Grand lady of swimming eyes one more Games

ALISON FRANKLAND has had her arm bent to continue coaching many of the island's top swimmers. This week she retired as head of the Beau Sejour Swim School, 30 years after it opened its doors for the first time.

But, good news for Guernsey's finest and those at the Beau Sejour Barracudas club: the grand lady of swimming is to stay poolside with stopwatch in hand for some time to come.

'I feel very comfortable with keeping on with the coaching programme, although it was with a little bit of arm twisting, I might add.'

She had intended to sever all ties with coaching but with another Island Games on the horizon has put the swimmers first.

'I didn't take much persuading.

'To leave them now I felt was perhaps letting them down.'

But, she says adamantly, the Rhodes Games will definitely be her last.

Commonwealth Games star Ian Powell paid his own tribute.

'Alison has made me who I am,' he said during a short break in the island for Christmas.

'She took me when I was 10 and she gave me everything I had. I owe her the world,' said the finest male swimmer Guernsey and Frankland's Beau Sejour Barracudas has produced.

And many of her charges will no doubt agree with Powell's viewpoint that 'she is a fantastic coach'.

'I can still rely on her when I come home,' he added.

At her retirement presentation, Culture and Leisure minister Peter Sirett paid tribute to her work.

'Who would have imagined 30 years ago that a few people having swimming lessons would lead to a vibrant and successful organisation that we have today, an organisation that owes its success to many people, but largely to the efforts of its manager, Alison, who has steered it since day one.'

He also told a large group of the coach's past and present colleagues, not to mention numerous swimmers and their parents: 'Thousands of youngsters and not a few adults have taken their first strokes in the pool under her guidance and encouragement.'

Frankland's finest legacy, he said, was the team she leaves behind in the swim school which will now be headed by Debbie Le Noury.

The presentation concluded with a poignant handing over of a diamond trilogy to the lady who has headed Guernsey swim teams at a string of Commonwealth and Island Games competitions.

The especially-commissioned jewellery marks the past, present and future of her involvement with the school and was handed over by her grandson, William, who, at 17 months, has just completed two terms with the parent-baby class.