Ebook: A Boy in the Water: A Memoir
Author: Bullet John, Gregory Tom
- Tags: Long distance swimming, Long distance swimming--English Channel, Swimmers, Swimmers--Great Britain, Swimming coaches, Swimming coaches--Great Britain, Biographies, Gregory Tom, Bullet John, Swimmers -- Great Britain -- Biography, Long distance swimming -- English Channel, Swimming coaches -- Great Britain, Atlantic Ocean -- English Channel, Great Britain
- Year: 2018
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
- City: Atlantic Ocean;English Channel;Great Britain;Place of publication not identified
- Language: English
- epub
'A fascinating story full of innocence, achievement, ambition and trust' Ellen MacArthur
'Extraordinary' Clare Balding
Longlisted for the William Hill 2018 Sports Book of the Year Award
The poignant, life-affirming story of a determined boy, a visionary coach, and how the dream of a record-breaking Channel swim became reality
Eltham, South London. 1984: the hot fug of the swimming pool and the slow splashing of a boy learning to swim but not yet wanting to take his foot off the bottom. Fast-forward four years. Photographers and family wait on the shingle beach as a boy in a bright orange hat and grease-smeared goggles swims the last few metres from France to England. He has been in the water for twelve agonizing hours, encouraged at each stroke by his coach, John Bullet, who has become a second father.
This is the story of a remarkable friendship between a coach and a boy, and a love letter to the intensity and...