Pupils inspired by record-breaking Old Brutonians

  • 13 years ago
  • News
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Two Old Brutonians returned recently in order to address the school community on some incredible achievements since leaving school.

Tom Heal (Lyon House, 2001–2006) was back at King’s to give a talk on how he, together with Will Smith (Lyon House, 2001–2006), became the youngest people to ever row across the Atlantic Ocean. Under the name of Atlantic Row YT, the Old Boys rowed across the Atlantic in aid of the Special Boat Service Association.

Part of the Atlantic Rowing Race, the crossing took them 80 days after starting on 4 January 2010. Tom told the School how he was initially inspired by the idea at a job interview, how they gained the sponsorship and necessary qualifications to take part, and about the most dangerous moments in their crossing – including almost being run down by a ship in the middle of the night.

Charlie Noble (Priory, 1990–1995) also returned last week to speak on his swim across the English Channel in 2010. Charlie showed the School photographs of him at King's Bruton, and described himself as ‘a bit tubby and not particularly sporty’. However, on 12 September last year, Charlie achieved the feat by swimming from England to France in 16 hours and 36 minutes. Determined to do it, Charlie trained in water temperatures as low as 7.8 degrees, and swam for hours daily in between his work at New England Seafood. Due to various weather delays, Charlie ended up doing the swim on a much more difficult spring tide.

Both talks left the current pupils with a similar challenge: ‘Don’t presume you can’t do it too. If you really want to achieve something like this, you can.’

Find out more about King's School Bruton.

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