the island much bigger - you don’t feel you’re in a small place any more. Also, there is great variety. The outdoor bathing pools are very special, there’s a huge amount of history there, and Cobo Bay I look on as as being a huge swimming pool with attitute. It’s just fantastic but you have to be careful at times. With a Spring tide and rough weather you do have to be cautious!”