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Whittle family receives 2013 Cherriman Award

The 21st recipient of the Vivienne and Leonard Cherriman Award was not an individual or a club but a whole family!

The family consists of Garry and Janice Whittle who are the parents of Jane and Helen Whittle.

Between them they make sure the Masters events in the North West run smoothly and without a hiccup.

Between 2009 and 2014 they have never missed an event, can always be seen officiating in different capacities or running the meet backstage.

They do everything from setting up the pool to finding officials in order to make sure the event goes ahead.

Garry has also been meet director of the National Masters at Sheffield and Helen is the Masters Representative for Lancashire.

The award was presented to the Whittle family at the North West Regional Masters Meet.

A big congratulations and thank you goes to the Whittle Family from all at British Masters Swimming

About the Vivienne and Leonard Cherriman Award

There may not be many people left in the Masters community who remember Vivienne and Leonard Cherriman but their name carries on.

Vivienne was one of the key voices of Masters swimming in the 80s and was possibly the first English swimmer to gain World Masters titles.

Aided by her husband Leonard, she encouraged the ASA to get involved with Masters swimming in 1980 and started the Masters Swimmer Newsletter.

She worked tirelessly for the Masters cause and continued to enter competitions all over the world until 1988 when she started to lose her sight. When she became completely blind in 1989 she handed over the newsletter to Geoff Stokes.

Sadly both Vivienne and Leonard passed away in the early 1990s and in recognition of their work the Cherriman family (there were six children who were all members of Fairfield Swimming Club in Croydon along with Leonard & Vivienne) asked British Swimming to start an award.

This award has been given to 20 people since its inception in 1993.

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