Hi, these two fine young gentlemen are my eldest and youngest sons. Josh is my eldest son, he’ll be 17 at the end of October, and Scott is 10 years old. 

A bit about my boys, 

This will be Joshs 3rd year doing aspire 22 mile channel challenge. Josh as server autism, he as mild adhd, he is classed as non verbal tho now he as the verbal skills of a child aged between 1-3 years. I recently had my first verbal argument with him, there was a lot of “whys” and “ because” involved.

He loves swimming, he’s been swimming since February 2016, and that’s only because we think he didn’t want to be out done by his youngest brother lol. Before he started swimming josh hated water, it would take his dad and i to shower him, we would have nightmares meltdowns. Now we have meltdowns when we don’t get to the pool, I have to have a twix waiting in the car for after swimming and his older sister has a hot chocolate waiting for him at home. 

Last year was hard, not just due to lockdowns, but half way though the challenge josh had a seizure, he’s since been diagnosed with epilepsy but he’s not letting anyone or anything stop him.

So about my cheeky youngest. Well this will be Scott’s 2nd year doing the 22 mile channel challenge. He’s still the relaxed easy going swimmer lol takes everything in his own time. He’s the laid back child out the 4 siblings. When josh did his first year of this challenge, Scott was his biggest cheer, and when it was over told me he was going to move up in his swimming so he could do it along side josh the next time. And he did it. They did 2019 together with their other brother Ben, the middle brother. 

This started out as a personal challenge for josh, as when he was diagnosed we was told a long list of things he wouldn’t do, swimming being on that list, well I can very safely say they got that wrong and a few other things too. 

I'm taking on the Aspire Channel Swim 2021, swimming the distance of the English Channel over 12 weeks to raise money for Aspire. Every four hours someone is paralysed by Spinal Cord Injury and Aspire provides the essential equipment, advice and housing that spinal cord injured people need to live their lives independently. This is a big challenge, but the more I raise, the more of a difference I'll make, so please be generous!