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| STORIES FROM OUR PEOPLE | 
| Margaret Holroyd | I
was born with very shallow hip sockets, which meant that high impact
activities always made my legs ache. When I was 11 years old I
discovered swimming and although at the time I didn’t really
understand why it was so good for me, thereafter this became my main
form of exercise.
After joint surgery I always got into the
pool and began swimming again as soon as possible, but as the years
went on osteoarthritis began to creep into all my joints so it became
increasingly hard to access most pools, and when I could no longer swim
lanes I began to find the tepid pools were too cool. I looked for a
warmer pool with easy access, but couldn’t find one anywhere in
Hamilton.
Before I retired I was a Social Worker at Waikato
Hospital. During that time I particularly enjoyed working in
Rehabilitation and became familiar with the various support groups for
people with disabilities. I knew that there were many people out there
who, like me, needed to keep themselves as fit as possible to cope with
their disabilities so began discussing with them the idea of
approaching the Hamilton City Council with a proposal to build a public
hydrotherapy pool in Hamilton. It was very quickly evident that
there was a lot of support and in 2005 we put our first submission in
to the Hamilton City Council.
We were delighted when the
Hamilton City Council accepted our submission and wrote it into their
Long-term plan, but without the financial support that has come in from
many different sections of the public, the building of the pool would
not have commenced so soon. We thank all those who have worked so hard
to achieve this and look forward with eager anticipation to the time
when our purpose built aquatic gym will be ready for us.
for a PDF download of this story, click here
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