ANNE Wheeler was one of Oxford’s most successful young swimmers.

As a teenager, she spent hours training and her name cropped up regularly among the medal winners at swimming galas.

She went on to represent Great Britain as well as Wales in international events, and but for injury, might well have claimed a place in the 1968 Olympics team in Mexico City.

We were reminded of her prowess in the pool when we recalled a schools’ swimming event at Temple Cowley in 1965, in which she smashed two records (Memory Lane, September 27).

Anne, now Anne Wheeler Andenaes and living in Norway, got in touch after receiving a copy of the article from her daughter, who is a nurse at Oxford’s Littlemore Hospital.

Swimming was in her blood from a very early age.

She recalls: “My sister Mary had pneumonia and was advised to swim. Mum took me along and tied me to the steps as they swam.

“I never remember having to learn to swim – I taught myself.”

She was a junior champion in Cheltenham, her home town, at the age of eight, and continued her rapid progress after her father Kenneth was appointed head of Lawn Upton School, in Littlemore, and the family moved to Oxford.

She recalls: “I practically lived in Temple Cowley pool during the 1960s, training morning, noon and night.

“I have many memories from those years – the faces, the atmosphere, the characters.

“I swam between 6,000 and 10,000 yards daily.

“As I represented junior GB and Wales, I needed all the training and water time possible.”

Staff at Temple Cowley allowed her to train outside public opening times, and she also went to London for tuition.

She also trained with the Oxford University team at Temple Cowley.

“They were very helpful and didn’t mind a little local teenager training with them.

“I remember some very good international student swimmers like ‘Tich’ McClachlan, from South Africa, and Harald Siem, from Norway.

“I felt sorry for the American students – many were called up to fight in Vietnam. Some never came back.”

Her time as a member of the GB swimming team took her to contests in many European countries, but her hopes of an Olympic medal were dashed when she broke a leg playing badminton.

She moved to Norway after marrying a Norwegian who was studying in Oxford.

She is still a keen swimmer and works as a swimming and physical education coach in Oslo, the country’s capital city.

But her links with Oxford remain strong – her three children all live in the city.

She also visited Oxford recently to discuss coaching ideas at Oxford Brookes University with Lynn Evans, her former PE teacher at Littlemore Grammar School, and to give a lecture on the subject to students.