By Peter Owen
By rights he should probably have been in bed. But Noosa’s John Keast is made of tough stuff and, besides, he knew his mates needed him.
So, despite the bout of pneumonia he was battling, he disregarded his doctor’s advice, joined four of his friends at Noosa Springs’ 25-metre swimming pool early one morning, and began the longest swim of his life.
John Keast is one of five Noosa Springs residents who are, literally, swimming to save lives.
Dubbing themselves ‘Men That Swim’, they have pledged to swim up to 30km each by the end of March as part of the national Laps For Life campaign – raising money along the way for the charity, ReachOut, the country’s busiest online suicide prevention service. Laps for Life is endorsed by Australia’s Olympic champion Ian Thorpe.
“We set ourselves a modest target of raising $1000 by the end of the month,” said Lou Delfos, one of the organisers of the fund-raising mission.
After little more than two weeks, they’d raised more than $13,000, and their sights have been set substantially higher.
The five swimmers – John Keast, Neil Swindells, David Pugh, Lou Delfos and John Glasby – are aged between 60 and 72, and are regulars at the pool, which is adjacent to Noosa Springs’ fitness centre.
Lou said the idea for the swim came from the 2018 British film Swimming With Men, in which a group of middle-aged men take up synchronised swimming and ultimately represent England in the world male synchronised swimming championships.
“We weren’t too keen to go off and do that,” Lou said, “but we thought swimming as far as we could might be a good way to raise funds.”
So they got together, calculated how far each of them might be able to swim in a month, established the team on the Laps for Life website for donations – and started swimming.
Lou, who says he’s been swimming the longest in the group, pledged to complete 30km, while the others set individual targets of between 10km and 15km. They hit the pool about three times a week to log their laps.
Two of the cohort could hardly swim at all when they first came to the pool, but with the assistance of swim coach Heather Klieve, can now carve out the laps as well as swimmers a quarter their age.
All funds raised will go to ReachOut, the most accessed online mental health service in Australia, to help fight youth suicide, the leading cause of death for young people in Australia.
Funds raised will help create awareness about mental health and assist young people to understand and deal with issues, connect with others, feel less alone, and feel more positive about themselves.
“We’re just a bunch of old guys doing what we love to raise funds for a charity that helps young people,” Lou said.
Those who wish to help should go to www.lapsforlife.com.au/fundraisers/menthatswim.
