Sarah's PassionFor as long as I can remember, I have loved the water. The earliest memory took place a long time ago, when I was a young girl. I remember the occasion very vividly as if it was yesterday. I was with mum of course and two of my aunts. I was around the age of 8, the reason being, we were moving to our first home, instead of living with my grandmother, who had a house in
Surbiton, Surrey England.
The year was around 1967, so long ago. In our travels from Surbtion to Hordle in Hampshire we stopped at a swimming place in Lymington. I don't know what my mum and her 2 sisters were doing there. I was left by myself, near the pool. I was standing in one corner of the pool and I was looking at the other end of the pool's diagonal corner. In that moment of time I thought; "I wanted to be in the water".
I could not swim at this stage. Don't ask me where I got that notion from, I will never know. There is no indication in my family that was involved in 'swimming' in anyway whatsoever. It was to be at least another two years before I got any chance, to learn how to swim.
During the two years before our family went to Australia, our family with my aunts and their children would walk along a road that led to a beach called 'Hordle Beach'. So I was not bereft of seeing any water at all and certainly not like that first time seeing water, the beach was composed of pebbles and when the tide went out there was some sand.
Moving to Australia in June 1969, was the best thing that my parents ever did and I have never had the inkling of going back to England. I will go for holiday to see family members and that would basically be it. We ended up in a city called Melbourne and eventually we did go to a swimming pool.
I wandered off looking around and of course I saw a big pool probably a 50 yard one. Silly me, thinking I could jump in near the edge and steps, where one could get out. Well I did jump in, I struggled and I was so close to the edge.
There were two young guys who were laughing and talking about my struggle. I eventually grab the side and I got out. Lucky me. I have never told anyone of my little escapade, about that incident. I could have drowned and I would not have been here to this day. So the importance of learning how to swim cannot be emphasised enough, especially in a place like Australia wear the majority of people live near the sea.
The next encounters with water were as students we were taken to the 'local pool', and what we did I have no idea. Maybe a lesson of some sort, the only thing that I can recall is that the water was cold. When we went back for another swimming lesson with the school, all I can remember that the water was going to be cold and I did not care, I just wanted to get in and swim.
We moved to a town were some relatives were living, where the weather was always hot regardless of the season, we returned to Melbourne and then back to that town. I need to keep the name of this town private as I made myself widely know because of my exploits in swimming.
This town is were I would often spend days playing and swimming all day at the local pool with my brothers, not the youngest, it only cost 20 cents to get in and we would find and retrieve money from the drains with a stick and pull out money which we would spend on a pie or sausage roll. I guess I could sort of 'swim' at this stage.
One of the first lessons I ever had was how to breathe to the side by one of the pool operators, she was the mother of my future coach who taught me for over 10 years. Yeah go figure, the coincident of that happening.
I was at this particular swimming pool, which by the was on a cliff top over looking the picturesque sea and it was a swimming carnival, I was entered into a few races and I was approached by someone I can't remember who, and they asked would I swim a lap of butterfly.
So that maybe I would gain some extra points and win the carnival, me butterfly, never swam butterfly at that point in my life. So what do I do? Yep, you guessed it, I swam a lap of butterfly and low and behold I made it. Long story short on this, it became one of my favourite strokes.
Forward a couple of years, I was in boarding school for two years and I did do some training and I did enter a couple of events. I just wanted to swim. What stands out at this particular moment in time. I was watching a race and noticed what the swimmers did when they reached the end of the swimming pool.
You either bang your head on the wall or you do a somersault. That's nifty, so when I was racing. I decided to do the same, well you should have seen me, I was disoriented, water going up my noses, gasping for breath and trying to go on my merry way, a complete stuff up, yet so funny. I remember that tumble turn so vividly to this day. I did finish the race. This period of swimming lasted between 1975 and 1976
Approximately around 1979 to the end of 1988. I started the serious part of my swimming training under my coach who was an accredited level 3 swimming coach and over the next 10 years, our swimming team would travel all around competing in at least 8 different locations. My big mouth got me into this crazy part of my life. It all started in the office, where I worked and the guys in the office were talking about going to the pool and doing a few laps.
Trying to big note myself I said the same thing. So to be honest with myself, I started doing just that. I started out just doing 10 laps of the pool. I was living by myself at that time and the pool I was going to spend the next 10 years of my life was basically, roll out of bed, into the car and travel 200m about (200yrd). Then into the pool for a couple of laps. The pool was literally next door to where I lived at the time.
After awhile I noticed the squad that was training and learnt the lingo and started copying what they did and eventually I then joined in the lanes they were swimming in.
Eventually I moved back home after mum came back from Canberra with my youngest brother, after a short partnership with a man that did not work out. Its funny, I never worried about my mum finding a partner and accepted with out any conditions being placed on her.
She had a life to live as well, so how did I learn the value of acceptance. There was my father and grandfather, who accepted me after I was born and later on, when my mum accepted me unconditionally with all her heart and love. I suppose our acceptance of others was learned from others or around us or we born with it, meaning it was innate inside us.
My heart will go on, forever with love for them. Sorry, I digress, I will have to stop doing it, why tears are streaming down my face and I'm listening to? Yes you guessed it, My heart will go on.[1] No I did not plan it, I was listening to a collection of cello music from celllist Stjepan Hauser from 2cellos fame when the Celine Dion music came on during the last three paragraphs. So I played it three times, yeah I know, I'm crazy anyway back to Sarah's Passion.
I was then travelling over 10km to a swimming pool, then approximately 20km to work, so a total of 60km a day 300km a week so roughly 15,000km a year, 150,000km in 10 years approximately now I would say that's dedication, what do you say? Yeah you really wanted to know that.
During that time I meet many famous swimmers of the time, Lisa Curry Kenny, Michelle Ford, Michael Klim, Tracey Wickham and the most famous of all Olympic Swimmers Dawn Fraser and I swam with her in a race (different age groups). I remember watching her coming in to finish her race and I still remember seeing her swimming style or stroke and it was still beautiful.
Lets wrap this up shall we? I actually question the actual year when the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) held a National Championships, where I earned the gold and bronze medals that I mentioned in the other thread. I dragged out my collection of medals and when I located the gold and bronze medal from the RLSS National Championships. I noticed that I had another bronze medal, Whoa was Sarah a good life saving swimmer or what?
The two years in question are 1987 and 1988, yes those two years where Sarah ventured out in the world for the first couple of times and of course I was competing at the RLSS National Championship, two years in the row. It must have been 1987 that I won the gold and bronze and not 1988, So I believe and I won the other bronze medal in 1988 probably the same event that I won the gold in the previous year.
The event that I won the gold medal and the bronze medal the following year is an event where a scenario is set up were there are victims in various stages of distress in the water and you have to save them in a given amount time. The gold medal event that I won, went like this:
In my scenario there were 3 victims. Time starts. Coming out of a sequestered area. Told bystander to go and get help. One victim was half a pool width away, threw a kick board and it curved in the air like a boomerang and hit the victim on the chin, I said out loud grab the "kick board and kick to the side", I believe this is what got me the gold medal.
Grabbed a bucket jumped in and gave another victim the bucket and told them to swim to the side of the pool, they said, their baby was missing. I jumped into the pool because there was an upturned canoe and I saw a 'baby doll', representing a drowning baby on the bottom of the pool. I also kept an eye on the swimmer who was kicking there way with the kickboard and encouraging them to continue on.
Dived down retrieved the 'baby doll' came up to the surface and started resuscitation while swimming to the edge of the pool, put the doll on the edge and continued with resuscitation. Time up. The allocated amount of time was about 1min and 45 seconds.
So recap one gold medal in the life saving event in 1987 and the bronze medal for overall championship in the same year. The other bronze for the same life saving event in 1988.
My swimming career petered out after 1990, every so often I would get in the pool and churn up the laps and I'm remiss for not carrying on with one of my passions in my life. Surgery, going to universities to earn my degrees living with my boyfriend, teaching in the country side, finally returning home to Brisbane, got in the way. I did not think about swimming as much, life just got in the way.
Then looking after mum and even though I was a lifeguard and swimming teacher. I never got back into swimming per se. Now that I have the time, I'm getting back into it, very similar to another famous swimmer called Shane Gould, after she became famous, she disappeared to live her life as a married mother and wife and then eventually found her way back into swimming.
So go after your dream, don't give it up. Just like me, I'm still trying to find out where that black line goes.
Best Wishes, Love and Hugs to EveryoneSarah B[1]
My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion
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