When Dr Gary Shiels, 80, discovered that his friend, Dr Jason Graham-Nye, 56, couldn’t swim – despite Jason having lived his entire life by the beach – Gary made it his mission to teach him.

Jason: We met at the gym in 2023. Gary gave me some tips and we had coffee afterwards. We really hit it off. He’d finished his PhD and I was about to submit mine. His was on healthy ageing. It was so cool to meet someone who was still learning in his 70s – it made me feel like a spring chicken.

He’s a surf lifesaving legend, a former president of the North Bondi Surf Club and its patron. He started saying to me, “You should get your bronze medallion and join the surf club”, but I said nothing. It was too mortifying to admit that I was terrified of the water. I’ve done many difficult things in my life – worked as a Japanese interpreter, run 15 marathons, built a company – but I had to say to Gary, “I can’t put my head under the water.” I was ashamed.

When I was a kid, our neighbours had a pool and invited [the late, well-known Sydney swim teacher] Alf Vockler over to show us how to swim. Vockler literally threw me into the deep end. It was so traumatising and I said to myself, “I’m never doing that again.” And I didn’t.

Last December, Gary ambushed me at coffee and suggested I make learning to swim my New Year’s resolution. My sons [Harper, 21, and Fynn, 23] thought this was hilarious. Gary told me he’d had a similar swimming experience to me as a kid, but his mother had refused to let him give up. I had this 50-year-old story in my head: “I can’t swim. Chapter closed.” Gary didn’t argue with the story; he just showed me a different ending. I thought, “What else in my life isn’t as fixed as I think?”

We had our first day in the pool together a few days later. I turned up in board shorts; he instructed me to get jammers [stretchy knee-length swimwear], a cap and a snorkel. I felt like a five-year-old again. Meanwhile, everyone was ploughing up and down the pool, doing tumble turns. He had me swim half the length of the 25-metre pool freestyle.

I was freaked out and it was slow; I got a lung-full and had to stand up. He was very calm. He said, “Take a break and go again.” Eventually, I managed one lap, then two. As soon as he helped me figure out how the body is meant to lie in the water – co-ordinating the neck turn with the stroke – something clicked. I was in the pool every second day.

Gary’s always right. He gives you one piece of advice, it works and so by the time you’ve thought of a counter-argument, you’ve already improved. He’s extremely knowledgeable about all things relating to physical activity, including the science. I’d like the occasional opportunity to disagree with him, but he doesn’t give it to me. When he’s not there, I make excuses for myself; he calls it “the almanac of excuses”.

We play golf together now, too, and he’s built a relationship with my sons. I watch him interact with them and think, “Wow, that’s so cool”; he’s perpetually curious, asks great questions and is a wonderful conversationalist. Hopefully, what they’ve seen is their father being exceptionally incompetent at something and sticking with it anyway. Overcoming a really difficult obstacle is the essence of life. It certainly helps you feel more calm, which you carry into everything else you do.

‘I had to say to Gary, “I can’t put my head under the water.” I was ashamed.’Jason Graham-Nye

I can swim about 200 metres freestyle without the snorkel now. Gary even has plans for me to do an ocean swim. It’s like a second life – I’m addicted. I’m so grateful to him.

Gary: Jason wasn’t a member of the surf club and he was very cagey about why. When he told me he was terrified of the water, it was incomprehensible to me. I said, “You can’t live in Bondi and not be able to swim!” From then on, I was on a mission.

As a lad, he got thrown in the water, panicked and nearly drowned. He didn’t go back in for 50 years. I had a similar experience at Bondi Baths, but my mother was very tenacious. She said, “Gary, you’re going to swim if it kills me.” She dragged me off to Alf Vockler, who taught swimming at Watsons Bay. Strangely, Alf was the perpetrator of Jason’s problems but the solution to mine.

It took a bit of cajoling to get Jason on board with my plan to teach him to swim. I was worried it might mean the end of our friendship if I kept pressing him. Even up to our first lesson, I wasn’t sure he’d follow through. The longer you have a belief that you can’t do something, the harder it is to convince yourself that you can. Time had been Jason’s enemy.

In 60 years of coaching and being coached, I’ve seen almost everything, but I’d never seen a fear like Jason’s. Frankly, it’s been a revelation: he improved so quickly. We train four times a week and he hasn’t missed a single session. He’s been the best of my prodigies.

I didn’t tell anyone I was teaching Jason to swim: I felt protective of him. I knew the problem was in his head: he was worried he was going to swallow water and drown. I came up with the idea of swimming with a snorkel. All of a sudden, he could put his head under the water and breathe. A positive attitude is essential for success in anything: it’s a matter of getting rid of the demons between the ears.

Jason has a strong moral compass. I’ve watched him speak out on some very difficult issues. In 2024, he gave an interview to ABC’s Four Corners about bullying at his former school, Cranbrook. It put him and his family at considerable risk, but he did it anyway. He presents quite a jovial disposition to the world, but underneath it, there’s a very serious person. He’s honest and determined, two qualities I look for in any friend.

I’ve connected with his sons, too, now. Both are strong young men but neither were strong swimmers. Harper’s a board rider who wasn’t a confident swimmer; Fynn’s based in London and never went in the water. Swimming is a potentially life-saving skill.

Jason’s next challenge will be the North Bondi Classic; he can choose a one-kilometre or two-kilometre distance in this out-and-back ocean swim. He’s now comfortable in a pool with a black line on the bottom.

In the ocean, there are no lines: just sharks and the uncertainty of the unknown. I’ll do a few ocean swims with him and then paddle my surf-ski beside him. Once you realise that what’s holding you back has no foundation, the obstacles just fall away.

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