Nancy Riach and the Motherwell Swimmers

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The main scholarly account is Graham Walker's chapter "Nancy Riach and the Motherwell swimming phenomenon", in Grant Jarvie and Graham Walker (eds), Scottish Sport in the Making of the Nation (1994). Walker drew on the Motherwell Times, the Sunday Mail and other newspapers, and on interviews with former club members. Some of his material, such as the club's politics and the Riach family's religious ties, rests on those recollections. Record counts come from newspaper and hall-of-fame summaries, which do not list every distance and time. Sources differ on a few details, noted below.

A swimming club in a steel town

established Motherwell was a steel and engineering town. In 1935 the poet Edwin Muir, in Scottish Journey, described it and Airdrie as among the most improbable places imaginable to be left with nothing to do. Walker contrasts that bleak picture with the town a few years later, when its swimming club gave it a source of pride. Swimming was then still largely a middle-class sport in Britain, and Motherwell's stars were mostly young women.

shared Walker gives several reasons for the club's wartime rise. Football and other mass spectator sports were weakened by the call-up of young men, which gave less glamorous sports and women athletes more attention. The town council also saw the civic value of a winning club and backed it.

David Crabb

established David Crabb had been a champion diver and gymnast in his youth. He became a coach when he was appointed superintendent of the Motherwell Corporation Baths in the 1930s. He coached Nancy Riach, Cathie Gibson and Margaret Bolton, and the men's water polo team that won the English (ASA) club championship after the war. He believed in starting young and spent much time training children of about seven. His favourite saying, according to former members, was "there's a champion up every street".

established Crabb persuaded Motherwell and Wishaw Council to keep the pond open in wartime, to open it on Sundays for club practice, and to cut the price of a season ticket for people with little money. His key ally on the council was Bailie George Barr.

shared Walker, relying on former members, describes Crabb as a man of the left. He called himself a Communist, though it is not known if he was a party member. He led the singing of "The Red Flag" on coach trips and lent members Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. He opposed religious sectarianism and introduced mixed bathing at the baths. Former members also remembered him as puritanical and autocratic.

established The results were remarkable. In 1946 the club swam at 120 galas and, according to the Motherwell Times, won 38 championships, set 21 new records and took three water polo leagues and a polo cup. Motherwell was so dominant in Scotland that it travelled to England for stronger competition, sometimes wearing kilts.

The making of Nancy Riach

established Nancy Anderson Long Riach was born in Motherwell on 6 April 1927. Her father, Charles Riach, came from Inverness and rose through the Motherwell police to become an inspector; her mother, Agnes, was a primary school teacher. She had a younger brother, Fraser, who also swam for the club. She went to Dalziel High School and trained as a teacher. She won her first championship in 1938, set her first Scottish record at 15 and, by 1945, held 28 Scottish and British records, in freestyle, breaststroke and backstroke.

established Riach was a churchgoer who sang in the choir and refused to swim on Sundays. Walker notes that a Scottish Orange Order publication of 1990 claimed her as a member, that her parents appear to have been members, and that the Order's women's section raised money for a memorial. He also found no sign that she held sectarian views. He contrasts her father's Conservatism with Crabb's radicalism and suggests the mix worked for her.

established In 1946 she won the Amateur Swimming Association titles at 110, 220 and 440 yards freestyle, and she retained the 110 yards title in 1947. In the summer of 1947 she won the 100 metres freestyle at the World Student Games in Paris.

shared After the war a rift opened between Crabb and the Riach family. The family moved to Airdrie, where Nancy trained. Former members told Walker that her father felt Crabb was now concentrating on the younger Cathie Gibson, and that this, not politics or religion, caused the split.

"For Scotland, Rex!"

established Her fame owed much to the Sunday Mail columnist "Rex" Kingsley, who followed her from the age of twelve. By 1943, when she was 16, he had made her a favourite of Scottish servicemen abroad. In 1945, at the Derby Baths in Blackpool, she broke the 880 yards freestyle record in front of about 2,000 spectators. Rex later claimed he had run to the end of the pool and shouted Scotland's name at her on the last turn. After the swim she was reported to have said she was proud for Scotland, not for herself, and pulled on a kilt. Rex recalled her words as "but for Scotland, Rex!".

established At the end of 1944 the Sunday Mail produced a souvenir of her records, with a photograph of her in a Scotland costume with a thistle, in response to requests from servicemen.

shared Walker argues that this was patriotism rather than separatism. He calls it "Empire-oriented nationalism": Scottishness expressed passionately inside a British and imperial frame, with beating the English as the greatest pleasure. He adds that the club's legend was built from real results, not inflated by national feeling.

Death in Monte Carlo

established In September 1947 Riach was in Monte Carlo with the British team for the European Championships. Britain was in a polio epidemic: in the week before her death Glasgow alone had 159 cases. Although she was already ill, she insisted on swimming her heat of the 100 metres freestyle against doctors' advice. She was taken from the pool unconscious and died on 15 September without regaining consciousness. She was 20.

shared Wikipedia lists her among the British 4×100 metres freestyle relay team that took bronze at those championships. Walker does not mention this, and we have not confirmed whether she swam in the relay.

Grief and memory

established Her death caused grief across Scotland. Crowds filled the streets around her family home for the funeral, where a friend sang her favourite hymn, "By Cool Siloam's Shady Rill". She was buried in her swimming costume at New Monkland Cemetery, Airdrie, on 20 September 1947; the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame estimates that 10,000 people followed the processions. The chairman of the United Nations Swimming Committee called her "the finest swimmer the British Empire has ever produced".

shared Walker gives his name as Sydney Hirst, from the Hamilton Advertiser; the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame and Wikipedia give "S. T. Hurst".

shared Walker argues that the tributes failed to treat her as a pioneer for women, and that she was quickly used for other causes. The Motherwell Times held her up as a clean-living model for the young at a time of alarm about juvenile delinquency. A national appeal sought £20,000 for a memorial, but Walker says wrangling between the parties involved meant a fitting memorial never materialised. The Scottish Amateur Swimming Association did create the Nancy Riach Memorial Medal, paid for from a fund in her memory and awarded every year from 1949 to the person who has done most for the prestige of Scottish swimming.

The swimmers who followed

established Cathie Gibson, born in Motherwell in 1931, set twelve British records in 1946, aged 15. At the 1947 European Championships she won silver in the 400 metres freestyle and the 100 metres backstroke. In 1948 she won bronze in the 400 metres freestyle at the London Olympics in 5 minutes 22.5 seconds, Britain's only swimming medal of those Games.

established Jack Wardrop won five ASA titles in 1952, captained the British team at the Helsinki Olympics and finished fifth in the 400 metres freestyle. His brother Bert was also in the 1952 team. Studying in the United States, Jack became in 1954 the first Scot to hold a world swimming record. The club's water polo team won the Scottish championship for twelve years from 1947 and the ASA club championship in 1949 and 1950. Its dominance faded in the mid-1950s.

• Riach refused to swim on Sundays.
• She was buried in her swimming costume.
• Sir Harry Lauder was booked to preside at one of her galas in 1944.
• The club sometimes travelled to galas in England wearing kilts.
• Cathie Gibson won Britain's only swimming medal at the 1948 Olympics.
• Jack Wardrop was the first Scot to hold a world swimming record.

• Do not say Riach competed at the Olympics; she died before the 1948 Games.
• Do not state the cause of her death as anything other than polio.
• Do not present the Orange Order's claim of her membership as proven; Walker reports it as a claim.
• Do not say she won a relay bronze at Monte Carlo as settled fact.
• Do not give the name of the official who praised her as settled; sources give Sydney Hirst and S. T. Hurst.
• Do not say no memorial was ever created; the planned national memorial failed, but the memorial medal has been awarded since 1949.