North Yorkshire pensioner to swim the English Channel

Dot Wagstaff, who lives near Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire, will be one of six in a team taking it in turns to swim legs of the 21-mile crossing between Dover and France this September.

The octogenarian will take part in the gruelling feat of swimming the English Channel as part of a relay team.

If successful, the pensioner will be one of the oldest women's relay team members on record to have ever achieved the challenge.

Dot Wagstaff (Image: SUBMITTED)

Each member of the team is aiming to raise at least £2,000 for Cosmic, a charity which supports neonatal and paediatric intensive care units at St Mary’s and Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, London.

According to the Channel Swimming Association, the organisation authenticating challengers’ attempts, the oldest member of a relay team was in his mid-70s when his group called the Septuagenarians completed the challenge in 2015.

However, the Guinness World Records lists that relay team member Robert Lloyd Evans was aged 80 when he was in a group called ‘One foot in the wave’ which, it says, became the oldest male relay team to make the crossing in October 2023.

Dot Wagstaff (Image: SUBMITTED)

Dot, who is one of three of the team members who live in Yorkshire, is no stranger to epic challenges having competed in the tough Ironman World Championships in Hawaii when she was in her 60s and represented Great Britain three times in the World standard distance triathlon age group event in  New Zealand, Canada and London.

“When I was younger I did think about swimming the Channel,” she said. 

“But it only came back on my radar last year when a friend persuaded me to join the relay team. The preparation and training has been gruelling in itself.

Most read:

• Plans submitted for demolition of 'unsustainable' North East council homes
• Major housing approved despite concerns over ‘ludicrous’ traffic plan
• Hefty sentences imposed as swift justice is meted out to North East rioters

Get more from The Northern Echo and stay informed with a digital subscription. Click here to find out more.

"It has involved swimming four to five times a week and acclimatising myself to colder temperatures by sitting in icy water in an outside tub for the last three months.

“It will be demanding. We’ll each be swimming for an hour, sometimes in the dark, before handing over to the next member of the team, and then repeating that for at least another two legs of the crossing.

"As well as swimming in cold water, it will be the unpredictability of the challenge that will be tough, whether it’s the jellyfish, avoiding debris in the water at night, or tackling rougher seas.”