South Yorkshire Times April 26th, 1969
Wath Team Beat “Marathon” Record
Members of the Wath and Rockingham life-saving clubs who took part in the club’s 21 mile sponsored swim on Saturday.
Wath and Rockingham Life Saving Clubs were successful in completing their 21 miles swim at Wath Baths at the weekend, beating the record for the swim by 63 minutes.
The record of 11 hours 25 minutes was set by a team at Aylesbury and in addition to raising money for training equipment for the clubs, the team at Wath set out to beat the record. Their time was just over 10 hours 21 minutes.
The seven man team of swimmers had to be changed at the last minute and three reserves were brought in. Mrs. R. Smith, teacher and trainer with the clubs, said that probably the time would have been slower if the original team had swum, as the reserves were faster swimmers.
Max Oscroft, Ian Watson, Christopher Oades, John Miller, Andrew Hebbs, Michael Ford and Graham Steer each swam a quarter mile on a rota, each quarter mile being about 13 lengths.
Four members of the team swam front crawl, two front crawl and breast stroke, and one just breast stroke, each completing three miles by the end of the swim.
Mrs. Smith said that when the swim first started she thought they would perhaps beat the record by about 30 minutes. “But when they got to the half-way stage, we knew by the times they were doing that we stood a reasonable chance of really beating it,” she added. At the half way stage the average time for 18 lengths was about seven minutes 11 seconds, and as long as each stage could be completed in under eight minutes 10 seconds, they were under the set time.
Although two members of the team were really tired and others were feeling strained, there were plenty of spectators throughout the marathon, which began at 8 p.m. on Saturday, to keep up the spirits of the swimmers.
Medical Officer, Dr. D. J. Cusiter gave the swimmers some helpful advice before the race. He told us what food and drink they should have and about resting and keeping them warm.” said Mrs. Smith. “The swimmers took notice of the advice and I think it really helped them.”
Although the exact sum is not yet known, the team are hoping to have raised about £40 through the sponsors of the swim, and this money will be used to buy a resuscitation trainer, a model used for practising mouth to mouth resuscitation for the use of the ,two Life Saving Clubs.