I learned to swim at 74 after decades by the sea – it’s liberating

Despite growing up in Orkney off the north coast of Scotland, 74-year-old Ron Goddard never set foot in a body of water until he was 73 years old. “I’ve lived by the sea most of my life, but I never thought about swimming, nor did anybody else,” he says. “Even the fisherman in our community couldn’t swim. As young men, we used to go out in the boats and thought nothing of it and none of us could swim. But we didn’t care – it was exciting. Every time they got a new lifeboat, they put us on it and we sailed up to the Shetlands. We were scared, but we didn’t show it,” he recalls.

Growing up in Stromness, a “wet and absolutely freezing” place, the ocean was a fierce and omnipresent part of Goddard’s life. “Sometimes, the waves would be twice as high as the defence wall and they would come right over the top,” he remembers. “If anybody was walking too near to it, they were gone. You couldn’t outrun it – no chance. You could be the best swimmer in the world and it wouldn’t have made any difference – it would just take you. And it wasn’t warm water, with the Atlantic Sea and North Sea converging. You didn’t go paddling in that lot, believe me – you didn’t go anywhere near it.”

Fishing was the major industry when he was a boy, meaning the town’s population was inextricably connected to the sea for their livelihood. “It was a hard life for them, but it’s all they ever knew,” he says. “The boats they went out on didn’t look safe. But they did it to survive – that’s how they made their living.”

When Goddard was 11, he and his family moved to Fort Augustus. “Loch Ness was a 10-minute walk away from where we lived,” he says. “And we did see something in that water that you can’t explain – even our teacher saw it! After that, I used to go down there deliberately to see if I could see it. They used to call me the monster’s pet,” he laughs. “But most people wouldn’t venture down – they were scared that it might come and eat them,” he says with a smile.

As he grew up, Goddard largely stayed away from the water. “We grew up by the water, so we weren’t scared of it as such, but you didn’t do silly things like try and swim in it when you couldn’t swim like some people do today. They don’t realise: it’s not the water that you can see, it’s the water you can’t.”

Goddard and his fishermen were far from alone. For much of European maritime history, a significant proportion of sailors were unable to swim, a trend that only began to change in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite a boom in public lidos throughout the 1930s, figures shared by Swimming England in 2019 indicate that one in three adults in England cannot swim – more than 14 million people. This is compounded by a loss in access to safe, public swimming pools. Since 2010, 500 swimming pools have been lost due to financial pressures, ageing facilities and rising operational costs.

Thankfully, the team at Ashbourne Lodge care home, where Goddard is now a resident, have a Montessori-inspired approach to care which focuses on living with purpose, rather than simply being cared for. It was here where staff floated the idea of Goddard giving swimming a try. “I thought they were crazy,” he admits. Despite his reservations, he agreed to give it a go.

How did he feel on his first entrance into the water? “Cold,” he replies, in his deadpan manner. “I looked down and I couldn’t see the bottom properly because it deceives you. But bit by bit, and with the help of other people, I got a bit further and made progress. I’m not a marathon swimmer or anything like that, but I could let go of the bar which I’d never done before. I’d hold on for a bit and then the staff would wait a few seconds for me to join them and I went further and further each time until I realised how far I’d gone. I panicked a bit at first, but the staff just told me ‘don’t look at the water – just focus on me’.”

Now, he describes being in the water as “liberating”. He said: “I can’t believe it took me so long. Nobody else swam, so you didn’t do it – and there was nobody to teach me.”

Trying something new is often scary, but Goddard is reluctant to dwell on his achievements. “I’m just so thankful to the people that put themselves out to help me – they built up my confidence. I started to put my trust in them, rather than the safety bar. Before, if I left it, I felt like a fish out of water.”

A short spell of illness meant Goddard had to pause his swimming adventures, but he’s keen to return to the water when he’s feeling stronger. “I want to learn more – I’ll just need to take baby steps. I’ll see how far I can go this time. I’m determined to do it.”

In terms of advice to other people wanting to step outside their comfort zone in later life, Goddard is resolute. “Have a go – and you’ll see what you’ve been missing. If you don’t try something, you’ll never know. It’s like when people say, ‘Oh, I don’t like that – I can’t eat that’. I always say, ‘Have you tried it?’ And they often say no. How can you know that you don’t like it if you’ve never tried it? You explain that one to me.

“But I can’t wait to get back in that swimming pool. To be continued!”