The hidden torment of local hero and swimming coach Tommy Adrian
THIS year marks the end of World War I – the war that many believed would be the War to End All Wars. Some returned servicemen were able to resume a semblance of their former lives while others battled with their demons for the rest of their lives. One of those was champion swimmer Tommy Adrian.
Manly
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THIS year marks the end of World War I – the war that many believed would be the War to End All Wars.
It wasn’t, of course but more than 40 million people were killed during World War I, including more than 62,000 Australians, and more than 150,000 Australian soldiers were either wounded, gassed or taken prisoner.
But those figures don’t including the huge number of soldiers who were emotionally or psychologically damaged by the war and who brought their unseen wounds home with them.
Over the years, these conditions have been called shell shock, battle fatigue or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Some returned servicemen were able to resume a semblance of their former lives while others battled with their demons, often alone, for the rest of their lives.
One of those was Tommy Adrian, a champion swimmer and the man credited with helping turn Andrew “Boy” Charlton into the Olympic gold-medallist and world champion swimmer that made him the most idolised sportsman in Australia before Don Bradman.
Tommy Adrian was a scion of the Adrian family, which arrived in Manly in the 1870s and was well-known in business circles through its ownership of businesses that included hotels and a shoe shop.
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Tommy Adrian was born in Manly in 1893 and by 1915 he was living with his parents in Park Rd, Manly, and working as a clerk.
By then he had already made a name for himself in swimming circles, having won the NSW one-mile championship in early 1915 and finished second in the half-mile event.
He had even achieved what few others had – he beat the great Duke Kahanamoku over 440 yards in January 1915, although to be fair Duke was a sprinter and shouldn’t have been racing in a quarter-mile event.
But the war would change Tommy Adrian.
After he enlisted in July 1915, he was attached to the 5th Field Artillery Brigade and sent to Egypt, where the brigade arrived just after the withdrawal from Gallipoli, so it was sent to Marseilles and from there to the Western Front.
Over the next three years, Adrian’s brigade was involved in some of the heaviest fighting on the Western Front and he was shattered by the news that another Manly swimmer, Olympic gold medallist Cecil Healy, had been killed near Mt St Quentin in August 1918 – just 74 days before the guns fell silent.
Some newspapers reported that Adrian was gassed but there is no mention of it in his service record, just as there was no mention of the psychological scars he bore as a result of what he had experienced.
At first it didn’t show and after returning to Manly after the war, Adrian returned to the pool and developed a passion for coaching and mentoring younger swimmers at the Manly baths, including Boy Charlton and the Goya brothers, Ernest and Goya.
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The swimmers were good and Adrian’s coaching took them to the top – Boy Charlton and Ernest Henry were selected in the Australian team for the 1924 Olympics in Paris.
Charlton and Henry were keen for Adrian to accompany them to Paris as their coach and 16-year-old Charlton’s father Oswald didn’t want his son going overseas without Adrian at his side.
The Australian Olympic Federation refused to pay Adrian’s fare to Paris, so a public subscription was raised to cover his costs.
But on the ship Ormonde as it sailed across the Arabian Sea towards the Suez Canal, Adrian’s wartime demons surfaced and he threw himself fully-clothed into the sea from the top deck of the ship.
Thankfully Adrian was rescued but he was confined aboard the ship for the rest of the voyage to prevent another incident.
So instead of watching his charges win Olympic gold and silver medals in Paris, Adrian was confined to a mental hospital in London, where he remained for nearly two years.
It was not until April 1926 that Adrian finally made it back to Manly, where he was greeted with the warmth he deserved and by the end of the year he was even back at Manly baths, tendering advice to young swimmers, including Boy Charlton, who competed at the 1928 and 1932 Olympics.
Away from the pool, Adrian pottered around his uncle’s shoe shop on The Corso, just one of the untold thousands of men who came back from the war bearing scars that could not be seen but whose effects could be devastating.
Tommy Adrian died at his home in Birkley Rd, Manly, on December 22, 1948.
He was only 55 years old.