This week Bill Carne chats to Ryan Hackett, a sports lover who has been employed at the Meads Leisure Centre in Milford Haven for 40 years in November...

PEOPLE come and people go in sport but one sporting person who has maintained continuity in his yeoman sporting work at The Meads Leisure Centre is Ryan Hackett, who has worked there for an incredible 40 years in November!

He started out with Chris Payne (now the Leisure Services manager at Pembrokeshire County Council), whom Ryan says was ‘brilliant’ and has been involved with a whole range of sports, especially swimming.

Ryan was a very keen and able swimmer throughout his time at the old Milford Haven Central School and by the time that he was 14 he had gained his RSA Club Instructor certificate, as well as his lifeguard's badge.

It was to serve him well two years later, after he had left school, when the role of lifeguard/instructor at the newly-opened swimming pool came up. Ryan promptly applied and although he was by far the youngest applicant the others were lifeguard-trained only so he was given the job!

Ryan quickly settled in and is still there today, not only setting many young potential swimmers on the road to doing well, but now as a duty officer at the leisure centre that grew up around the pool and is now able to boast state of the art facilities for a whole range of sports.

"Things have changed so much since I started and I can recall the excitement when it was finally agreed that the Leisure Centre could go ahead," said Ryan, "and a great old character named Joe Ackroyd raised funds by selling bricks to all and sundry. It was a lovely moment when Joe was invited to lay the special commemorative stone when it was finally unveiled.

"Now we not only have the swimming pool but also a fantastic fitness suite, a huge sports hall which is used for indoor cricket, five a side football, netball, basketball, hockey, volleyball, two recently-furbished outdoor floodlit tennis courts, our indoor bowls hall, squash courts and lots, lots more - and it is brilliant to see so many people from our community using them all."

Ryan was like a lot of youngsters of his era who received no formal training for his swimming.

"We learned the hard way as we jumped into the sea off Wards Pier or the Mackerel Staging down at Milford Docks.

"We used to spend all our summer in the water until eventually someone suggested I should join the Milford Haven swimming squad - and I was warmly welcomed there by the coaches and other swimmers.

“My favourite was the back stroke but I was soon entering competitions in all the strokes and when I was 16 I was good enough to become Welsh 800 metres freestyle gold medalist in the old Empire Pool in Cardiff.

"It was a memorable moment and in the same championships I also won the bronze medal in the 4x100 individual medley, which meant I had to swim four lengths each of backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and front crawl."

Ryan could certainly perform well in stamina-based events and he provided further proof when the club raised funds for charity and he received a special trophy for completing 35 lengths of the 25-metre pool in 15 minutes, beating the old record of 32 lengths.

He continued his competitive swimming until he was 17, training every week morning from 6.30 to 8am alongside Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings from 7 to 9pm.

"I was super-fit in those days and hated to miss a session, even if there were extra ones before competitions on a weekend - but then work and going out with my pals caused me to ease off and I knew it was time to step down."

But Ryan is competitive by nature and he helped start up a water polo team which not only captained but coached as well.

"Included in that team were players of the calibre of James Walters, Nigel Devonald, Tony Picton, Brian Hadley and Ken Banfield - and we played against Pembroke and teams outside the county as far afield as Swansea, Cardiff and Neath.

"We also played against Romilly, our twin town in France, and they had players that were very experienced and super-fit because they were training far more often than us.

"But we played out of our skins to lead 6-2 at half time and although we eventually lost 14-9 it was our proudest moment before key players left the area and the club finally had to close because of a shortage of players.”

Outside of his involvement in the leisure centre, Ryan has been keen on skiing for many years, even owning his own skis, salopettes and boots.

"When I went again last year after a spell away from the snow I did wonder if I would have lost my touch but I was delighted with the way that I was soon back in the thick of things, and was still able to negotiate the Black Runs (very steep and tricky) and the Mogul Runs (very bumpy).”

Another example of Ryan's need for speed and excitement comes from his love of white-knuckle rides, with an amazing tally of well over a thousand different rides across the UK, in the USA and Canada.

"I aim to go to Japan in the near future," Ryan told us, "and before that I am off to the USA with 20 other riders as we go to 19 parks in as many days, starting with Houston and Chicago and crossing over nine state lines

"Closer to home I have ridden 'Megaphobia' in Oakwood 5,340 times and was interviewed on Radio Wales by Roy Noble when I had enjoyed 2,000 rides there!"

But in the meanwhile Ryan will continue his work at The Meads Leisure Centre and has no thought of retirement because he enjoys it so much and knows all the families that use the pool, from grandparents to toddlers.

As Angela Mathias, who also works there told us,

"The kids love Ryan and my own three year old granddaughter Amelia has had three swimming lessons with him and keeps asking her mum all the time when she can go and see Ryan again.

"He is great with the ducklings (aged 3 to 7) right through to Stage Seven of the National teaching plan and I know there is a waiting list of families who want Ryan to undertake individual coaching with their children."

It is high praise indeed from a colleague and although he is now close to 40 years’ involvement he also gets on well with the young Lifeguards just starting out as he did all those years ago.

"I suspect they think I am a bit of a dinosaur, especially when I go on in the staff room about the good old days, but I still really enjoy what I do and am lucky to have been involved for so long."

Having known Ryan Hackett for all those 40 years and seen on many occasions his infectious enthusiasm, we can only congratulate him on such yeoman service - and sincerely hope that he continues to be involved in the teaching of swimming to Milford's youngsters for a long time yet to come!