Punting world record holders meet up 51 years after their success on Lancaster Canal

The Waterwitch manager Rachel Wright (left) with John Siddle, Ruth Colling, Philip Gregory, David Whitaker, Stephen Colling (the five punters) and John Woods (supporter).

Five former students have been united more than 50 years after breaking a world record for non-stop punting.

Between August 28 and 30 1972 the five students - four of whom were pupils of Morecambe Grammar School - punted non-stop for 53 hours and 40 minutes on the Lancaster Canal to establish a new world non-stop punting record of 101 miles.

The record was included in the Guinness Book of Records in 1972, and the event was covered in both the Visitor and the Morecambe Guardian.

The record bid was sponsored in aid of Shelter and other charities and raised the equivalent of more than £3,000 in today’s money.

The photograph of the crew which appeared in the Visitor in August 1972.

Last year was the 50th anniversary of the world record event but, perhaps because of the dislocation caused by Covid, the punters failed to commemorate the anniversary.

However, this week, just before the 51st anniversary, the group made amends, and the five original crew members met for lunch at The Waterwitch pub in Lancaster (where the record journey started and finished and which at the time was a residence and workshop owned by David Vause), joined by John Woods, who supported the original bid from his canalside house in Bolton-le-Sands.

The five punters, Ruth and Steve Colling, Phil Gregory, John Siddle and David Whitaker, travelled to Lancaster from east Lancashire, south Oxfordshire, south Leicestershire and Manchester and it was the first time they had met up since 1972.

The group presented a framed photograph to The Waterwitch to mark the occasion.

The punting world record crew met up for the first time since 1972.

Most of the crew followed up the punting trip by becoming members of the Lancaster Canal Trust, and John Siddle and John Woods have remained so, and after lunch they travelled to Stainton towards the northern end of the canal to have a look at restoration work being undertaken there.

There they met Robin Yates, the chairman of the Lancaster Canal Trust, who explained the restoration work the trust has been carrying out to make a longer stretch of the canal navigable again and he also showed the group the Stainton aqueduct that was restored by the Canal and River Trust at a cost of £4.5m following extensive damage caused by Storm Desmond in 2015.