ER TO TAKE ON 1800-MILE SWIM ROUND BRITAIN

Paula’s feat will mean swimming for about 1800 miles. With a target of 10 miles a day, it should take her six months.

She’ll start in April next year at Land’s End, swimming up the west coast to John O’Groats and then down the eastern side.

Paula weighs 7.5st just now and she is hoping to put on 2st. It’s estimated she’ll have to consume 8000 calories each day of her swim. Some days, Paula may have to start her swim in the middle of the night to beat the tides.

Her swim in spring and summer will mean she’ll have the best of the weather and water temperature, but she will still have to factor in days where she can’t get into the water because of storms.

The 14-year-old’s five-mile swim along the Thames in 1875 took an hour and seven minutes and made her a celebrity.

It was the first time a woman had swum the river for this distance. Agnes beat that in 1878 by swimming 20 miles in the Thames. The American was already a world record holder and had a gold medal from the Paris Olympics in 1924 when she became the first woman to swim the English Channel in August 1926.

GERTRUDE EDERLE ALISON STREETER

Alison Streeter, right top, has swum the Channel 43 times, making her a record-holder. In 1987, at the height of the Cold War, Lynne decided to perform a peace gesture by swimming from the US island of Little Diomede to Big Diomede Island, which belonged to the Soviet Union.

It was only a 2.7-mile stretch but the temperature in the Bering Strait was almost freezing. She was greeted at the end by KGB agents armed with blankets and tea. The 32-year-old Australian achieved the longest continuous unassisted open-water swim. It took 42 hours and 30 minutes to do a 126km stretch in the Bahamas in 2014. In 2013, when she was 64, Diana become the first person to swim between Cuba and Florida without a shark cage. It took 52 hours and 54 minutes.

LYNNE COX CHLOë McCARDEL DIANA NYAD