Amidst all the gloom of wars,  oppression and killer epidemics came an uplifting and heart-warming story in the weekend’s news. Appropriately enough, it concerned a heart surgeon who, on Saturday, completed the 21 mile cross English Channel swim.

Cross Channel swims are always impressive but rarely newsworthy since, whilst it is not an everyday event, several gifted athletes and enthusiastic amateurs seem to manage to do it each year. However, the reason this particular swim caught the world’s attention was that the swimmer, a South African called Otto Thaning, became, at the age of 73, the oldest person to complete it.

It must be hard enough to manage such a swim at any time and at any age enduring cold waters, fighting strong currents and dodging super-sized freighters plying their trade in one of the world’s busiest shipping channels. To do it at that age is truly mind-blowing.

Mr Thaning, who trained as a heart surgeon under  Dr Christian Barnard (the man who completed the world’s first successful human to human heart transplant in 1967), actually completed the swim back in 1994 so he knew what to expect but that hardly diminishes his achievement.

When interviewed, Mr Thaning said “My wish was basically to promote the idea that people over the age of 70 can do things like this if they look after themselves and work hard”.

What a man and what a great philosophy for life.