Bournemouth man sets Guinness World Record as longest-serving lifeguard

Chris Lewis has been rescuing local swimmers and tourists on Dorset resort’s beaches for 58 years

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, the 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.