As the water glided over her body at the 1958 National Swimming Championships, Resthaven Port Elliot resident Vicki Murphy knew she had hit her stride—or stroke, as it were.

“It’s a lovely feeling when it all goes right,” Vicki reminisces. “You can feel the water sliding past your body, and everything else just fades away.”

Swimming under her maiden name, Page, Vicki won two bronze medals at the event. She earned one for the 220-yard breaststroke and another as part of the 440-yard medley relay team. She was only 14 years old.

“The year before, I traveled to Tasmania for my first nationals,” Vicki recalls. “I went with my mother, who was the team manager at the time. Dawn Fraser, the Australian Freestyle Champion swimmer, and I stayed in the same room, becoming friends as well as swimming teammates. She always said the only thing she couldn’t beat me at was breaststroke.”

Growing up in the South Australian suburb of Henley Beach, Vicki and her family lived just a few streets away from the beach.

“As a kid, I loved swimming,” Vicki says. “My brother, Tony, was very involved with the Henley Surf Lifesaving Club up to the state level, and my mum let me go down to the beach with him.

"When I was about nine years old, I came home with a certificate for the 25-yard freestyle. She asked me where it had come from, and I had to confess that I had been jumping the fence and joining in the swimming lessons at the Henley Beach open-air saltwater swimming pool, where water was pumped in from the ocean.

"There was really nothing else for it; she enrolled me properly, and I started training there legitimately.”

Vicki began competing in more events, experimenting with different strokes, and building her abilities. She started working with a coach, Harry Gallagher, and soon was training six or seven days a week. Slowly, she began to specialise in breaststroke.

“We always swam in cold water,” Vicki says. “Whether at Henley Beach or the City Baths. I remember at the City Baths, a couple of the boys would often misbehave, and their punishment was to scrub the sides of the Henley pool to get it clean before the summer opening.”

Vicki also remembers the canteen at the City Baths, operated by the Red Cross.

“We used to buy Bush Biscuits from there,” she says. “If we were lucky, they might have butter spread on them, but either way, they were always good for filling up after a big swim.”

By the time Vicki was 14, she traveled to Townsville to train with the 'Golden Dolphins' for three months. This team was training and preparing for the next Olympics, Rome 1960.

“It took us eight hours to fly to Townsville,” Vicki says. “There were six to eight of us all staying in one house. There was no washing machine, so we all had to wash our clothes in the bath. We would walk up and down on our clothes and then rinse!”

Vicki continued to swim well, winning a bronze medal for the 440-yard individual medley, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.

“A different breaststroke swimmer was chosen for the team, I had the discipline, but I lacked the killer instinct.”

Vicki’s family were all involved with swimming in one way or another.

“My mum, while working full-time, became the first female registrar of swimming in South Australia, as well as team manager for the SA state teams. She is a life member of Swimming SA,” Vicki says.

Vicki met her future husband, Fred, on Anzac Day at the Norwood Town Hall. During their courtship, Fred was attending plumbing trade school while Vicki was taking a cooking class.

“We used to finish at the same time, and Fred would drive me home,” Vicki recalls.

The couple married in 1965, and a few years later, Vicki became pregnant.

“We went to the doctor, and during the check-up, he said something didn’t look quite right. He arranged an X-ray, and sure enough, we were pregnant with twins,” Vicki says.

A girl and a boy, Andrea and Jason, were born in 1968. As the children grew up, Vicki continued to work in the swimming industry, teaching children, adults, and those with disabilities. Her daughter Andrea also worked with her from the age of around 14.

“Mum was an amazing contributor to the public and private swimming industry in South Australia over many years,” Andrea says. “It was beautiful to watch her swim.”

“Her passion for the water came about not only because she loved swimming herself, but she wanted to instill in every person the skill of swimming. She was way ahead of her time, and she was a force to be reckoned with, particularly when it came to equal rights and opportunities within the industry.”

Vicki continued to swim in the Australian Masters Games, and on a daily basis, she could be found swimming across Horseshoe Bay at Port Elliot.

Sadly, in August 2006, Vicki suffered a stroke. Some seven months later, in March 2007, she was well enough to leave the hospital.

“I’ve lost the use of one arm and leg, but at home, I could use my quad walking stick to get around the veranda three times. I was doing okay.”

In 2018, Vicki moved into Resthaven Port Elliot, knowing that she would benefit from the care and social interactions. Fred, now aged 85, visits her every day, apart from when he’s on the golf course.

A little while ago, Vicki had a special guest at Resthaven.

“Dawn was in South Australia for the Australian Swimming titles, and she and another swimming teammate, gold medallist Margaret Gibson, who won a gold medal in the 4x100 freestyle relay at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, came to see me,” Vicki says.

“I probably should have told some other people she was coming. There were a few people afterward who came up to me and said, ‘She looked familiar!’”