In the swim for 58 years Dorset man is world's longest-serving lifeguard

You might have thought that the world’s longest-serving lifeguard would be found patrolling a sun-splashed beach in California or Australia.

- Steven Morris

But on a drizzly British spring day the Guinness World Records people held aceremony on the pier in Bournemouth to award local lifeguard Chris Lewis the title.

Lewis, 74, began working at the Dorset resort when he was 16, meaning he has been coming to the aid of users of the sandy beaches here for 58 years.

“It’s the best job in the world,” he said. You’re working on the beach, which I love, and you’re helping people. What could be better?”

Lewis said friends used to rib him that most of his colleagues were half his age. Now they say they’re a third my age,” he said.

But he is still fighting fit. Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeguards must complete a 400m pool swim in under 7.5 minutes. They have to doa 25m pool swim underwater and a 25m surface swim consecutively in under 50 seconds. And run 200m along the beach in under 40 seconds.