Meet the 70-year-old swimming one million metres to raise money for the #HELi2 Appeal

A 70-year-old man from Newquay is raising money for Cornwall Air Ambulance by swimming one million metres across the space of a year.

John Griffin has always been a competitive swimmer and is now taking on the challenge, which is 40,000 lengths of a normal swimming pool, as he aims to raise £1million for the charity’s Heli2 Appeal.

The Heli2 Appeal is raising £2.85 million to bring a second AW169 helicopter to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, to help boost the resilience and capability of their service.

John is swimming 4,000 metres a day (160 lengths), six days a week, for a year to reach the target. That is 1,000 kilometres, or 621 miles in total, which is the distance from Newquay well into Scotland.

He said:

“I’m definitely getting stronger, a couple days a week I train with the Crantock Surf Life Saving Club in the pool, I’m doing sprint sessions and am in the middle of the group with 30-year-olds. The hardest side is the mental side, dragging yourself out of bed each day, Wednesdays are the hardest day, where it feels like swimming in treacle.”

Having started on 2^nd January, John has now reached the halfway mark of 500,000 metres. To celebrate the occasion, he came to visit the Cornwall Air Ambulance HQ.

He added:

“I’ve worked with air ambulances in my previous existence when I was working in London, I grew up in the Lake District and the air-sea rescue helicopter used to work with the mountain rescue teams I was associated with. Living in a rural community, if you’re off the beaten track you’re not going to get a road ambulance to you quickly, and the ability to get you to hospital quickly in an air ambulance is so important, so it was an easy choice to make of who to support.”

John is completing his challenge at Newquay Leisure World and Truro Leisure Centre, both run by leisure operator GLL.

You can support John by donating to his Just Giving page here.