Sunny Beaches to Cold Seas
ROD WEBB finds out how David Mears became one of Hastings’ oldest cold sea swimmers
I met David Mears at his 90th birthday party held at the White Rock Hotel. The party, in honour of their oldest member, was organised by the Hastings & St Leonards Azur Sea Swimmers – a group that meets at groyne 87 on the beach for a daily sea swim, weather permitting,
It was an opportunity to sit down with David and find out about what made him tick, as well as sample his strawberry & cream birthday cake while singing Happy Birthday around the hotel piano.
David was born on the kitchen table of his parents’ house in Dane Road on Sunday 13 January 1935 – a true Hastings lad. Fortunately, his father was an obstetrician, so he would have been properly supervised from pregnancy to newborn baby.
In his twenties, David became an early adopter of Spanish holidays, booking a trip to Andalucia in 1960. After that, he realised he: “preferred the sun of Spain to the cold and damp of England.”
He set about training as a nurse and began a decade of living and working in private clinics around Europe, mainly Spain, France and Germany. He returned to Hastings in 1970 to look after his ailing mother while continuing to work as a nurse – ending up opening his own care home as a result of his distrust of those already available.
Some years later, he read an article about the mental and physical benefits of cold swimming, particularly in boosting the immune system and warding off dementia. Convinced by what he read, he started a lifelong habit: “It was certainly a shock when I started,” he says, “and it took a month to get in the swing of it!” But he got to enjoy his daily dip and has been going most days for the last 35 years.
He soon joined the Groyne 47 swimmers, and they have become something of a family to him. Moving to the Ridge didn’t deter David from driving to the beach every day, and having given up his licence six months ago he now just hops on the bus instead.
His advice for the would-be older swimmer: “Go for it, but I wouldn’t advise starting after 75.”
David is convinced that swimming has kept him healthy, even warded off the usual coughs and colds. And although a leg problem has stopped him swimming for the past few months, he still comes down to groyne 87 for the company – and hopes to resume swimming soon.
Clearly, for David at least, a cold swim delivered the benefits he read about 25 years ago.
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