Record-breaking feat inspires Mayor’s charity effort

Published: Fri 16th August, 2024

“I had this skill, so I wanted to put it to good use…” says Cllr Dr Julie Bradshaw MBE as she talks about her amazing swimming career.

It’s at this time of year that Cllr Bradshaw, the current Mayor of Charnwood, - finds herself reflecting on a couple of her most remarkable achievements.

Forty-five years ago – on 19 August 1979 – Cllr Bradshaw successfully swam across the English Channel to France at the tender age of 15. It took her 10 hours and nine minutes.

Some 23 years later– on 5 August 2002 – Cllr Bradshaw achieved the feat once again but this time swimming butterfly rather than front crawl.

Her finishing time of 14hrs 18mins set a world record for the fastest swim across the Channel using that stroke, and it still stands to this day.

Cllr Bradshaw combined completing these impressive feats of endurance with fundraising and was awarded an MBE in the 2006 Queen’s New Year’s Honours list for “Services to Swimming and Charity”.

Her fundraising efforts have continued and in her role as Mayor this year, she is helping chosen charities Dogs Trust Loughborough and Living Without Abuse.

Cllr Bradshaw is planning several fundraising events drawing upon both her sporting past and career as a business and mindset life coach – a “unique swimming event”, a dog walk, a dinner and mayoral swim talk, and offering organisations the chance to book her for a motivational talk, with the proceeds going to her chosen charities.

“The great thing is that everything I’ve done in terms of swimming, I’ve raised money for charity,” she said.

“I’ve got this skill, so I wanted to put it to good use. I always say it’s not just about the swimming achievement, it’s about who I become in that process and also about using my skills to raise money for charity.”

So, going right back to the beginning, how did this all come about?

“I’d always been into lots of different sports at school and excelled at swimming, especially in the colder water, and I started doing a bit of training outdoors,” Blackpool-born Cllr Bradshaw recalled.

“I kind of got into it that way. My parents did quite a lot of caravanning in the Lake District, and I swam across Lake Windermere when I was 12 years old.

“That first swim, I did breaststroke as I was absolutely petrified about putting my head under the water! But then the next year I went back and did it front crawl and won it.

“Then, obviously, the ultimate was the Channel, so I just said ‘right, I want to swim the Channel’ – and the rest is history, really.

“We’d gone down to Dover a couple of times, because we were supposed to get off in July and the weather was cold, wet and windy, so we went back down again and then in August there was a 50-50 chance of conditions being good enough.

“We decided to take the opportunity and the weather did turn halfway across, but I made it across and that was the aim of the game.

“I recall walking down hundreds of steps at Shakespeare Beach and then getting greased up. I had butterflies in my stomach, but I was just glad to be getting going after all the waiting.

“I was kind of in my own world, if that makes sense. I was nervous, obviously, but I always trained well, so I had that self-belief.

“When you swim outside, you are beholden to the conditions – it’s not like being in a swimming pool.

“The first two hours, for me, were the worst, but once I got into my rhythm, I was OK.

“When I had finished, I can recall being greeted by some Frenchmen as I walked to shore in the dark.

“It felt amazing and a sense of relief to some extent that I'd finished it in 10hrs 9mins. I felt over the moon, then after some time ashore, was taken back in the dinghy to the main vessel to return to England.”

There were 23 years between Cllr Bradshaw’s first crossing and her next one – after overcoming an initial setback.

She explained: “A few years back, I spent some time in Canada. I was coaching swimming at the time, and they had an open-air pool. I always had in the back of my head that I wanted to do some distance fly, so I went down to the open-air pool and just started racking up the lengths.

“This would have been 1991, so I came back to the UK and built my fly repertoire up.

“I went and swam Windermere, which is 10.5 miles, and in the mid-90s, I did Ullswater (7.25 miles) and Coniston (5.25 miles) and then I turned my attention to the Channel.

“I’d always done freestyle but after I came back (from Canada) I was known for fly. The ultimate was to do the Channel again, so that’s what I did.”

Unfortunately, her first attempt had to be aborted as a result of an arm injury sustained while swimming 18 hours of butterfly in horrendous weather conditions on her Two-Way Windermere (21 miles) swim a few weeks earlier.

“One thing I didn’t take into account was that I couldn’t recover as quickly as I could when I was a 16-year-old,” said Cllr Bradshaw, who still swims every day.

“It was the first time I hadn’t achieved the swim I’d set out to achieve and at the same time it was a huge learning experience for me, because I knew what I needed to do next time.

“I knew I could do it, and the time was possible. It had only ever been done by one person – a Canadian lady – back in 1989 – and she took about 23 and a half hours.

“I knew I could break the record if my arm didn’t give way again, and I swam it in 14 hours 18 minutes. I finished it, I raised a lot of money for charity, and in the process, I become the first British person to do it, and broke the world record by just over nine hours.

“I finished in the dark and I just remember getting onto the beach and I wanted to get some pebbles to bring back.

“I remember sitting on the beach thinking ‘wow, thank goodness that’s done!’

“I was really quite pleased. There wasn’t much to see but it was just nice sitting on the beach.

“I was glad to finish. Doing fly all the way, I was tired, but I was feeling fit and if I’d had to swim a bit more I could have done. Luckily, I could get a lift back on the boat!”

The record still stands to this day. Two men – one French and one American - have crossed the Channel swimming butterfly, but not as quickly.

“It’s great to have the record but if it goes in the future, it goes,” said Cllr Bradshaw. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Cllr Bradshaw is enjoying being the borough’s first citizen and often talks to people about her swimming career.

Any organisation or group that would like to book Cllr Bradshaw for a charity talk can contact her via the Mayor’s Office at: mayor@charnwood.gov.uk

For more information on the mayor’s charity appeal for 2024/25, visit: www.charnwood.gov.uk/currentcharityappeal

More information on the mayor’s charities can be found at:

https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/rehoming/our-centres/loughborough

https://www.lwa.org.uk/