In 1988, 11-year-old Gregory set a record that will never be broken. His book recalls the agonising swim and his charismatic coach

Last modified on Wed 12 Sep 2018 10.16 EDT

I n 1988, at the age of 11, Tom Gregory became the youngest person ever to swim the English Channel. It took him just under 12 hours to complete 32 miles, fuelled by tubes of tomato soup and the odd chocolate biscuit lobbed into the sea by his coach, John Bullet.

This memoir is structured around Gregory’s account of that swim, and he makes no bones about how horrendous it was. At various points he fell asleep, hallucinated, developed agonising shoulder and hip pain, and cried so much that his goggles filled with water. If you are thinking: “Who would put a young kid through an experience like that?” the answer is Bullet, a maverick coach who ran the swimming club in Eltham, south-east London.

Bullet motivated his young proteges with equal parts eccentricity and charisma. Training involved gruelling sessions in the pool, followed by open-water swimming camps in Dover and the Lake District. They were fed tinned Spam and marrowfat peas, slept in leaky tents, and undertook challenges that would strike fear into the fittest adult. At the age of eight, Gregory was plunging into the icy sea by Dover harbour; at 10, he swam the length of Windermere, 11 miles long and colder than the Channel.

After recent sex scandals involving sports coaches, this book makes uneasy reading. Gregory makes it clear that Bullet never overstepped the mark in a sexual sense (in a couple of scenes he applies grease all over Gregory’s body, but pointedly leaves him to do his own crotch). However, the line between motivating a young person and emotionally manipulating them is not easy to draw. Bullet’s “success” was down to his fanatical dedication. He seemingly had no family, and was secretive about his past, pouring all his tough-talking love into his young swimmers. Gregory writes that he trusted Bullet with his life; however, it is also clear that he was terrified of letting him down.

Gregory was the last young swimmer to conquer the Channel – shortly afterwards, the Channel Swimming Association set a minimum age of 16. He tries to make the case here that this was a mistake; a tiresome product of our “risk-aware era”. I was left feeling that, on the contrary, it was the right decision.

A Boy in the Water is published by Penguin. To order a copy for £11.99 (RRP £14.99) go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.