Two heart attacks, but Olympian Brian's still swimming

SWIMMING helped to save Brian Jenkins’ life.

The 71-year-old, who competed in the 200m butterfly in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, has trained at Milton Road Health Hydro since he was a teenager.

He suffered a heart attack five years ago, followed by a second in January this year, and his surgeon told him that keeping up the sport helped him survive.

Brian, of Old Town, said: “After I recovered from the first heart attack I said to the surgeon ‘I have been so fit all my life. I’m not an ounce overweight, I don’t smoke and I have been swimming all this time, but I have had a heart attack.’

“He said ‘if you hadn’t kept yourself as fit as you have, you wouldn’t be talking to me now’.

“That put it into perspective. I couldn’t have stopped my heart attack but if you keep yourself fit your body is in better shape to repair itself and come back from it.

“That was five years ago, and since then I have been doing extra things to keep fit. “ Despite suffering a second heart attack in January this year, and having a double heart bypass and his aortic valve replaced, Brian is already back in the water.

He spent three months recovering from surgery, the longest he has ever been out of the water, before his surgeon gave him the okay to get back in the pool.

“When I went back down there I imagined my lungs would pull apart but in reality they didn’t,” he said.

“I got to the end of my first length and thought ‘my goodness, that feels good’. For the first time in three months I had moved my arms and my legs. It was like I had woken my whole body from a deep sleep.”

Brian, of Old Town, started swimming as a child but took up the sport regularly to help improve the strength in his legs after an operation for fallen arches in his feet when he was nine.

He joined Swindon Dolphins and became the champion of Swindon schools and the county.

He went on to win the All England School Championships at 15.

A year later he joined the British team and competed across Europe in the butterfly category.

He came fourth in the Commonwealth Games and won a silver medal in the European Games, both in 1962.

The Milton Road swimming pool closed for refurbishment that year, and Brian trained in an unheated outdoor pool in Chippenham.

His wife, Gillian, who was his girlfriend at the time, used to rub liniment on him before he got in the pool to help his skin warm up.

“It was about 19 degrees centigrade and it used to penetrate your joints and your inner core. There was no hot shower to go to afterwards either,” said Brian.

“I used to train for as long as I could take the pain. My fingers went numb.”

The biggest highlight of Brian’s swimming career though was competing at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics at the age of 20. He came 10th out of 30.

“I didn’t even have a coach. I used to cycle to Milton Road swimming baths before and after work,” said Brian, who was a plumbing apprentice at the time.

“I didn’t have anybody by my side, there was nobody to talk to apart from some cockroaches which I rescued from the pool each morning.

“I was just on my own with a Smiths timer. That was my only companion and I used to put it on the side of the pool. I just did butterfly up and down the pool. I thought to improve in something you have got to do more of it. I would time myself on the clock and write down the results to see if I was improving.

“We didn’t even have basic things like goggles – they weren’t invented then. I used to come out of the swimming baths and my eyes were as raw as a piece of meat, it was awful. When you’re doing butterfly you’re looking ahead all the time.

“My eyes would still be hurting from the morning session when I got back in the pool after work.”

Brian said it was his inner competitiveness that kept him going.

“I had no outside encouragement and I didn’t train with a team. It was all on my own but it was just something within me. It was my own inner competitiveness and sense of achievement. I didn’t want to be just an average somebody going down to the pool and training, I wanted to get better,” he said.

“There wasn’t any real enjoyment. Nowadays a lot of our swimmers train abroad in sunshine and warm pools. It’s hard work physically but you enjoy what you’re doing.

“I never enjoyed any of my training. The only reason I did well was because it was just perseverance.

“I should never have been a swimmer because I was so short – I was 5ft 9ins. All the guys now are over 6ft with long arms and legs.”

The hard training was worth it though, and Brian still remembers the buzz of competing.

“I was having heart palpitations. You knew that when you dived in you would have to give it everything. I dived in and just went for the end of the pool. You either won it or you didn’t.”

After the Olympic Games, Brian went to Buckingham Palace to be presented to the Queen along with the rest of the Great Britain team.

After the Games though, Brian concentrated on his job as a plumber as there were no finances in swimming then.

In later life, Brian took up body building and became Mr Britain over 45s (in the natural category as he didn’t take drugs) at the age of 52.

But later in life he has needed shoulder surgery and a hip replacement due to wear and tear on his joints.

Brian also found out he was diabetic five years ago, but despite all this he still keeps up his fitness.

The keen swimmer, who is father of Karen and Paul, and grandfather of Kyra, encouraged others to do the same.

“Just do it gently, gently. Don’t rush into it. Do everything in moderation but do it consistently,” he said.

“Don’t just go once and never go again. Try, if you can, to go at least twice a week. Three times is perfect.

“If you can’t swim you can still go down to the pool and do exercises like aqua aerobics or hold on to the end of the pool and kick your legs up and down. It will make you feel so much better and it will strengthen your knees, elbows and hips.”

Brian and his wife, Gillian, will celebrate 50 years of marriage in December.

Gillian said she is immensely proud of her husband for all his achievements.

“No matter what he is doing, whether he is down the allotment or decorating, Brian always wants to achieve his best,” said Gillian.

“He likes a challenge and to do things as near as he can to perfection.

“Having a heart attack scares people so for him to have major heart surgery and do this is incredible. I’m very proud.”