"My grandchildren can swim, and I wanted to be able to play with them." Chris Williams got to grips with swimming in her sixties.

'My father taught my older sister to swim, but he died before he could have a go at teaching me. At school I learnt a little bit of doggy paddle and a little bit of breaststroke but I never really progressed beyond a few widths. I didn't enjoy it.

'When I reached my teens, my friends would swim in the local lake but I stayed on the edge and wouldn't go out of my depth. Later in life I helped my children learn to swim, but strictly by shouting encouragement from the side. On foreign holidays I didn't like going in the sea. I was frightened of drowning. I even went to Australia and the Great Barrier Reef, but I couldn't go under the water or out of my depth.

'Last year, I decided that by the time I was 64 I would learn to swim properly. My main aim was to have fun in the water - my grandchildren can swim, and I wanted to be able to play with them. So I booked a week's holiday with Swimming Without Stress, which offers residential courses with one-to-one tuition in a private indoor pool. I had eight lessons in five days and I started to feel the difference in the first lesson.

'The swimming instructor knew I didn't like putting my face underwater, but the basics of good swimming involve doing just that, so he decided to tackle this straight away. We started on some steps in the shallow end of the pool. The instructor held my hands and soon I was gliding along with my face in the water. I was getting on so well that the instructor asked if I'd like to learn to dive. So by the end of the first lesson I was doing sitting dives from the edge of the pool.

'By the end of session two, I was diving to the bottom of the pool to pick up my goggles. I went swimming with my 10 - year old grandson a couple of weeks ago. He told me I was much improved! In fact I felt confident enough to swim in the deep end with him hanging on to me. Most importantly it's made me ask myself, if I can do this, what else can I do? I'm now planning to write a novel.'