I've always been really scared of water - especially deep water. I arrived in Birmingham from Nigeria when I was eight, and by that point most people in my year group were in their pyjamas grabbing weights from the bottom of the pool.

I was the kid with the fluorescent armbands on both my arms AND legs.

The thought of putting my face in the water completely petrified me. It just seemed so unnatural and, for some reason, I felt every time I was in water I would drown.

I have noticed that the black community in general tend to have very few role models for swimming. The one I can remember was Eric the Eel's valiant efforts at the 2000 Olympics.

I've heard many stories as to why 'we' as a community don't swim - heavy bones, not wanting to get our hair wet, the list goes on.

The training sessions of just over 10 weeks were immense and I am so surprised at the amount of progress I made.

I was hypnotised as part of the process to help make me comfortable in the water.

I've learnt to believe that what the mind believes the body achieves, and that the negative thoughts in my head were simply untrue.

With all this in mind and a mile-long swim behind me (at the Big Splash launch in Salford Quays) it was time to set out on the biggest challenge of my life.

Andy Akinwolere after his record-breaking swim

It took two days to get out to Palau. From the moment we arrived I just wanted to get the swim over and done with.

Chatting to the locals only heightened my anxieties, with tales of squid, sharks and choppy weather conditions.

At that point I was close to turning my back on this challenge, but it was impossible. We had flown half way across the world to do this and there was a possibility I could be the first person on this earth to swim in the location.

I was told that the five-mile swim would be harder than a marathon. That thought kept playing in my mind.

My fears moved away from the depth I was about to face, and more on whether I had enough in me to cover the distance.

I woke up in the morning to a world covered in water. The reality of my challenge had truly set in.

As the cameras were getting into position I took a quiet moment to myself and chanted "You are going to do this" several times.

I looked out into the ocean, jumped in and never looked back.

The big swim itself was daunting. If I had thought of the depth, the potential of coming across creatures in the sea or even the distance there is no way I could have done it.

I was doing this for people who could not swim - they were my constant motivation to keep going.

The swim was made harder by the fact that I was not allowed to touch the boat. I had to feed whilst treading water.

Three hours 30 minutes later, and with an aching leg and a mouth full of saltwater, I heard the air horn to signify the end of my swim.

It was gruelling and more painful than I could have imagined, but I am so glad I did it.

I'm now the world record holder for the deepest recorded location in an open water swim and for being the first person to swim across the deepest part of the Palau trench.

I really hope people can look at what I did and give swimming a go too.

Andy Akinwolere is a Blue Peter presenter.

Andy's Big Splash: Blue Peter Special is on Monday, 20 June on BBC Two at 4.30pm.

Find out more on The Big Splash website.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Now I've written four series of adventures for her. I am the biggest kid in the playpen and I'm playing with my favourite toys. Being a writer who gets to write for his childhood heroes is the best of the best.

When I wrote my first Sarah Jane, The Eye of the Gorgon (the one with the nuns who drove around in a hearse) people said it reminded them of Doctor Who from way back. There's no greater compliment. Now we are on the fourth series and the show just keeps getting better.

And scarier. I like the scary stories. My favourite episodes have been last year's haunted house story, The Eternity Trap, and The Day Of The Clown from the year before. Bradley Walsh, who played Odd Bob, scared the pants off me on set.

This year, Joe Lidster's Nightmare Man is right up my scary street. Gareth Roberts' Empty Planet is just about as big a mystery story as you can get - complete with robots. And Goodbye Sarah Jane Smith, which he has co-written with Clayton Hickman is both emotional rollercoaster and action-packed gobsmacker.

Rupert Laight's Lost In Time is three stories in one and then there's Russell T Davies' return to Sarah Jane writing duties with a story that not only features Matt Smith but Katy Manning returning to her role as Jo Grant, the Third Doctor's other companion.

Then there's my Vault Of Secrets, which sees the return of a familiar reptilian face and some sharp-dressed villains with something nasty up their sleeves. It's going to be so much fun.

It's a bit different from Waters Of Mars - the Doctor Who special that I co-wrote with Russell last year. We visited a very dark part of our favourite Time Lord with that one.

People ask me about the differences in writing something like Waters Of Mars and Sarah Jane's adventures with Luke, Clyde and Rani. Is it a different process? No. It's just about writing the best story I can.

Instinctively you pitch the story differently, but I'm still using the same parts of my brain - the bits that get scared, the bits that laugh, the bits that get fired up by adrenaline, and the bits that cry,

Because stories are all about emotion. And I guarantee this year you will laugh, cry and hide behind the couch. I know, because I'll be there with you.

Phil Ford is lead writer and co-producer on The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Series four of The Sarah Jane Adventures starts on CBBC on Monday, 11 October at 5.15pm.

To find out times of future programmes, please visit the upcoming episodes page.

Until Friday, 5 November you can press the red button to test your knowledge of the show with a Sarah Jane Adventures Quiz.

As I look back at the archive, the idea of joining the long list of former presenters is an extremely daunting one.

Imagine following the career path of Phillip Schofield and achieving the unachievable and actually securing Holly Willoughby's phone number!

In all seriousness though, the thought of joining the likes of Zoe Ball, Fearne Cotton and Chris Jarvis, to name but a few, is awesome to say the least. Makes me feel like any minute the BBC is going to figure out the horrible mistake it's made and send me packing. I'm not worthy!

Being completely honest, the idea of being a 'telly presenter' was always one that excited me, but was never a real passion. Bar an excessive teenage crush on the lovely Fearne Cotton, my experience of TV presenting was never more than fleeting. Yet I find myself sat before you chatting at length about it - how can this be?

As a student (I studied law at the University of Edinburgh, thanks for asking) I indulged in my passion for stand up comedy and won the occasional award.

This led to an audition, in a room above a pub, in front of a group of CBBC people who just wanted to go home to their families.

It was a pleasure to do, and after a couple of days (I was, after all, a skint student with a rubbish phone that never got a signal) I got a call asking me to take part in a studio screen test.

I did it; it went quite badly but they gave me the job. This life changing moment will never be forgotten.

Thanks to everyone at CBBC for choosing me out of the many talented comics on offer and also my parents for forking out the money to allow me to fly to London to talk to some television people above a pub.

See Dad, it all worked out in the end....who needs law? (well as a society we do, I meant as a career option, obviously).

And here we are now. Do I get nervous before I go live on air? Not really. It's my job and I have an extremely talented team behind me, ensuring I come across much more professionally than I perhaps should.

Worst bits? Like every job there are a few. I don't get as many holidays as I would like, and the idea of people recognising me in the street can, at times, be peculiar. But these can be described, at most, as minor.

So yeah, thanks for reading, my name's Iain Stirling and I'm a TV presenter... Nah it still feels weird.

Iain Stirling presents the links on the CBBC Channel every weekday from 7.30am-8am and 4pm-6.35pm. It is also broadcast live on the CBBC website.

Fast forward a bit and I was, which was nice (for me - you may disagree), and stood on Parliament Hill in London in the freezing cold and drizzle making a pilot for a sketch show on BBC Three.

The channel liked the pilot but were less keen on my part in it. The show was commissioned. I was decommissioned.

But that pilot was seen by the very super people at CBBC and they said "Yes".

This was an odd thing to have said, as no one had asked them anything, but it was assumed that they were saying that they wanted something funny, with loads of special effects and a real sense that I have no idea what I'm doing.

What with them having said yes, it seemed only polite for us to go away and actually write something. Well, we would have done but it was nice out so instead we went and got ice creams and shouted at pigeons, then we wrote something.

What we came up with is Hounded and it starts on CBBC on Friday, 11 June. I play a man called Rufus Hound who is blasted into parallel universes by his future self to defeat the evil machinations of Dr Muhahahaha and his pernickety sidekick Steve.

I know what you're thinking "Not that old chestnut!" but, like I say, we were a bit busy shouting at pigeons and eating ice cream.

I mean, there are those who think that children are an incredibly discerning audience and that to do the opportunity justice we'd have had to create whole armies of Ninja Teddy Bears, Evil Clones, Broccoli Monsters, Pizza Space Ships, Wool ships, blah blah blah, but clearly we just dialled it in, opting instead for an army of Ninja Teddy Bears, Evil Clones, Broccoli Monsters, Pizza Space Ships, Wool ships and stuff like that.

So look, I hope you enjoy it. For me, it'll bring back memories of all the ice-cream I ate and all the pigeons I shouted at.

Hopefully though, you'll think that what actually happened was that some of the most creative people you'll never meet spent years of their lives bringing this insane vision to the screen.

Now, would anyone like an ice-cream?

Rufus Hound is the writer and star of Hounded, which starts on CBBC on Friday, 11 June at 5.15pm.

To find out what times Hounded is on CBBC please visit the show's upcoming episodes page.

The Young Mayor Of Newham observes the recent battle to elect a young mayor who has their own youth cabinet and up to £25,000 to make a difference for children living in the borough.

Billboard Kids follows four kids chosen to front the new poster campaign for facial disfigurement charity Changing Faces.

In Karate Kids we meet three disabled kids whose lives benefit significantly from their work with martial arts master Glenn.

Children Of The Road, looks at what it's like to grow up as a young Irish traveller in one of the largest travellers' camps in the UK.

The final film, My Dad in Prison attempts to find out what it's like having a father in jail for six-year-old Liam.

On a daily basis I'm still amazed by the range of programmes CBBC offers children. We provide a rich mix of programming and cover every genre you will find in the peak time schedules and I believe that serious documentary like My Life must have a home right at the heart of the CBBC schedule.

The reason for this is very simple. I believe in the power of television to open people's minds to new experiences and ideas - and to enable them learn about themselves and their place in the world.

This is particularly relevant in relation to children as they can often live in very confined worlds where their outlook and experience is limited to that of their immediate community, family and school life.

Television has the power to bring them into contact with people and aspects of life that they would not otherwise be conscious of.

This is something I'm acutely aware of as I grew up in Ireland in the 70s and 80s. Ireland then was a very different country to the one that exists today in terms of a diversity of voice and cultures.

In my day-to-day life I only came into contact with other Irish people like myself. It was the television I watched as a child that offered me my window onto the world, it allowed me to travel the globe and to learn about different cultures and to gain exposure to people and ideas I'd never encounter in my own community.

I have no doubt that the television programmes I watched as a child helped shape the person I am today.

Similarly, I believe that a lot of the CBBC audience may not come into contact with the children featured in the My Life films.

I hope that after watching films about facial disfigurement, children with extreme disability, children with parents in prison and those in the travelling community the audience will see that despite apparent differences they have so much in common with them and share the same passions, interests and concerns.

In all six films we worked hard to ensure that they were crafted in a way the CBBC audience would engage with. The stories are character-driven and we took great care to guarantee the children didn't feel marginalised.

Humour features throughout and all of the stories are optimistic in outlook. Each film centres on children who, although facing tough challenges in their daily lives, are full of confidence, hope and insight.

It's as Harry (who has extensive scarring on his face as a result of a house fire) says in the Billboard Kids film: "I just want people to know I'm an ordinary boy."

Damian Kavanagh is controller, CBBC