Captain Matthew Webb was famously the first man to successfully swim the English Channel — or was he? Martin Fone investigates.
Like Everest, it presents an irresistible challenge to the adventurous, simply because, to echo George Mallory, it’s there. At its narrowest point — between Shakespeare’s Beach at Dover and Cap Gris Nez, a headland between Calais and Boulogne — the English Channel might just be 18.2 nautical miles wide, but it forms a formidable…
