It's another awesome achievement by someone who has already dropped jaws around the world for his astonishing feats of physical prowess.
Lewis Pugh swam the length of the English Channel – The Long Swim, as he's called it – arriving at Dover today after starting at Land's End on July 12. He covered a total of 530 miles during his epic adventure, aimed at raising awareness of plastic pollution, climate change and commercial overfishing and the impact these three issues have on UK ocean health.
Pugh is no stranger to feats of endurance. In 2007 he undertook the first long-distance swim across the North Pole, wearing just Speedo swimming trunks, to highlight the melting of the Arctic sea ice. He followed this up with a swim across a glacial lake on Mt Everest to draw attention to the melting glaciers in the Himalayas and the impact the reduced water supply will have on the region. His environmental campaigning has led him to break records and establish 'firsts' all over the world.
How to account for such stamina, perseverance and single-minded commitment? An intriguing entry on his Wikipedia page indicates that the answer might lie a few generations back along his family tree. Pugh, it says, is descended from Baptist missionary William Carey – and thereby hangs a tale.
William Carey (1761-1834) was the first Protestant missionary of the modern era, and a hugely signifcant figure known as 'the father of modern missions'. A poor cobbler in in Northamptonshire, he set sail for British-ruled India having overcome opposition and indifference from his Calvinist peers who thought that, as one of them put it, 'if God wants to convert the heathen he will do it himself''. He was a gifted linguist who translated the Bible into six languages including Bengali and Hindi – and the Hindu classic, the Ramayana, into English. With his colleagues Joshua Marshman and William Ward, he opened schools for poor children and founded Serampore College, which still thrives today. His supporters were the nucleus of the Baptist Missionary Society, now BMS World Mission.
And all this came at a considerable personal cost, for him and for his family. His wife Dorothy, who never settled in India, lost her reason. He was unable to care properly for his children. He was to fall out with his supporters.
But in spite of his failings – and he was, after all, a colonial Englishman who represented a conquering people, and was not exempt from all the prejudices of the time – he left a giant legacy behind him. He was committed to the education of girls and women. He rejected the caste system for Christian converts. He was dedicated to the study of Indian texts. He worked among the poorest of the poor and spent his life in their service.
William Carey surmounted enormous obstacles in pursuit of his vision. He never compromised and he never gave up.
If Wikipedia is right – and it can be a little mischievous – it looks as though some of those characteristics have been passed down to his adventurous descendant.
More information on The Long Swim can be found by visiting https://www.lewispughfoundation.org/ and www.lewispugh.com.
