Channel swim team with combined age of 233 hopes for record

Lionel Spittle experienced "the sun on the back" hours into the team's relay challenge

Four people with a combined age of 233 hope to have set a world record after swimming the English Channel.

Lionel Spittle, from Wolverhampton, who turned 70 the day before they set off, said the team was bidding to achieve the oldest mixed four-person-relay Channel crossing.

He said the 12-hour, 21-minute swim was the "hardest thing we've done". It raised more than £12,000 for charity.

The team is awaiting verification from Guinness World Records.

The four members will find out in three months if the record has been confirmed, Mr Spittle said.

Dave Rock, who was 60 three days before the challenge started, was also on the team, along with Caroline Jones, 55, and 48-year-old Diane Asbury.

Lionel Spittle, Dave Rock, Diane Asbury and Caroline Jones (left to right) each swam an hour before getting on the boat to let a team-mate take over

After they began at 23:30 BST on 15 August, Mr Spittle was the one swimming as the sun came up, experiencing "the magnificent sight of the sunrise in the morning and the sun on the back".

"Obviously there was total elation for all of us when Dave Rock swam the last leg to the rocks," he said.

"In some ways it was not as bad as we thought. We trained so long.

"We expected to swim through a lot of debris, but there wasn't a lot and there weren't a lot of jellyfish."

Caroline Jones photographed close to France

Mr Spittle stated, on the assumption the record would be confirmed: "It's nice we've got the record for a while. Hopefully it'll inspire someone else.

"It's nice to think, even at this age, what you're capable of. It is achievable, if you push yourself."

The swimmer, who lost his wife to a brain tumour, said the team had done open water swimming in seas, but nothing like this.

The swim raised money for The Brain Tumour Charity, before another team of four later in August - including Simon Kimberley, 65, - completed the same swim for Birmingham Children's Hospital.

More than £14,000 has been collected overall and parcel delivery firm DPD agreed to match donations "pound for pound, up to £10,000", Mr Spittle said. Therefore, £24,000 has been amassed, to be split between the two causes.

Dave Rock was pictured reaching the French coast

Mr Spittle said: "What we went through, a little bit of pain, [compared] to those suffering with brain tumours or the young children in Birmingham Children's Hospital, and their parents... is insignificant."

He said they had joined a waiting list to do the swim which had "dominated all our lives for two years".

"It's been the most momentous and hardest thing we've done."

Caroline Jones photographed fellow team members Lionel Spittle, Diane Asbury and Dave Rock on their way home