You’ll have thought that the world’s longest-serving lifeguard can be discovered patrolling a sun-splashed seashore in California, Australia or South Africa.
However on a drizzly British spring day, Guinness World Information held a ceremony on the pier in Bournemouth to award the title to Chris Lewis, one of many city’s Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeguards.
Lewis, 74, started working on the Dorset resort when he was 16, which means he has been coming to assistance from guests and native swimmers for 58 years.
“It’s the perfect job on the earth,” he stated. “You’re engaged on the seashore, which I really like, and also you’re serving to individuals. What could possibly be higher?”
Lewis stated mates used to rib him that almost all of his colleagues have been half his age – “now they are saying they’re a 3rd my age”.
He’s nonetheless preventing match. RNLI lifeguards should full a 400-metre pool swim in lower than 7.5 minutes, the primary 200 metres of which have to be carried out in underneath 3.5 minutes. They have to do a 25-metre pool swim underwater and a 25-metre floor swim consecutively in lower than 50 seconds, and run 200 metres alongside the seashore in underneath 40 seconds.
The swimming health exams are nonetheless fairly snug for Lewis. All winter he has been doing 3,000 metres of sea swimming every month with out a wetsuit. However a bit of hip hassle, the legacy of a rugby harm, can decelerate his working. “I’ve been doing yoga to attempt to assist with that,” he stated.
Lewis’s life-saving profession started in 1965 when a police officer observed he was a eager swimmer and prompt he work on getting his life-saving badges. The next 12 months, when he was 16, he started volunteering as a lifeguard.
This was the period earlier than the RNLI posted lifeguards, and through the years Lewis patrolled the seashores as a member of the Royal Lifesaving Society UK and a council “boatman”. He turned a part of the RNLI lifeguard service in 2001 when the charity started offering seashore patrols for native authorities.
Now the RNLI patrols more than 240 beaches across the UK and Channel Islands and final 12 months says it saved 86 lives and helped 19,979 individuals.
Lewis laughed when requested if he had seen many adjustments. The RNLI’s gear in 2024 consists of jetskis, rescue boats and quad bikes. “After I began, we had a T-shirt, swimming trunks, a swimming hat, a coat should you have been fortunate and a rescue tube [used to keep a person in trouble afloat]. No wetsuit or boots or crash helmet. It was very completely different.”
His most memorable rescue passed off in 2010 when three kids – a 16-year-old woman and her two youthful brothers – obtained into hassle whereas swimming off Durley Chine seashore, west of the pier.
He stated that when there was a mix of wind from the south-east and a full of life spring tide, individuals could possibly be pushed alongside the shore. On that day, the older woman was being hurled right into a groyne, leaving her with nasty cuts. Certainly one of her brothers was hanging on to the groyne whereas the third little one was being “knocked round” by the waves.
Lewis swam out with a rescue tube and managed to get all three again to the seashore. “As I obtained out everybody on the seashore stood up and applauded. I’ll always remember it.”
He stated life-saving has helped his psychological and bodily well being. Together with being a lifeguard, he was a schoolteacher for 28 years and when he left educating he skilled nervousness and melancholy. He believes his coaching regime and the time spent on the seashore alleviated this: “I’m so grateful.”
He now helps to coach younger lifeguards. “I inform them to be trustworthy and pleasant and also you’ll get a good crack of the whip,” he stated.
Over time, Lewis has been a volunteer and knowledgeable lifeguard, performing a whole bunch of rescues and hundreds of lifeguard patrols. He says giving recommendation that stops individuals moving into hassle is preferable to finishing up rescues. “I’d like to undergo the entire of summer time with out having to rescue anyone.”
If Lewis does cease any time quickly, there could also be another person who may simply break his file. His spouse of 49 years, Elaine Lewis, 70, has been a lifeguard in Bournemouth for 50 years and nonetheless competes in lifeguard competitions.
Their two kids have additionally labored as lifeguards and their grandchildren are in coaching. “I’m a bit youthful than Chris. You by no means know,” stated Elaine Lewis. “However I’m very happy with Chris. He’s carried out brilliantly.”
