Life has come full circle for Fran and Steve Pocock who took the plunge with Tewkesbury Swimming Club just over 20 years ago and have been going with the flow on the club’s behalf ever since.

They became involved because their daughter Shevaun was a decent swimmer and joined the club in the late 1990s and they stayed involved even after she gave up the sport in 2005.

Now they are looking on with pride as their nine-year-old granddaughter Sumher, Shevaun’s daughter, is starting to make waves at the progressive club.

Fran told The Local Answer: “Shevaun started having swimming lessons at Cascades when she was quite young.

“We didn’t know anything about swimming but her swim teacher said she was good and said she should join the swimming club.

“That was in 1997 when she was eight and within two years she was swimming at county level.”

While Shevaun was making an impression in the pool, Fran and Steve were making as big an impression outside the pool.

“I joined the club’s committee in 1998 and I ran the club shop for seven years, I made a little packet for them,” Fran chuckled.

“And Steve has been a timekeeper, starter and judge and still is to this day.”

They continued with the club even when Shevaun decided to give up swimming competitively in 2005.

“It was in the April just before her GCSEs,” said Fran. “She’d just got to the stage where she wanted to do something else. Her best stroke was butterfly and her best distance was over 200 metres.

“It was very gruelling but she enjoyed it.

“She reached Western Counties standard - now known as ASA South Regionals - and did quite well.”

Fran didn’t want to give up her role immediately after Shevaun had called time on her swimming career so she decided to wait until the AGM in November before announcing her intention to retire.

However, good club men and women are few and far between and Tewkesbury weren’t going to let two of their unsung heroes go without at least a fight.

And the rest is history. As Steve, who works at Safran Landing Systems in Staverton, said, now that Sumher has taken up the sport “it’s all come full circle”.

“Sumher is part of a club that is going from strength to strength” Fran said. The move from Cascades to Tewkesbury Leisure Centre has given everyone a boost. A lot of people have put in a lot of hard work and everything is looking healthy.

“We’ve got an enthusiastic squad of coaches and that rubs off on the children.”

Fran and Steve, who were just dashing out to watch Sumher’s sports day at Ashchurch Primary School when they spoke to The Local Answer, were nothing special as swimmers.

“We can swim,” said Steve. “We can do most strokes although not fly. We were recreational swimmers.”

They may be recreational swimmers but they are serious volunteers for Tewkesbury Swimming Club.