A self-taught swimmer is diving in at the deep end to swim the furthest she has ever swam.

Carol Gander, 68, of Tavistock, has been training hard to tackle a five km (about three miles) swim, which will be 100 lengths in Mount Kelly College 50-metre long pool in aid of charity.

The Swimathon is staged throughout the country in aid of Cancer Research and Marie Curie charities in its fortieth year.

Carol said: “I’ve been swimming up and down Mount Kelly College pool to get the stamina. I haven’t swam the full amount, it’s all about building up long distance over time and I’m happy that I can complete it for good causes.”

Carol, a retired children’s nurse who trained at Bristol and worked in London and Plymouth’s Freedom Fields and Derriford hospitals, said: “I’ve come a long way since I taught myself to swim age 11 because I was fed up of my friends being able to swim and not being able to join in.

“I have always enjoyed swimming, but have never really been that good. Mainly doing breaststroke. As a nurse, all hospitals used to have pools, so I swam quite often.”

She then found she did not have time to continue swimming as work, marriage and bringing up her daughter took priority, followed by fostering children.

Carol then resumed the aquatic hobby with a friend regularly in 2019 at Mount Kelly Swim Centre. But this fell foul of covid lockdowns until they resumed. She found swimming also helped alleviated the symptoms of osteo and rheumatoid arthritis.

To help with motivation one of pool’s staff gave them a target of one mile to swim (32 x 50m lengths) which they achieved in summer 2021, always doing breaststroke.

At the end of 2024 Carol decided it was time to learn the crawl/freestyle, because otherwise she was deterred by not getting the breathing synchronised properly with the strokes.

So she booked lessons at Mount Kelly with coaches Liz Vernon and a colleague, and is now a competent freestyler after four sets of lessons.

“I mainly chose the swimathon for the swimming challenge, but have also had family/friends with cancer and treatment, so that was a good incentive too.

She up in Bebington, Wirral, where all the pools were outdoor and mainly unheated, making it only suitable for the hardiest of swimmers.

She has found swimming and improving has given her confidence, so she joined the Tavistock Warblers, a community singing group: “Swimming and learning and being good enough to do this swimathon has boosted my confidence. I’ve always wanted to sing, but didn’t feel I was good enough. But I’ve now joined the warblers and I’m loving singing with other people.”

She has knitted tiny mascot swimmers for the event. “They are just things I do for friends or family, mainly for fun.”

Carol Gander’s Marie Curie and Cancer Research Swimathon 2026 welcomes donations at these links: https://jg.swimathon.org/fundraising/carolyngander-1768382947515 or https://tinyurl.com/4w5hneu2