‘I came out of the water a different person’
How the challenge of swimming some of the world’s most dangerous sea channels – movingly told in a new documentary – changed everything for Beth French
Even as a baby, Beth French was renowned for crawling across sand and heading for the water on family days out at the seaside. “Mum hated taking me to the beach!” laughs Beth (43) from Somerset, who grew up to become an extreme open-air swimmer.
Fast forward 40 years and it’s no surprise that her mum, Suzey French, (76) wasn’t impressed when her daughter announced she’d be braving sharks, jellyfish and hypothermia in an epic
‘After a shark swam near me I came out thinking nothing on dry land would scare me again’
swimming challenge. Beth was bidding to become the first person to conquer Oceans Seven – to swim the world’s most dangerous sea channels in under a year.
“Mum wouldn’t even mention the word swimming and if somebody asked me about it, she would leave the room,” says Beth, who spent five years planning and fundraising for the daring project.
Viewers can witness Suzey’s disapproval in the new documentary, Against The Tides and may agree that she has a valid point.
Not only does Beth live with the debilitating chronic fatigue syndrome ME, she is also a single mother to her autistic son Dylan
(12) who went with her on the adventure. Yet it both those reasons that drove Beth to take on the challenge.
After developing what was later diagnosed as ME at the age of ten, Beth turned to water for therapy. Long slumps caused by the illness – which various doctors said was ‘all in her head’ and was something of a medical mystery at the time – plagued her teenage years. On better days she carried on doing the sports she loved, but at the age of 17, Beth spent a whole year
in pain and in a wheelchair. It was then that ME was diagnosed.
“I woke up one day and my legs had just gone and I had no energy. For a year I was bedridden and in a wheelchair. It was devastating,” she recalls.
“I went from being very sporty to not being able to brush my own hair or teeth or feed myself. I lost all faith in my body. I felt trapped in it and it led to so many mental health issues as well.
She naturally headed for water again at her family’s farm in Somerset. “When I was ill, being in water made me feel better. It took away my pain, whether it was in the bath or when my sister used to wheel me out in my wheelchair and tip me into the pond my dad’s friend had dug for me.
“I couldn’t swim but by just floating in the water, I could feel the inflammation leaving my body. Then when my condition improved, I just wanted to be in water. There’s a lot of scientific research now about the benefits of cold water immersion helping people with all sort of diseases and infections, as well as depression and anxiety.”
From there, swimming became her saviour and her ME symptoms disappeared for a decade.
“Water was, and still is, where the world makes sense to me,” she adds.
In 2012 Beth swam the English Channel – something she’d put on her bucket list when in her wheelchair. Two years later she became the first person to swim the 26 miles from Cornwall to the Isles of Scilly. But her biggest challenge was yet to come when she felt the need to test herself further by swimming Oceans Seven.
By now, Beth was a single mum to Dylan. From an early age it was clear that he had special needs and she worried about herself becoming ill and not being able to work and support them both. “I wanted to be a positive role model for Dylan and help him see beyond the limitations of not being normal, whatever ‘normal’ is. But I also wanted to prove to myself that I was not going to break and that I didn’t need to be limited by my diagnosis and other people’s expectations of me.” After planning the project – from fundraising to organising support and a film crew to help her – she set off in October 2016 to swim from Ireland to Scotland. “Swimming was the easy part,” Beth insists. Even the terrifying moment when viewers can see her swimming with a tiger shark in her direct vicinity? And the jellyfish? “Jellyfish wake you up!” she laughs. “The shark was a stressful moment and I did think ‘what if’ but you can’t live like that. I came out of that experience an hour later knowing that nothing on dry land would ever scare me again. It might not be comfortable, but I needn’t be afraid of it.”
But after completing four of the seven swims, Beth decided to quit the challenge on the fifth one, just seven kilometres from the Japanese shore. Dylan, who at the time hadn’t yet been diagnosed with autism, was no longer coping. She is quick to point out though that this wasn’t the main reason she quit. It was more a case of having an ‘epiphany’ in the water and realising she no longer had anything to prove. Her own instinct was to stop at that point.
“My dream was always to be the best mum to Dylan and to do that I had to be the best person I could be. I came out of the water a different person. It was very transforming. I don’t live in fear any more. Although I am not symptom free, I listen to my body,” she says.
And is her mum proud of her? “She would say she was proud of me anyway but yes – especially when I explained my reasons for giving up.”
■ Against The Tides can be ordered from againstthetidesfilm.com/pre-order
‘Just by floating in the water I could feel the inflammation leaving my body’