The Channel: The Remarkable Men and Women Who Made It the Most Fascinating Waterway in the World

by Charlie Connelly

A bulwark against invasion, a conduit for exchange and a challenge to be conquered, the English Channel has always been many things to many people. Today it's the busiest shipping lane in the world and hosts more than 30 million passenger crossings every year but this sliver of choppy brine, just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, represents much more than a conductor of goods and people.
Criss-crossing the Channel - not to mention regularly throwing himself into it for a bracing swim - Charlie Connelly collects its stories and brings them vividly to life, from tailing Oscar Wilde's shadow through the dark streets of Dieppe to unearthing Britain's first beauty pageant at the end of Folkestone pier (it was won by a bloke called Wally). We learn that Louis Bleriot was actually a terrible pilot, the tragic fate of the first successful Channel swimmer, and that if a man with a buttered head and pigs' bladders attached to his trousers hadn't fought off an attack by dogfish we might never have had a Channel Tunnel.
Here is a cast of extraordinary characters - geniuses, cheats, dreamers, charlatans, visionaries, eccentrics and at least one pair of naked, cuddling balloonists - whose stories are all united by the English Channel to ensure the sea that makes us an island will never be the same again.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, History, Humor

304 pages, Hardcover

Published June 25, 2020

About the author

Charlie Connelly (born 22 August 1970, London, England) is an author of popular non-fiction books. In addition to being a writer, Connelly also appears as a presenter on radio and television shows.

Charlie Connelly is a bestselling author and award-winning broadcaster. His many books include Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round The Shipping Forecast, In Search of Elvis: A Journey To Find The Man Beneath The Jumpsuit and Our Man In Hibernia: Ireland, The Irish And Me. Three of his books have featured as Radio 4′s Book of the Week read by Martin Freeman, Stephen Mangan and Tom Goodman-Hill. Charlie was also a popular presenter on the BBC1 Holiday programme and co-presented the first three series of BBC Radio 4′s Traveller’s Tree with Fi Glover.
His book Gilbert: The Last Years of WG Grace was shortlisted for the 2016 MCC/Cricket Society Book of the Year. The book he wrote with his friend Bernard Sumner, Chapter And Verse: New Order, Joy Division And Me was shortlisted for Book of the Year at the NME Awards, while his most recent co-writing project, Winner: A Racing Life with the champion jockey AP McCoy is shortlisted for Sports Autobiography of the Year.
The audio version of Attention All Shipping came second in a public vote to find the greatest audiobook of all time organised by Waterstone’s and The Guardian. Romeo and Juliet was third, which Charlie takes as official confirmation that he’s better than Shakespeare.

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quirky and interesting book about the channel

[Stefanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The wonderful nerdy combination once again why I love Charlie Connelly's books so much: History with a few important facts and lots of stories of the people involved, researched in great detail and told so well. Plus own visits to the locations both sides of the Channel and lots of swimming in the Channel. Plus a great sense of humour.
Now I really want to go and (re)visit the towns of the Channel myself...

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A chatty tour around both sides of the Channel.

[Tim Corke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Charlie’s books - it’s a perfect blend of learning about something new with a cracking sense of humour. This is no exception!

[Sheryl Garratt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charlie Connelly is a madman who goes swimming in the English Channel every morning, whatever the weather. He's also a great travel writer and story-teller. Put these two things together and you get The Channel, in which he travels under and over this narrow but turbulent stretch of sea to explore French and English coastal towns, succeeding against all odds in making Calais fascinating and giving even Dover a hint of glamour. He talks about the brave and foolhardy men and women who swam the Channel (including Jabez Wolffe, who failed to do this an astonishing 22 times), flew over it (Louis Bleriot was, apparently, a terrible pilot), dived under it, and even floated naked over it. He follows Oscar Wilde's sad and lonely exile in Dieppe, and tells us that Britain's first beauty content was on Folkestone pier – and was won by a man called Wally. Full of great tales, facts you didn't know you wanted to know, and laugh out loud moments, this is a travel book that goes to all kinds of bleak places, so that you don't have to. The weird thing is, once you've read it, you actually want to.

[Julian Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating and highly entertaining, this is packed with the kind of information which is largely irrelevant yet strangely essential to know.

Meandering back and forth across this great expanse of water, the author gives us insights into the colorful characters and histories which bring it to life and give The Channel a rich and vibrant personality - and this book tremendous warmth.

A great read which I thoroughly enjoyed.

[Wendy Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting - loads of things I didn't know about our stretch of water.

It was only after choosing it that I realised I had also read 'Attenion All Shipping' which I also found fascinating.

Both were full of interesting snippets and they felt well researched.

[Stuart Shiffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A history of theEnglish Channel from the towns and people on both sides and from the swimmers and those who crossed by other means. An interesting read that made me want to return and do some exploration of my own.

[Iain Girling · Rating 4 out of 5]

The English Channel is 20 miles wide and apart from being of of the world's busiest waterways. has a long and interesting history.

The author has described some interesting events and how the channel has helped shaped the history o f the U K.

[Lisa Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a book where I can stop after one story and decide whether to keep reading on leave off until tomorrow. Lots of stories of fascinating people all wrapped around the English Channel. I am a great Oscar Wilde fan, so that story struck a nice chord with me.

[Sho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent offering from Connelly here. Part memoir, part travelogue, part history. Excellent.

[Andrew Purvis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful, a cast of historical characters and oddities, paired with part travelogue. Connelly writes great books, this is another one

[WinterGirl83 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just couldn’t get into this as much as his other books. It’s more the history rather than his journey.

[Owen McArdle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can definitely tell it's written by a swimming enthusiast – lots of focus on crossing the Channel by swimming and flying, but fairly interesting nonetheless.

[Soph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating rundown of the history of the Channel, told through the people who lived it.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

another 5* but not quite as good as previous weather related books. Just bit bogged down in description and history of the towns.

[Steve Chilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book packed with the kind of information which is really unimportant yet strangely interesting. It wanders about thematically, but Connolly shares with the reader some colorful characters and historical details which spring from the page. The Channel's story is multi-threaded and this book contextualises the facts and the faces.