Ted Temme

Ted Temme was a two-time Olympian. However, he was better known as the “King of the Channel” for not only making the crossing of the English Channel from France to England in 1927, but in 1934 by making history as the first person to swim it in both directions.

The son of a London bootmaker, Temme started swimming at the age of 11 during his time at the Water Lane School. He was always destined to be a champion long-distance swimmer, and in 1925 finished third in the ASA Long-Distance Championship on the River Thames (he also finished third in 1928). A member of the Plaistow United Swimming Club, Temme joined their water polo team and went on to captain them, as well as skippering Essex and England. He made his first successful Channel swim in 1927 and the following year made the swim across the Bristol Channel from Penarth to Weston-Super-Mare. Shortly after that he got called up to the Great Britain water polo team for the Amsterdam Olympics. He then went on to captain Britain at the 1930 European Games in Nuremberg. However, Channel swimming had become his priority, and he probably missed out on selection for the 1932 Olympics because of his dedication to training for his record-breaking swims, and between 1928-33 he had four failed attempts at making the crossing from England to France, before successfully achieving it in 1934. The year before, Temme had won the Dutch Long-Distance Swimming Championship and also became the first man to make a double crossing of the Bristol Channel when he swam from Weston to Penarth,

Temme appeared in his second Olympics in 1936 but retired from international competition shortly afterwards following incidents at the Berlin Games that he was not happy with. Temme worked for the Cornhill Insurance Group upon leaving school, and went on to captain their swimming club, as well as the Lloyds Insurance team. He later became superintendent at Surbiton Baths before being appointed manager of Nottingham Baths in 1939, and later manager of the Newport Baths in Monmouthshire. In 1950 Temme was the supervisor for the first Daily Mail Cross Channel Race which his second wife, Dutch-born “Willy” took part in.

Temme’s son John was an England international water polo player in the 1950s, as was his wife “Willy”, who set a record for the 16-mile swim across Lake Windermere in 1955 as she became first woman to swim the lake in both directions. Ted Temme died while on holiday in Italy with his third wife Hilda, in 1978.

Because some records were believed to have been destroyed when the Channel Swimming Association (CSA) offices in Dover were bombed during World War II, Temme’s record-breaking swim of 1934 was not officially recognised until 30 years later when he received a letter from the CSA offering him a certificate commemorating his record-breaking achievement – if he paid them a fee of six guineas (£6.30) for the privilege.