The Channel Swimmer

Would you hear a Wild tale of adventure
Of a hero who tackled the sea,
A super-man swimming the ocean,
Then hark to the tale of Joe Lee.

Our Channel, our own Straits of Dover
Had heen swum by an alien lot:
Our British-born swimmers had tried it,
But that was as far as they’d got.

So great was the outcry in England,
Darts Players neglected their beer,
And the Chanc’Ior proclaimed from the Woolsack
As Joe Lee were the chap for this ‘ere.

For in swimming baths all round the country
Joe were noted for daring and strength;
Quite often he’d dived in the deep end,
And thought nothing of swimming a length.

So they wrote him, C/o Workhouse Master,
Joe were spending the summer with him,
And promised him two Christmas puddings
If over the Channel he’d swim.

Joe jumped into t’ breach like an ‘ero,
He said, “All their fears I’ll relieve,
And it isn’t their puddings I’m after,
As I told them last Christmas Eve.

“Though many have tackled the Channel
From Grisnez to Dover that is,
For the honour and glory of England
I’ll swim from Dover to Gris-niz.”

As soon as his words were made public
The newspapers gathered around
And offered to give him a pension
If he lost both his legs and got drowned.

He borrowed a tug from the Navy
To swim in the shelter alee,
The Wireless folk lent him a wavelength,
And the Water Board lent him the sea.

His wife strapped a mascot around him,
The tears to his eyes gently stole;
‘Twere some guiness corks she had collected
And stitched to an old camisole.

He entered the water at daybreak,
A man with a camera stood near,
He said “Hurry up and get in, lad,
You’re spoiling my view of the pier.”

At last he were in, he were swimming
With a beautiful overarm stroke,
When the men on the tug saw with horror
That the rope he were tied to had broke.

Then down came a fog, thick as treacle,
The tug looked so distant and dim
A voice shouted “Help, I am drowning,”
Joe listened and found it were him.

The tug circled round till they found him,
They hauled him aboard like a sack,
Tied a new tow-rope around him,
Smacked him and then threw him back.

‘Twere at sunset, or just a bit later,
That he realized all wasn’t right,
For the tow-rope were trailing behind him
And the noose round his waist getting tight.

One hasty glance over his shoulder,
He saw in a flash what were wrong.
The Captain had shut off his engine,
Joe were towing the Tugboat along.

On and on through the darkness he paddled
Till he knew he were very near in
By the way he kept bumping the bottom
And hitting the stones with his chin.

Was it Grisniz he’d reached?… No, it wasn’t,
The treacherous tide in its track
Had carried him half-way to Blackpool
And he had to walk all the way back.

Marriott Edgar

A grasshopper walks into a bar, the bartender says “Hey,we’ve got a drink named after you.” The grasshopper says, “You’ve got a drink named Steve???”

Good luck Michelle!

Barb Barry
(aka “Jane’s cousin”)

Best of luck on swimming the Channel. You (and the website) are so inspirational. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers. Enjoy your journey to the French coast! I look forward to hearing from you about your experience.

UNIVERSAL LAWS AFFECTING COMPETITIVE SWIMMERS
(much like Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion)

*Law of Competitive Gravity*

When left unattended, a swimmer will gravitate to the worst technique possible.

*Law of Inertia*

A swimmer at rest will tend to remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. A swimmer in motion will tend to rest as soon as possible unless acted upon by an outside force.

*Laws of Acceleration & Momentum*

The law of acceleration may only apply for 3 minutes after coach reminds swimmer it is important, then the law of Momentum becomes dominant soon to be replaced by the law of Inertia.

*Law of Static Levels*

Swimmers will automatically seek their own comfort level and tend to attract others to so the same.

* Mind over Matter*

The mind can overcome many obstacles during competition but the same does not usually apply during practices.

*Law of Finite Attraction*

Even after carefully explaining the efficiency and effectiveness of an ideal stroke rate, within 3 minutes swimmer will invariably lose the ability to count strokes and think about any related concept. See similar anomaly under Law of Acceleration.

* Relativity *

The position of the swimmer’s body in relation to the position it is supposed to be in, may vary up to +or- 100%.

*Fluid Mechanics*

The amount of fluids the bladder can retain is directly proportional to the difficulty of the middle of the current practice set. The same principle seems to apply to ripping caps and broken goggle straps, but no scientific evidence connecting the 3 has been documented.

Titanic was the first ocean liner to have a swimming pool and a gym.

Elephants are capable of swimming twenty miles a day. They use their trunks as natural snorkles.

African Black-footed penguins, although they cannot fly, can swim up to 25 miles per hour which is faster than the Atlantic Bottlenosed dolphin, which can attain speeds of 18-23 mph.

If you have blonde hair that goes greenish from swimming pool chlorine, you put ketchup on it and it balances the pigments out.

Captain Matthew Webb of England was the first to swim the English Channel using the breaststroke, which was used earlier by Benjamin Franklin. [Source: The 365-Days-a-Year Trivia Desk Calender 1999 Edition]

Tuna swim at a steady rate of nine miles per hour for an indefinite period of time — and they never stop moving. Estimates indicate that a fifteen year old tuna must have traveled one million miles in its lifetime. [Source: Issac Asimov's Book of Facts]

Sharks gills can’t take in water by themselves. This means that sharks can neither sleep nor stop swimming.

It is illegal to swim in Central Park,NYC.

A fierce gust of wind blew 45-year-old Vittorio Luise’s car into a river near Naples, Italy, in 1983. He managed to break a window, climb out and swim to shore — where a tree blew over and killed him.

Turtles possess the ability to absorb oxygen directly from the water in which they swim (kind of like fish).