Originally from Arbroath, Scotland, Frances swam for the UK team in 1956, and shared her unique perspective on the Olympics then, compared to the present, and the many changes along the way.

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“Arbroath had a big pool, the centre of the annual ‘Glasgow fortnight’, where my brothers and I taught each other to swim,” said Frances.

“In 1947, my father was posted by the Royal Navy to Gibraltar, where the water was warm enough to swim all year round, so we got lots more practice compared to back in Scotland.

“The competitive rivalry with my brother, I owe a lot of my early swimming career to this interaction, which surprised him when I told him so years later.”

In 1952, aged fourteen, Frances was invited to attend Loughborough College, the UK’s equivalent of the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS).

“[It was] the ambition of all athletes, and the true start of my career,” Frances said.

In 1955, she elected to move to Aberdeen to seek the tutelage from renowned swimming coach Andy Robb, but he worked at a boys’ school, so she would go in after regular school hours to be his pupil.

“I wouldn’t have gotten to the stage I did without Andy’s help, and he was perfectly willing to fit me in.”

The following year, at age nineteen, Frances was selected to represent Team Great Britain at the Melbourne Olympics.

After the March of Nations walk-on in 1956, where the zeitgeist demanded she wear a white dress and heels in 30 degree heat, Frances enjoyed her youthful experience.

Highlights included racing alongside Dawn Fraser in her 100m freestyle heat, and the adventure of the three-day ‘Kangaroo Route’ Qantas flight to get here.

“Elite sportspeople in any era are influenced by competition at that time – a medal in Melbourne would not even qualify today, and most UK sports in the 1950s were amateur, Australia was more professional,” observed Frances.

One poignant memory that will always stay with her, however, was witnessing the ‘blood in the water’ at the infamous water polo match, Hungary vs USSR, in the wake of the brutally suppressed Hungarian Uprising of the same year, a scenario she likened to the Israeli/Palestine conflict and their athletes at Paris’ Games this year.

“I started swimming in 1948, I’ve always loved it, and am still swimming today!” she said.

By Thomas O’KEEFE