In too deep

"So I said, 'No, I can't do this.' I left the job, and I picked up a newspaper at King's Cross. I'll never forget this." He smiles, and the wake of another intrepid swimmer's rolls lazily across the pool behind him. "The Evening News it was called, with pages and pages of jobs. And there was a lifeguard wanted at the Lordship Lane lido in Tottenham." Khedoo called the number from a phone box and was offered the job the following morning.

"And it never changed," he says, apparently still bemused. "I thought I had a job for the season, but then they gave me a permanent job as a lifeguard." Twenty-three years later, he moved from Tottenham to Hampstead. And 13 years after that, at the age of 57, he is still here, having picked up the nickname "Shane" somewhere along the way. "I don't know whether I'm the oldest duty lifeguard in this country," he shrugs, "but surely I am one of them."

These days, however, it is not the cold weather that bothers Khedoo most. On the contrary, it is in the summer that his job is toughest. "On a hot day when you get a group of lads or girls, they're going to drive you mad," he says. "They'll be running, pushing each other. It is annoying, but then in another way you don't want to spoil their fun." But spoil their fun he must, or someone may get hurt. "You're lifeguarding, but also you're more or less a babysitter as well," he sighs. "It's not Baywatch. You're constantly telling people, 'Don't do this, don't do that ... and you've got to have eyes behind your back as well.'"

Needless to say, Khedoo has learned not to expect too much gratitude from the people he takes care of. "I've been called all sorts of names," he says. "Never mind Prince Harry, to me that was mild." And drunk people, without question, are the worst. Not just because they are harder to control, but also because they are more likely to get into trouble. "People don't understand, mixing alcohol and swimming doesn't go," says Khedoo, with a when-will-they-learn kind of sigh. "I think last year we had about five rescues here. It wasn't a good summer, but we still had five rescues." Meanwhile, out on the heath's nearby ponds, 11 people once had to be rescued in a single day. "That was a particularly manic, hot Sunday," he remembers. "People were dropping like flies."

But then preventing accidents in the ponds - open sections of the subterranean river Fleet - where Khedoo began his current job, is quite a different matter. "It's all muddy water," he warns. "And it's deep. If somebody goes under and you don't have a quick reaction then goodbye, because you won't see them. They'll go down ... It's like an abyss down there. It's pitch black." To patrol these waters, lifeguards must be experienced and fit, which means being able to swim 90m in little more than a minute. "I can do about one minute two seconds," admits Khedoo when I press him.

And yet despite his lengthy career, Khedoo has never yet had someone die while he was working. "Not on my watch," he says, and hurriedly bashes the wooden surface of the desk for luck. "But I've had a few scary moments ... And no matter how much experience you have as a lifeguard, there's always that in the back of your mind: you could lose someone."

And there are more dangers out there than you might think. Hypothermia, for instance, is a common problem among swimmers in cold water. "I had a guy here last year, I had to sit him there for an hour," Khedoo says, pointing to his radiator. "And that was in June. Basically he was in that water for too long, and he was shaking all the time, about to pass out. We gave him oxygen and everything." And even after a successful rescue there is "secondary drowning" to worry about. This happens when the swimmer has taken water into their lungs, but does not realise. If they are not promptly checked in hospital, it has been known for these unfortunate people to drown in their sleep.

Perhaps Khedoo's closest call came on the heath a few years ago, when a woman who was swimming in the ladies' pond got into trouble. "Her heart stopped," he recalls. "She was 51, a school teacher, and she hadn't been swimming for a while. One of the girls dived in, rescued her, and brought her to the side. But she was going blue. So we all went up there, did the defibrillation and actually got her heart going again before the ambulance got there. She was in a coma for about a week, but she's fine now."

Such narrow successes are generally thanks to the high level of training that all lifeguards must undergo in order to achieve the National Pool Lifeguard Qualification. This involves passing tests in first aid, rescuing skills and pool maintenance and supervision, all of which must be resat every two years. On top of this, Khedoo is also qualified to carry out rescues in open water, although nowadays he admits that he is slower than he used to be.

The only disadvantage of having all these skills, of course, is that Khedoo never knows when he may have to use them - such as the time he was on the beach in Sussex with his wife and kids and he saw a boy swim out into the current. "I suddenly stopped playing," he recalls, "and said, 'He's not going to make it.' My wife said to me, 'Stop being a lifeguard.' But I said, 'No, I'm telling you, he's not going to make it.' Then he started calling for help."

When the boy's girlfriend began to swim after him, Khedoo's mind was made up. "I dived in," he tells me, "and said, 'Get back! I don't want to have to rescue two people.' Before I got to the boy, he went under once and came back up. He was going under again, but I managed to get to him in time. He was a good swimmer, but he was panicking. It was a scary thing, because the current was actually dragging both of us. I could have got myself killed, but I managed to get him out of the current, and we were safe."

When will they learn? Khedoo does not say it, but it is written all over his face.

Curriculum vitae

Pay "I think we're well paid. I get about £26-27,000 a year, which is good money for what I do."

Hours "We do 37 a week, across five days. But we don't get every weekend off. In the winter we finish at 2.45pm, but we start at 6.45am."

Work/life balance "I wouldn't say my work interferes with my family life at all. I get plenty of holidays, not that we can afford it."

Best thing "The best thing about this job is it's easy. It is not a stressful job, and I'm away from the hustle and the bustle."

Worst thing "Getting up at 5.30am. I curse it every morning, especially when I've got a hangover."

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