Why I’m backing Sinclair’s swim

Hardly a week goes by without someone attempting something extraordinary to raise money for good causes, but one grabbed my attention because it will not only be an astonishing achievement, but because it’s in memory of two people I knew well.

The feat is former professional rugby player Iain Sinclair’s attempt to swim from the Atlantic to the North Sea via the Caledonian Canal, which has never been done before because of the safety issues negotiating 29 locks along its 60 miles.

It’s all the more remarkable because he had his colon removed to cure his colitis, and he is not only swimming to raise money for Crohn’s & Colitis UK, but for the British Heart Foundation for Colin Maguire who died last year from a sudden heart attack aged just 50, and for mental health charity, Mikeysline, in memory of Jenny Hastings who took her own life a year ago.

I knew Colin all the way from nursery to senior school and we worked in the same industry before I went into politics, and I got to know Jenny and Scott Hastings though hockey when their daughter Kerry Anne played district hockey when I was the Edinburgh team manager. Jenny and Colin were two of the kindest people you could hope to meet.

There are, therefore, three reasons to Iain’s Sea2Sea effort and most of us will have been touched by one of them, so I hope he gets as much support as possible when he sets off next month.

Find out more at https://sea2sea.co.uk/