Irene Steer (far right) and the rest of the GB female squad, with chaperone

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IRENE STEERa swimmer's taleWilliam de Lloyd interviewed about his memories of his grandmother, Irene SteerMy name is William de Lloyd. I'm the grandson of Irene Steer. I was born on 10 October 1943. My grandmother was born in Cardiff on 10 August 1889. They had a tragic family; her brother Mortimer died in 1883 of whooping cough; then, there was her sister Gladys who tragically swallowed a button off her nurse's costume and died at 18 months; and then there was the third one, Linda, a healthy child until she went away to school in Hereford and got TB and, from that time, had to have a nurse to look after her. She was two years older than grandma and the nurse was horrid, apparently. Neither of them liked her. I think there was an anxiety to get grandma out of the house as much as possible, and one of the things that her father did was to take her to watch rugby matches at Cardiff Arms Park. He would also take her down to the Guildford Crescent Baths, the Corporation baths, and grandma began to swim at the age of eight or nine. I don't think there was any swimming ability in the family; in fact, my aunt tells me that she suspects that her grandfather and grandmother probably never swam at all.Grandmother had a younger brother, eight years younger than she was. He was a bit of an after-thought, I gather, and he eventually married and his wife died in childbirth. He re-married the daughter of the legendary Arthur Gould of Newport rugby football fame. He did swim competitively, as well, but not seriously, I think. There's no record of grandma competing in any great competitions or galas until she entered and won the Welsh Championship in Swansea in 1907, when she was 18. We've got some lovely newspaper cuttings from the time, including a photograph of her. As though anticipating that they would become great adversaries and friends there was also shown a photograph of Jenny Fletcher, the then world record holder and reigning British champion who had just given an exhibition in Swansea.Grandma was a breast-stroke swimmer and I remember her telling me that she had been instructed that in competitions she should adopt the Australian crawl, and that is what she did. A lot of competitions were open to freestyle, whereas breast-stroke waslimited; that was certainly the case for the Olympics. The next time we see any cuttings are in 1909 when grandma again wins the Welsh Championship and again reduces her times by a considerable amount.Apparently, grandma was an elegant swimmer; she swam on the surface, very light and speedy, instead of fighting her way through the water. Grandma went up to the Hackney Baths for the British Championships in 1909, the first time she'd swum in England. She was horrified to find that it was enormous; the baths she was used to swimming in was half the size, but she adapted fairly quickly, her times reflected that. In the heats, she had to swim against Jenny Fletcher and she beat grandma into second place, so grandma got the silver medal, an enormous honour and a terrific achievement, really, in her second year of competition.your turn now, miss steerIn 1910, we have her breakthrough. It's Weston-super- Mare baths for the British Championships and grandma is drawn against Jenny Fletcher in the heats again, but this time she beats her, as the reports say, 'comfortably'. I don't suppose it was that comfortable but I think it was by a number of seconds and she was able to repeat the performance in the final, and so won the gold, the British gold medal which she held very high in the list of her achievements:The four ladies were accorded a great ovation when they came out for the final. Miss Fletcher had number one station, Miss Steer number two [that's grandma], Miss McKay number three and Miss Spears on the outside. A good start was effected, Miss Steer beingthe last to enter the water by a fraction of a second. The Cardiff lady, however, soon made headway and at twenty yards was leading slightly. On the first turn, Miss Steer led the holder by a yard with Miss Spears third, a similar distance away making the pace for the second length. Miss Steer, swimming a true crawl stroke, gained considerably on the holder and led by five yards when they turned for the last stage. The holder, who was using herfavourite over-arm stroke, made the turn beautifully and reduced the gap by a couple of yards, but Miss Steer, settling down again to her crawl, again forged ahead, winning amid much cheering by about six yards from the holder, with Miss Spears a further fouryards away. One of the first to congratulate the new champion was Miss Fletcher who shook hands with her directly they were out of the water, remarking, 'It's your turn now Miss Steer' and, 'You deserve it for your magnificent swim'.There was this extraordinary formality amongst these people, you know. There was no Jenny or Rene, or whatever; it was Miss Steer and Miss Nicholson. Wonderful stuff! And then, there was the British Championships in 1911 and, I presume due to the illness of her sister, grandma was unable to compete. Then, we go to Stockport for the Olympic trials and grandma, by that time, is well known - in winning the previous British Championship, she had equaled the world record - but a lot of the girls competing didn'tknow her, personally, and when they looked at her, they saw this tiny lady, really. She was five foot two; she had very small feet; she was less than eight stone. She was a slip of a thing and they took great hope, I suppose, from the fact that they were bigger and stronger than she was.She probably, at that stage, was as fast as anybody in Britain; she'd got ahead of Jenny Fletcher by that time. There was another swimmer who was from Liverpool, I believe, a Miss Curwen who herself had equaled the world record, so they were a pretty strong squad for the Olympic Games. Grandma was undoubtedly very excited about the prospect of going to Stockholm 1912. She was 22, I think.The instructions were wonderful on what they could and could not wear. They didn't have any formal uniform at that time but they were told they had to wear something relatively dark, blue, or a suit, serge, or something like that, and they could wear a straw hat, and that is what she did. It was very memorable for her marching into the stadium. So, grandma received her instructions from the Amateur Swimming Association, an official programme, and the rules and regulations issued by the Swedish Olympic Association for the Olympic Games in Stockholm. They were given tickets for their travel which included the train to Hull, the sea crossing to Christiania (Oslo) and the train to Stockholm. Grandma was actually accompanied by her father. I think that grandma described it very nicely. She said there were these lovely chaps. She liked men; I think she was more comfortable with men than women, really. She didn't like the lady-like sort of pastimes; she was much more comfortable going to a football match or swimming orparticipating in some sporting way. She appreciated these big strong athletes who were accompanying her to Stockholm and they were good handsome six footers, as she put it. They sat down to dinner on the first night and, one by one, these big strong fellows all went away terribly ill through sea-sickness, so that putgrandma in very good heart; she thought she was as good as they were!a terrible thingSo, they arrived in Stockholm and they participated in the Opening Ceremony. It was then a matter of waiting for the heats of the individual 100 metres (they were swimming in metres already as opposed to yards, which they were doing at home).In grandma's semi final, there was a false start, but they didn't realise until they'd done the full length of the pool, so poor grandma had to come all the way back and they had to reset and off they went, again. Grandma was comfortably leading in her heat but, unfortunately, on her return leg, she encountered a German coming up to the first turn, and there was a little bit of get-out-of-my-way business. I gather there was a lot of bumping that used to go on, because there were no lines, there were no ropes, there were no indications as to where the lanes were. Grandma won the heat but an objection was raised by the German Team saying that she had crossed the line and, unfortunately, grandma was disqualified.I can only imagine what she must have felt; it must have been absolutely terrible after all her efforts to get to Stockholm. She put it behind her, but then had to sit and watch the final. The race was won by an Australian in a world record time, and second wasanother Australian. Jenny Fletcher came in third; grandma thought she had the measure of Jenny Fletcher by this time and I think that Jenny Fletcher probably thought she did too. Grandma must have felt personally very disappointed.putting it rightBut she had another chance. In the final of the relay, grandma was swimming anchor. There was a very good line-up: the Australians in the first lane, Britain in the second, and, I think, then Austria and Germany.There are no written reports of the race, unfortunately, so we don't know exactly what happened, but grandma said that when she went into the water they were certainly not winning. She had a little bit to catch up which she managed to do, and then she managed to get ahead and, of course, they won, and in a record time. Germany came second and Austria third. There was great joy, of course, and they were marching around the swimming pool. The King of Sweden came down and was presented to them and put laurel wreaths on their heads and it was very exciting, the national anthem being played. It was a wonderful moment, and more than made up for her personal disappointments from what had happened in the individual heats. They were photographed, of course, and you've seen the famous photograph of the team of four girls, and, in their midst, there was what nowadays you might call a trainer, but not then; she was a chaperone and their swimming costumes were virtually see-through, and they had to wear underpants and a little bra, but that still didn't hide very much. Quite extraordinary for the time!15 julyShe got married in 1915. She was still going to galas and she was still playing water polo, but not the competitive swimming that she had done up until the Olympics. She won the Olympic medal on 15 July 1912, got married in last week of July 1915 and on 15 July 1916 her eldest daughter, my mother, was born. She had another daughter Jo, and a third daughter Rene, and they were all good sportspersons, too. Rene won the Junior Tennis Championships three times in a row before the war, and my mother and my aunt both played lacrosse for Wales.representing walesShe was very proud of being Welsh. Her husband was actually from Preston, originally, although he came to Cardiff as a dentist. She came from a Welsh background herself and she regarded herself as very Welsh, you know. She was very supportive and proud of any achievements that Wales managed, but she transferred her allegiance from rugby to football, because her husband was chairman of Cardiff City FC. Initially she was almost obliged to go and watch the City; they had great sides and players and if you went into their house, you had pictures of all the Cardiff City teams running down the landing, wonderful! She thought it was a marvelous game and she thoroughly enjoyed it. She was still proudly going to watch Cardiff City at the age of 87. She'd seen them at the very top of the tree, known them all personally, and here they were now floundering in the third division, and still her enthusiasm was as strong as ever.She adored people like John Charles and Ivor Allchurch. John Charles had a shop with Alan Priday in Rhiwbina and grandma was always very keen to go there just in case John Charles was there ... but he rarely was! She met Fred Keenor. She knew all ofthem; she was in the directors' box for many many years. When I was little, we always used to go into the directors' box and meet all these people. Sport was her great, great love.96 years onGrandma would have loved Nicole Cooke's gold medal in Beijing. She would have been very happy for Nicole. That was a wonderful gold medal wasn't it, a terrific achievement, 96 years after grandma's first for Wales. It's been a long wait, hasn't it?