The Swimmers

Not since the great days of Itchy Guk, the famed Eskimo who was probably the most remarkable Channel swimmer of them all,* had there been such heavy human traffic in the choppy waters between Dover and Cap Gris Nez. Everyone seemed to want to swim the Channel. Last week a clothing salesman from Cuba and a Dutch housewife tried, both for the second time, and failed. Shirley May France of Massachusetts (TIME, Aug. 8) still hesitated before making the big plunge. In this crowd of fame-seekers, a short, stocky Yorkshire schoolboy named Philip Mick-man went almost unnoticed. But last week, 18-year-old Philip beat his rivals to it.

He had failed twice before. Daubed with grease, Philip entered the forbidding water at Cap Gris Nez. Buffeted by squalls and strong tides, he was urged again & again by his father in a rowboat to give up. But Philip would not. Twenty-three hours and 48 minutes after the start, he waded ashore at Kingsdown, near Deal.

Philip was the youngest of the 26 people who had sv urn the Channel; his time was the second longest. Socialist Britain hailed Philip's feat of endurance as evidence that the welfare state was not softening Britain's youth. Ossett (pop. 15,000), Philip's home town in Yorkshire, prepared a big celebration. But his schoolmaster predicted that fame would not go to Philip's head: "He's a sound lad." Although Philip had stolen her thunder, Shirley May prettily congratulated him (see cut).

*Hero of a famed hoax concocted by bored newspapermen in 1925, another boom Channel-swimming year. Itchy Guk was solemnly reported by the Paris Herald to have postponed his Channel try because the water, too cold for all the other contenders, was too hot for him.

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