Many of us will have enjoyed seeing ‘The Ponds’ on television on Monday evening 20 May but the KLPA was surprised and delighted to receive an email from a gentleman named John Thurley telling us how much the film meant to him. His mother, Sylvia Mary Thurley (née Corfield), who died last year at the age of 93, was a regular swimmer at the Ladies Pond throughout her life and he wanted us to know how much she would have enjoyed the film and how much she would have appreciated us “keeping the ponds alive”.
Sylvia (seen in the photo above) was born in northwest London in 1925 and was “very sporty” and “competitive” with a passion for swimming. Although she often swam in local swimming pools, Kenwood Ladies’ Pond was her favourite place and as a young woman she was featured in the local newspaper “breaking the ice to train”.
John says that Sylvia loved the Heath so much that “her wish was always to go home”, and that when she died he scattered her and his father’s ashes on Kite Hill overlooking St Anne’s where they were married.
John no longer lives in London but plans to bring his family to swim later this summer.