Family and friends gathered in Littlethorpe at the weekend to celebrate the 90th birthday of one of the Ripon area’s most inspirational women.

Over 50 years, Sylvia Grice taught an estimated 250,000 people to swim, including Olympic diving champion Jack Laugher, who won gold and silver medals at the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro and bronze at Tokyo 2020.

Her lifelong devotion to teaching a much-needed skill in a city with three rivers and a canal, earned her an MBE in the 2010 New Year’s Honours and Freedom of the City of Ripon in 2019, but that’s just part of her remarkable story.

Sylvia Grice, pictured with Jack Laugher after his medal-winning success at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016.

Daughter Helen Mackenzie, herself an accomplished swimmer and swimming teacher, told the Stray Ferret:

“Mum suffered a broken leg when she was three and was in hospital in traction up until the age of eight, but she didn’t let that hold her back.

“She learnt to swim when she was 15 and married my dad, Jim, the love of her life, when she was 20.

“When my sister Alison and I came along she regularly took us to swim at Ripon’s Spa Baths and caught the eye of the manager Fred Windsor.

“He encouraged her to become a qualified swimming teacher and over the years she went through all of the grades to become an Amateur Swimming Association tutor and then a Fellow of the Institute of Swimming Teachers.”

Sylvia used her qualifications to help people of all ages and abilities, from toddlers having their first visit to the pool to her mother-in-law Florrie, who learnt to swim when she was 58.

She taught people to swim at Ripon Grammar School and at Ashville College in Harrogate, where she set up Triton Swimmers and away from her busy teaching schedule, found time to run the Spa Gardens cafe, be an active member of Ripon Lions and raise money for numerous charitable causes.

Decades before  Sylvia Grice MBE started teaching generations of Ripon children how to swim in the city’s Spa Baths, the lessons were more rudimentary.

Among the overgrown trees, grass and plants that crowd a bank-side section of the Ure, retired postman  John Heselton, has uncovered a rusty riverside relic.

The mystery object serves as a reminder of childhood experiences in Victorian and Edwardian times that would be frowned upon in today’s more safety-conscious society.

He pointed out:

“I discovered from a couple of people in their 90s, who were among Ripon’s first ‘wild’ swimmers, that their introduction to the waters of the Ure was literally a case of sink or swim.”

With the Skell, Laver and a canal adding to Ripon’s network of natural and man-made waterways, there has always been a need to teach children and adults a skill that could one day save their life or the lives of others.

John Heselton, with a black and white photograph of the pavilion, is pictured next to the pulley that was used as a safety device.

But pre-1936, when Ripon’s first public baths were opened, how did people learn their first strokes?

Mr Heselton, pointed out:

“For novice swimmers, a rope was wrapped around their waists before they took the plunge.

“If they showed any signs of getting into difficulties, the pulley that the rope was attached to, was wound back in by the adults on the bank who arranged and supervised the regular learn to swim and swimming sessions.”

He added:

“When I was a boy I learnt to swim, like thousands of other Ripon children, at Spa Baths, but it’s remarkable to think that generations before I was born, my ancestors are very likely to have been among those taught in this more basic way.”

Though the teaching method was basic, the same does not apply to the swimming pavilion itself, which was a grand purpose-built facility, as Mr Heselton discovered.

A detail in a wall (pictured below) first indicated to him that it was more than a boundary to a riverside residence.

He said:

“I have  past this structure on hundreds of occasions over half a century – first as a keen club runner and more recently while out walking my dog Ruby –  but it is only in the last couple of years that I realised it is a surviving remnant of a historically-significant facility.

“After rooting through the undergrowth, I saw that at ground level the wall includes a salt-glazed course of bricks, not there to let air in, but to drain water out, when the swimmers got out of the river to change back into their clothes.”

Like all good detectives, Mr Heselton looked for further evidence on the other side of the wall and the pulley system provided another vital clue about the previous use of this area, where the Ure broadens out to form a natural lido.

The ‘sink or swim’ childhood experience was confirmed by local people he had come to know during the 20 years that he served as a postman in Ripon.

Now, the missing pieces of the jigsaw have been put into place in a fascinating compilation of facts and photographs that the history and nature lover has painstakingly assembled.

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Helen Tabor swam at Ripon’s Spa Baths for the last time on the morning of November 7, 2021.

For her, it was the end of an era dating back 40 years to her pre-teenage years, when she first swam in the ornate surroundings of the former Spa.

Early riser Helen, whose son Jamie was among tens of thousands of children taught to swim in the Edwardian building by Sylvia Grice, told the Stray Ferret:

“This place is very special to me, because it was part of my life, from the age of 12.”

She added:

“For me, it was always more than a swimming pool and became a place of reflection, relaxation and regeneration, as I swam alongside fellow early morning swimmers and did my 40 lengths.”

For Helen, it was not the last time that she was allowed into the Grade II listed building – once centrepiece of the Ripon Spa Quarter.

She was given permission to return with her camera to to take the photographs that now appear in her 32-page picture book, which has been produced in a limited edition first print of 150 copies.

The History of Ripon Spa and baths

The Spa, was opened in 1905 by the city fathers, in a bid to bring wealthy visitors to the city and support the local economy, but up against nearby Harrogate, with its established spa reputation and patronage from the royal houses of Europe, Ripon failed to gain a foothold.

As the last Spa in England to open, Ripon had missed the boat, even with the distinction of being the only one to be granted a Royal Opening, carried out on October 24, 1905, by Princess Henry of Battenburg – Beatrice, the youngest child of Queen Victoria.

In the 1930s, the Municipal Borough of Ripon took the decision to reconfigure the spa building and create the city’s first indoor public swimming pool, which opened in 1936.

In the golden glow of Olympic glory, Jack Laugher told BBC television viewers that his favourite place in the world is “back home in Littlethorpe”.

For those who know him best, that came as no surprise.

The sporting role model has never forgotten his roots in the Ripon area and he continues to give back to the community where he was raised.

In the same week that he heard he had been selected for the GB’s Tokyo Olympic team, Jack agreed to sponsor the Roosters – Ripon’s newest netball team.

His mother Jackie, who will play in the a team for players aged 50 and above, told the Stray Ferret:

“While achieving so much in his sport, Jack has always been a loving son, supportive of what I’m doing.

“He takes as much interest in my membership of Ripon City Netball Club, as I do in his membership of the GB Olympic team.”

In addition to his Olympic gold and silver, Jack was a multiple medallist at the 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games. He is pictured here with Sylvia Grice.

A Transdev 36 double-decker bus is named in his honour and a bench installed by Littlethorpe Parish Council bears his name.

He was also one of six GB Olympic competitors supported by ALDI whose shoppers in Ripon and across the country could see his face on posters.

Jack’s history-making performance with diving partner Chris Mears meant the pair became Britain’s first Olympic diving gold medallists.

Jack in action at this year’s European Aquatics Championships, where he won silver. Picture: British Swimming

Jack’s mother Jackie and her best friend Helen Mackenzie were at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre in Rio to witness the winning springboard-propelled synchronised twists and turns, which denied the China team a clean sweep of the 2016 Olympic diving golds.

Back in the UK, a third woman shared in this triangle of triumph, watching on television in the lounge of her Littlethorpe home.

Sylvia Grice, who was made an MBE for teaching an estimated 250,000 children how to swim, saw her former water babe become an Olympic champion.

Jack, who started with his first splash at Ripon’s Spa Baths when he was three, now had gold around his neck.

Sylvia pointed out:

“Even at that age, he had the confidence and control to swim under water and that proved to be a good omen.”

A week later, Jack added silver in the men’s individual three-metre springboard event, becoming the first British diver to win multiple medals at an Olympic games.

Helen, who is Sylvia’s daughter and has followed in her mother’s slipstream as a swimming teacher, also teaches PE at Ripon Grammar School, where Jack’s academic and sporting prowess was developed.

She will also join the new Roosters netball team, and said:

“Jack is such a special person – a giver, not a taker.

“After donating a buddies bench to Ripon Cathedral School, he turned up at his old primary in his GB Olympic kit to present sports day prizes, pose with children and parents for photographs and sign autographs.”

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