大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War website by gmractiondesk on behalf of Harold Palin Dodd and has been added to the site with his permission. I went to Grange Street School, Bradford in Manchester. Between the ages of 11 and 14 I swam in all the school swimming galas and met a number of notable swimmers: Jack Besford, Soony Lowry, Zilpha Grant, the Walstenholme sisters; Beatrice and Margaret and Majorie Hinton, Olympic and Emprie Games swimmers.
World War Two broke out, I was in the RASC Transport and went out to Egypt. I was with the eigth army and when the invasion of Italy took place I landed at Salerna and went to all the Italian campaigns, just before the war in Europe ended I swam at Rome and won the British army 100 metres championship. I then carried on the Riccione, I came home then. In 1947 I swam the Morecambe Bay twice (9 1/2 miles), once in 2 hours 38 minutes. I then came second in the Northern Counties Mile, I was then 27 years old. I then swam against the Dutch and French champions after the Olympic Games in 1948, I was second best for that races. I worked in heavy industry until 1978 and then I took up swimming in the national swimathons with Duncan Goodyer and was champion 70 years plus for 7 years, it was 5 thousand metres. Also in that year I swam the Manchester marathon and won that, it was 3 thousand metres. At the age of 80 I came back to sprinting shorter distances, in the masters swimming championships. I've not lost any swims in the Nationals in the Great Britain record since. In 2004 I had a good year and I won all the Great Britain records for the long course at Manchester. In the same year I won European records in 200, 400, 800 and 1500 metre races. I have all the short course national records too in 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500 metres. Whilst I was swimming at Sheffield the Art of England club asked if I would like to swim at Ricciome for the World Masters Championships. I remembered I was at Ricciome when I was in the last war 60 years ago so I decided I would go out there again to swim in the World Championships. Whilst I was there I won the 200, 400, 800 metres gold medals and one silver in the 100 metres and the bronze in the 50 metres but both were in Great Britain record times. I swam at the Welsh Opens in Bangor and Swansea. I swim yearly at Pons forge: I win every year. At the beginning of this year I was swimming at Salford, Broughton Baths and I broke the record on the 100 metres and 200 metres. They were my own records that I broke.

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