You may have thought that the world’s longest-serving lifeguard would be found patrolling a sun-splashed beach in California, Australia or South Africa.
But on a drizzly British spring day, Guinness World Records held a ceremony on the pier in Bournemouth to award the title to Chris Lewis, one of the town’s Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeguards.
Lewis, 74, began working at the Dorset resort when he was 16, meaning he has been coming to the aid of visitors and local swimmers 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 is still fighting fit. RNLI lifeguards must complete a 400-metre pool swim in less than 7.5 minutes, the first 200 metres of which must be done in under 3.5 minutes. They have to do a 25-metre pool swim underwater and a 25-metre surface swim consecutively in less than 50 seconds, and run 200 metres along the beach in under 40 seconds.
The swimming fitness tests are still reasonably comfortable for Lewis. All winter he has been doing 3,000 metres of sea swimming each month without a wetsuit. But a little hip trouble, the legacy of a rugby injury, can slow down his running. “I’ve been doing yoga to try to help with that,” he said.
Lewis’s life-saving career began in 1965 when a police officer noticed he was a keen swimmer and suggested he work on getting his life-saving badges. The following year, when he was 16, he began volunteering as a lifeguard.
This was the era before the RNLI posted lifeguards, and over the years Lewis patrolled the beaches as a member of the Royal Lifesaving Society UK and a council “boatman”. He became part of the RNLI lifeguard service in 2001 when the charity began providing beach patrols for local authorities.
Now the RNLI patrols more than 240 beaches across the UK and Channel Islands and last year says it saved 86 lives and helped 19,979 people.
Lewis laughed when asked if he had seen many changes. The RNLI’s equipment in 2024 includes jetskis, rescue boats and quad bikes. “When I started, we had a T-shirt, swimming trunks, a swimming hat, a coat if you were lucky and a rescue tube [used to keep a person in trouble afloat]. No wetsuit or boots or crash helmet. It was very different.”
His most memorable rescue took place in 2010 when three children – a 16-year-old girl and her two younger brothers – got into trouble while swimming off Durley Chine beach, west of the pier.
He said that when there was a combination of wind from the south-east and a lively spring tide, people could be pushed along the shore. On that day, the older girl was being hurled into a groyne, leaving her with nasty cuts. One of her brothers was hanging on to the groyne while the third child was being “knocked around” by the waves.
Lewis swam out with a rescue tube and managed to get all three back to the beach. “As I got out everyone on the beach stood up and applauded. I’ll never forget it.”
He said life-saving has helped his mental and physical health. Along with being a lifeguard, he was a schoolteacher for 28 years and when he left teaching he experienced anxiety and depression. He believes his training regime and the time spent on the beach alleviated this: “I’m so grateful.”
He now helps to train young lifeguards. “I tell them to be honest and friendly and you’ll get a fair crack of the whip,” he said.
Over the years, Lewis has been a volunteer and a professional lifeguard, performing hundreds of rescues and thousands of lifeguard patrols. He says giving advice that prevents people getting into trouble is preferable to carrying out rescues. “I would love to go through the whole of summer without having to rescue anybody.”
If Lewis does stop any time soon, there may be someone else who could just break his record. His wife of 49 years, Elaine Lewis, 70, has been a lifeguard in Bournemouth for 50 years and still competes in lifeguard competitions.
Their two children have also worked as lifeguards and their grandchildren are in training. “I’m a bit younger than Chris. You never know,” said Elaine Lewis. “But I’m very proud of Chris. He’s done brilliantly.”
