As coach of the only Olympic swimming medallist in Mexico (1968), I was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 1969 to study the university swimming programmes in the United States. The United States produced Olympic medallists in abundance, thanks to a combination of sports scholarship which provided the funds for academic study. It was a further 20 years before a similar programme developed in the UK but, in the intervening years, there were many attempts to emulate the US formula.

By 1973, frustrated at the slow changes in British swimming, I opted for the wider sport and leisure industry to include development work with the Sports Council. In 1983 I became the first CEO of the World Squash Federation and was extremely fortunate to travel the world and to witness the diversity of ways in which the various nations provide for, and promote sport, volunteers being the essence of early sporting interest.

A long career in both amateur and professional sport ended with an eight-year period as Chairman of the Welsh Amateur Swimming Association, from where my adventures began.

My Churchill Fellowship provided me with the time and space to plot a most satisfying life in sport.