Kyoda and welcome to Swim Chats, a podcast about swimming.
I'm Shona Riddell, a writer, former journalist and swimmer
from Wellington, Altiro and New Zealand.
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Show Nights. Since we're rapidly approaching
Christmas now, I thought it would be a good time for a
festive episode. I'm chatting to James Fox
Goulding in the UK, who organizes an annual Christmas
Day dip in the seaside town of Felixstowe.
Am I pronouncing that town name correctly?
James? You did it perfectly.
Excellent. And so the Christmas Day dip
raises funds for the local Saint Elizabeth Hospice.
James, first of all, welcome to Swim Chats.
Thank you. I'm really excited to be here.
Awesome. Well, it's it's currently summer
here in New Zealand and so our air temperature is about 20°C.
What? What is the weather like where
you are at the moment? Today it's a little bit on the
grey side as I'm looking out the window here.
We're probably around 6° at the moment and we've had a little
bit of frost this morning. Fairly different, yeah.
So I can only imagine what the water temperature is, but we'll
talk about that in a minute. I first came across, I think it
was an article about your Christmas Day dips on the
Outdoor Swimmer website. A lot of us here in New Zealand
are fans of the Outdoor Swimmer magazine.
And yeah, so I I read that the event's been running for more
than 20 years. Is that right?
21st year this year, yeah. That's cool.
Congratulations. And so I had to Google
Felixstowe on I, I know it's a seaside town, but I wasn't quite
sure where it is. So I now know that it's
northeast of London. So the people who are dipping
are dipping in the North Sea. Yes.
So in the winter, what would be the approximate temperature for
your Christmas Day dip? The water's probably between
four and seven degrees. Normally at that sort of time of
year, it's fairly chilly. Fairly, fairly fresh.
Yeah. And just so you can paint a
picture for us, what what does the beach look like where this
Christmas dip happens every year?
Felix say it's actually a lovely beach, so it's a proper seaside
town here. Lots of amusements, arcades.
It's got a full pier you can walk down during the summer, It
has a big wheel, so it's a real family sort of destination town.
It also holds the largest port in the UK, so we have lots of
big container ships coming in and from where we do it on the
beach, you can actually see the port just over to your right
hand side as well. So it's quite an impressive view
there. Awesome.
Thank you. And you mentioned that it's been
running for 21 years. Has it been running at the same
location all that time or has it changed?
Pretty much, yes. It's always been in the
Felixstowe. Felixstowe beach has bays with
the old protection, the erosion protection there.
It has moved bays, but roughly it's always been, it's always
Felixstowe sea front and but it's moved over the years.
It actually started as a supporter event.
So a family basically decided that they were going to raise
money one Christmas and they were going to do this and then
people wanted to join them. More people wanted to join them
and it just grew and grew and grew to the point that they they
found it was too much for them to run themselves.
So we stepped in and we took over the organisations of it and
we've carried on growing it. And now we have about last year
we had 660 people take part Christmas Day morning.
That's a lot of people, yeah. Congratulations.
I mean, that's a lot of people getting into fresh water.
And what what do people like to wear when they do this Christmas
Day swim? Oh, everything, honestly,
everything. We've, we've got those that do
come down in their speedos and bikinis, which is quite
impressive. Lots of fancy dress, so much
fancy dress. All the Santa suits, Missus
Claus presents, turkeys. We've had inflatable dinosaurs,
inflatable flamingos. We've got some families that
it's a tradition that they have a theme to their fancy dress
every year. So we've had things like, you
know, die hard and all things like that.
So they're always fun to see because they come every year.
So get excited to see what their theme is because they won't tell
us until they arrive on the day. Oh nice, and do you, do you
yourself like to get in and participate in the duck or are
you more cheering from the beach?
I would love to take part in this one.
At the moment I don't because obviously I organise it and I'm
in charge of all the safety and coordinating everything.
They, they won't allow me to do it, which is one of the events.
I'm really gutted that I can say they won't allow me to do it
because normally I thought, yes, I'm, I really can't do it.
I'm being safety. But this one I would love to
take part in. So hopefully next year I've got
a new person on my team that will hopefully take over the
safety role next year and I'm going to be running in.
Yeah, cool. And what, what sort of safety
things do you do for people like when, when people have done
their depth and I imagine they're feeling a little bit,
you know, needing to warm up afterwards.
Does everybody get dressed pretty quickly once they get out
and have a hot drink? Pretty much people actually come
down with picnics now. It's it's come that much of A
tradition that they'll come out, they'll come, they'll put their
dry robes on and a lot of them live in the local area.
So they they do literally just dry robe and wander off home.
But they come down with picnics and hot toddies and whiskey
flasks and all that for afterwards just to have that
celebration because the it's just such an amazing atmosphere
that 660 people, plus friends and families that are watching
it just all on the beach together celebrating.
And then everyone off for their Christmas dinner and presents.
It's just, yeah, it's amazing to see it.
I love how people incorporate food into the event as well, so
that's really nice. Yeah.
And I think I watched a video of it on YouTube maybe from a
previous year, and I love seeing people's facial expressions when
they're getting into the water. They.
They, they think they're going to have a little trot in, but
660 people going together, yeah, you, you just in and it, it's so
impression and it makes you feel so good, but it does, it takes
your breath away as you go in. Yeah, to be.
Honestly, you can't go in slowly, you know?
You know what it's like you're on holiday and you slowly walk
into a swimming pool. Now you've got to go for it.
Just jump in. Yeah, you've got to be brave.
So the rest of the year, are you, are you a dipper?
Like is there something that you would do recreationally or is
this more sort of part of your role for the Hospice?
This is part of my role for my Hospice and I organised so many
different events over the years. So we do fire walks around
Halloween and we do midnight walks in the summer.
We do we arrange skydives. So we do loads and loads of
stuff like that. But I am a water baby
personally, I spend a lot of time in the water.
I'm a scuba diver in my hobbies. Oh, cool.
Well, I spend a lot of time in cold water diving.
Yeah, well, I've, I've been to Iceland, so I've done very cold
water diving. Oh, that's awesome.
Well, on this podcast we talk to divers as well as swimmers.
So what sort of things do you see when you're cold water
diving over there? A lot to be fair.
Cold water diving you don't see much life as such, but some
beautiful rock formations and things, especially like places
like Iceland. The volcanic rocks and the
tectonic plates there are just fabulous geographical sights to
see. And the water would be even
colder up there, I imagine. But are you in a dry suit when
you're doing your dice there? I'm in a dry suit on that one.
I think it was. It was -7 air temperature and
three degrees in water. Wow, yeah, that's even fresher.
We, I was going to say, in New Zealand we have Christmas Day
dips too, but they're a bit less intrepid because it's summer.
So for example, I have a tradition where on Christmas
morning a group of friends and I jump off the local Wharf into
the water, which we, we love. So we open presents with our
families and then we go to the Wharf, jump in, get out, come
home and prepare Christmas lunch.
And so that's just part of the daily routine.
And also this group of people who like to tie a small
Christmas tree to one of the swimming rafts out in the, in
the harbour sort of suddenly one day close to Christmas, this
tree which is decorated will just appear on the raft.
But I, I like the idea of tying the Christmas Day dip in with
the, the fundraising. I think that's really special
thing to do. It's one of our biggest
fundraisers now for for the Hospice.
I mean, we can. The Hospice itself takes £12
million a year to run, we only receive about 30% of that
through like NHS funded activities.
So it's a large amount of money that we have to raise from our
local community and event like this can bring us about £50,000
in. So it's a massive, massive thing
that we need to do and we're so grateful to our local
communities and businesses. They get behind it.
We've got an amazing volunteer rescue service on Felix Day that
they come out with their safety boats and they're they're
cheering people along and obviously being there to to
support us. That's awesome.
And so how do you raise the the money to people who participate,
give a donation or is there an entry price to to do the day?
There's a small entry fee to take part which covers sort of
our running costs to get the event up and running, but then
the money itself is raised through fundraising so that they
go out to their friends, family, businesses.
We have collection buckets on the day.
Felixstowe has a lot of people that will be out walking
Christmas Day as well, so we see a lot of people coming by that
will stop and watch and put some money in a bucket, so that's how
we do it. Cool, and is there a link that I
can add to the show nights for this episode where people can go
and make a contribution if they would like to?
Yeah, Saint Elizabeth hospice.org.uk is our website,
and just at the top of the corner there, there's a donate
button if anyone wants to do it. Awesome.
And what what sort of things do you use the money for when when
you raise your 50,000 lbs for the Christmas step?
So the Hospice itself, we look after people with life limiting
illnesses. And since since the the joys of
the COVID times, we've shifted a lot of our services now and we
actually look after 70% of people in their homes.
So whether they're in their their own home, a nursing home,
we do go into hospital hospitals at times.
And we provide that care that they need in their home
environment. And it just makes their lives so
much easier. Just being that support that
medical attention, giving them the time that they need and
supporting their friends, their families, the carers and the
medical professions that also look after them.
We support all those as well. Such an important service.
Speaking personally as someone who's, you know, been involved
with our local Hospice when friends and family have, you
know, been in the the final act of their lives, Yeah, hospices
provide a lot of comfort and support.
Oh, just a bit of a random question.
Have you seen a film called That Christmas?
It's auk film that came out last year and it's an it's an
animated film. And yeah, it's, it's a lovely
Christmas film. And right at the end, there's a
A Christmas Day dip that all the locals in the town participate
in. So, yeah, if you haven't seen at
least the final scene of that movie, I highly recommend it.
Great heart, woman. The bits are so popular here.
We, we, we have Christmas Day dips, Boxing Day dips around the
country, New Year's Day dips. So I think somewhere around the
coast, every day over the Christmas periods there's
someone jumping into the sea. Yeah, that's awesome.
And like you say, it's just so invigorating.
And the the colder it is, the more invigorating sometimes.
Yeah. Well, thank you.
Thank you very much, James, for coming on the podcast.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us that I haven't
already asked you? Probably not tell us, but
definitely recommend anybody anywhere that if they haven't
ever done a a dip, especially if they're going to do it for
charity, have a go. It's brilliant and if you can
get into an organised event like we do it, the atmosphere and the
support, it's just electrifying. Get yourself down there and do
1. Awesome.
Thank you, James. Thanks for listening to this
episode of Swim Chats. Please remember to follow or
subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode and if you
enjoyed it, you can leave a five star rating and review which
helps other people find it too. Enjoy the water and we'll see
you next time.