Paula Craig MBE

It’s 8.10 am, October 12^th 2021, on a cold, murky morning in the English Channel.  Gray waves are slapping the side of the boat and we are really beginning to feel the bad weather building.  We had set off in the pitch dark, six hours ago and the outlook had been a lot more positive. Despite the dark, the sea had seemed settled and the six of us had been excited by the  prospect of a late season Relay Channel crossing.  Now I am standing with the captain of our pilot boat, Neil Streeter, and he is giving me the bad news that with the worsening weather and our current speed, we won’t get to France.

I feel hollow.  This is my seventh Channel crossing and the first one I have had to call.  We were due to swim on August 8^th, but weather patterns confounded our summer attempt and we have had to sit it out whilst other boats thread their way across the world’s busiest shipping lanes and we wait for good weather and a slot to become free. Mid October would not have been our choice. But it’s not the failure that’s bothering me, it’s having to tell the bravest person I know that we can’t continue; someone who has put her heart and soul into this project. Someone who is attempting a world first.  That person is Paula Craig MBE and she is the first person with a complete spinal injury to attempt a Channel Relay adhering to strict Channel rules.

Paula was a serving Met police officer who was paralysed twenty years ago when she was knocked off her bike by a car.  Since that catastrophic moment she has gone on to represent Britain as a wheelchair parathlete, she has come second in the London Marathon wheelchair division and rose through the ranks of the Met, serving in the murder squad, counter terrorism and receiving an MBE for her services in keeping the people of London safe.  At this moment she is attempting this world first and has raised over £20,000 for Aspire the spinal injury charity that helped her when she was injured.

I give her the news.  In true Paula fashion she takes it philosophically and decides doze on the way back to Dover.  By the time we have tied up in the marina, she has slept on the failure and has a simple question; “when do we go again?”.

Fast forward nine months and the team is again training hard.  We are constantly swimming in pools, lakes and making our way down to Dover for the brutal training sessions that Aspire lay on for their swimmers.  The June 2022 training weekend consisted in a qualifying swim of ninety minutes in the water at a temperature of less than sixteen degrees (about the temperature of your bath if you filled it using only the cold tap), out for an hour and back in for another hour.  Those completing that arduous task are then qualified to swim the Channel in a relay.  Aspire have also laid on the option of a night swim at 2 am in Dover harbour followed by a 10 am swim repeating the qualifier. And then repeating that. I had always thought that you were meant to be nice to people to encourage them to fundraise.  The Aspire approach of beasting their supporters is counter intuitive, but this season’s Channel boats have already raised £170,000 for the charity and look set to raise £300,000. The camaraderie on the beach amongst the teams is wonderful.

The team is taking this all on once again and we are determined that 2022 will be our year and we will swim into the history books.  Spinal cord injury is unforgiving and I marvel at Paula’s fortitude.  Her legs should hang down in the water creating drag, but her core is now so strong that she has somehow adapted her swimming to hold her legs up.  I still don’t know how she does this.  Among her many challenges are the tide that can take her legs and move them about, disrupting her swim rhythm as well as the  fact that she can’t tread water should she wish to stop and clean her goggles, or as happened in our first attempt, put her swim cap on properly.  But Paula is special.  She doesn’t let this bother her and just gets her head down and swims.  I love swimming with her; we will carry on matching stroke for stroke and she never complains or gets irritated by conditions or circumstance.  Last year we were swimming side by side when we headed through a bloom of jellyfish.  Whereas as I was on tenterhooks, hyperventilating at every stroke, Paula ploughed on regardless.  Of course, I pretended they hadn’t bothered me (I hope she doesn’t read this), but it was testing to say the least.

Once more, our tide is in early August and this year we hope we can go on time.  We are as prepared as we can be.  It’s now down to getting good conditions on the day and swimming like we have never swum before.

You can support Paula at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/paulacraig

Aspire have a swim series that aims to offer something to swimmers of all standards.  Most swimmers begin with the Aspire Channel Swim  www.aspirechannelswim.co.uk , a pool based event that challenges you to swim the distance of the Channel over a three month period. From there swimmers are encouraged to venture into the open water whilst raising much needed funds for people like Paula.  For further details see https://www.aspire.org.uk/pages/events/category/swimming