Antonia Murphy has always loved water. It can be warm or icy, wild or maintained in a municipal facility. Although “not a great swimmer”, she is a confident one. So when she moved to Edinburgh two years ago, she promptly checked out the public leisure centre. She was captivated by the alluring, deep blue of the diving pool. “I thought: ‘This is unbelievable.’ I felt seduced,” she says.
She had “larked around” as a child, but never learned to dive, so she went along to the Royal Commonwealth’s public session. “This bloke was standing there. We got chatting.” He told her about coaching sessions – and Murphy, then 66, booked a taster class.
