By Ellie Davies

Earlier this week, Cheltenham College welcomed Lewis Pugh to give a series of guest lectures to pupils and parents about the fragility of our oceans. Lewis is a passionate environmentalist, who raises awareness of currently vulnerable ecosystems by completing challenging swims across the world. A lifelong love of the environment led to his interest in global warming and unprotected oceans, and the need to campaign for their protection. He has become an ocean advocate and leading inspirational speaker.

Combining his passion for the environment with his love of swimming, Lewis has completed an impressive number of swims around the world, in order to raise awareness of the fragility of the oceans and action that must be taken for the future. He is the only person to have completed a long distance swim in every ocean in the world, including the icy waters of the North Pole, and was appointed Patron of the Oceans by the United Nations Environmental Program in 2013. College was extremely lucky to welcome Lewis to hear him speak about his experiences and motivations.

Through his talk, his evident passion for sustainability of the oceans was clear and extremely inspiring. He spoke engagingly about his work, highlighting two swims in particular. Firstly, a gruelling 1000 metre swim at the North Pole in waters of -1.7°C, in order to raise awareness of the melting ice caps and effects of global warming. He then spoke about a 140 kilometre swim across the breadth of the Maldives, to draw attention to their fragility as a result of rising sea levels.

Through his experiences, he demonstrated the importance of teamwork, perseverance, and the power of a ‘made up mind’. He spoke passionately about the value of personal belief and motivation, using as an example a touching account of his 1000 metre Arctic swim. A flag representing each nationality of his team members was placed at every 100 metre mark, highlighting the combined efforts of a dedicated group and providing much-needed motivation.

By his own admission, we are sadly still fighting a losing battle when it comes to the protection of the oceans, but listening to him talk about his hard work and incredible achievements was both fascinating and inspiring, and we very much look forward to hearing about his latest adventures and successes in raising awareness of this cause.

As well as learning from his inspirational speech, pupils were heavily involved in all aspects of Lewis’ visit to College. Lewis was interviewed before his talk by pupils and art students designed the posters to publicise and promote his visit.

Both of Lewis’ talks were at full capacity with audiences keen to hear the lessons and stories that have gained him over 7 million views on YouTube as well as invitations to speak at TedX, Unilever, Coca-Cola and the World Economic Forum in Davos, amongst others.

Cheltenham College Preparatory School

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