Fit group making timeless splash

Anendra Singh
Life CAN be a paradox.
People do not shy from sport because they grow old. If anything, they grow old because they stop dabbling in sport.
Sure, when you're young swinging a golf croquet mallet or curling a bowl is the last thing on one's mind.
The age-old excuse of youth to justify a substandard performance is handy and when age kicks in then reflecting on one's youth can become a favourite pastime.
Inevitably a time comes when the joints start creaking and rushing to the net like Rafael Nadal or Marina Erakovic is not a good idea.
But stopping altogether, Edna Farrell of Hastings will tell you, is not an option.
The 90-year-old Trojan Swim Club member has been religiously training for today's Napier Masters 25th Annual Winter Sport where she will compete with close to 60 other swimmers from the North Island.
The former New Zealand 100-yard champion will be in good company at the Ivan Wilson pool at the Onekawa complex with fellow Havelock North swim club members, Colin Palmer, 77, Ngaire Bone, 77, Calvin Appleby, 71, Marie Porteous, 68, and Barry Walsh, 65.
With the Beijing Olympics around the corner, Farrell marvels at the amount of time, energy and dedication young people invest in pursuing their dreams.
It's a far cry from her teenage years in North Shore's Narrow Neck Beach, in Auckland, in the early 1900s.
"It was brute strength and ignorance," she quips.
"People laugh and think I'm joking when I say that but it's true," she tells SportToday.
Born in 1917, Farrell says swimming pools at schools were a rarity.
While downtown Auckland had a public pool, the logistics of getting there made the exercise futile. The Farrells didn't have a car and while the bus service was good, the absence of the Auckland Harbour Bridge meant they had to board a ferry and take a brisk 10-minute walk to the pool.
"We lived close to a beach and that's where we spent all our time. There was no lap training and it was most boring because all you got to see was bubbles.
"If I had my time again I'd be a harrier because you have far more fun jumping over fences. Brute strength and ignorance does define it [swimming]," says Farrell, who started swimming at the age of 12 and won her freestyle title when she was 17.
In 1936 her father, the late Jim Rainey, a furrier, moved down with his family to Hastings to set up his business.
Having had enough swimming in her late teens, Farrell studied music with Sr Sicilia at the Hastings Convent before graduating with a degree to teach until she married the late Bill Farrell.
When her children grew up, Farrell played golf at the Hastings Golf Club, whittling her handicap down to 17.
It wasn't until 1984 that the sprightly great-grandmother joined the Trojans club, which John Beaumont had set up for children.
Exactly how the club opened its doors to the older swimmers is a little hazy.
Farrell's husband Bill, a World War 2 veteran who died in 2000, was 91 and a member of the Trojans too. He was an Auckland swim champion and an Army champion who won medals while serving in Eygpt.
While Farrell couldn't remember the war swim medals, Porteous and Palmer recalled a proud Bill pointing out that they were his favourite ones.
"He was a captain in the New Zealand 8th Army and they swam in rivers with branches tied around their waists against the current for resistance training," Porteous said of the man who was a Masters age-group world No 1 in the 100m freestyle event in his twilight years.
Bone, the mother of Bay swimming stalwart Keith and former New Zealand coach Mark, says the Trojans club over the years has had a lot skits and entertainment.
"Some [Trojan members] were lucky enough to have New Zealand and world records," she says.
Bone's son Mark, like many of the current Masters members, was a former Hastings West School (now Raureka School) pupil, who started coaching children at the school's pool when he was at intermediate school.
Her other children, John, Keith and Jan, were national age-group record holders and her granddaughter Katie, who turned 21 on Thursday, is part of the national academy set-up in Auckland, where she is studying.
Having diligently put her children through swimming, Bone found her offspring coaxing her to get into the water herself.
She did so without any regrets whatsoever.
"It's about fun, fitness and friendship," she explained.
"It doesn't matter whether you take home a pocketful of medals or world records, just by competing you're a winner.
"As an individual you're sharing in an event of truly magnificent proportions that reflects the growing international understanding between the people of different cultures."