Over the weekend of 25th-26th February, two teams of Oundle School pupils took part in two separate round the clock 24 hour non-stop swims to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and Bloodwise (a charity aimed at curing all forms of blood cancers). The swims have so far raised over £5000 between them.
Sponsored swims take place at Oundle every year for a full 24 hours – straight through the night starting at midday on Saturday through to midday on Sunday.
Team One
Team One comprised of eight swimmers – co-captains James Alley (18) and Maddy Farley (17) together with Jack Townend (18), Linus Lam (17), Jamie Fulcher (16), Alice Liow (18), Maddie Terrell (16), Stanislav Glimbovskyi (18) and Katherine Warwick (16).
The group of eight swam in thirty minute shifts throughout the night. In total they swam 1908 lengths which is 82,044 metres – the equivalent of crossing from Dover to Calais two and a half times.
Maddy commented, “James and I chose GOSH as our charity because it is important to us both. My cousin Noah has spent his whole life in and out of GOSH having had open heart surgery as a baby and he came along to support and swim a couple of lengths. It made us all swim just that little bit faster knowing that we were raising money for such a worthwhile cause.”
James commented, “I have been a patient at GOSH for seventeen years. They have done so much for me that I wanted to be able to give back to them.”
Team Two:
Team Two comprised four Fifth Form (Year 11) boys from School House – Max Wilson (15), Hugo Wilson (16), Henry Stringer (16) and George Pinder (16) – whose inspiration is Scarlett Clarkson, the sister of their friend and fellow pupil, Finn Clarkson (15). As the boys swam, Finn was in America donating bone marrow to Scarlett who was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia in January 2011.
The group of four boys swam in shifts of an hour throughout the night.
Housemaster of the School House boys, Adam Langsdale commented, “This was a very tough physical and mental challenge but the boys approached it with the typical enthusiasm and commitment that we have come to expect from School House boys.”
George commented, “Surprisingly the hardest thing about the experience was the sleep deprivation, not the six hours of total swimming that we all did. However we had lots of support from parents and staff. At about 1.30am, forty of our friends from School House got up in the middle of the night and came to cheer us on which was a huge confidence booster and a great show of House spirit.”