With half a dozen top swimmers unavailable, the Beds team did well to take third place in the East Region with five participating counties. John Bellis managed to find swimmers for all events, so we did not lose points for DNSs. We all turned up, so there was only one minor change to the published team sheet. We also did not have any disqualifications, unlike some of the other counties. It was the younger generation that provided high scoring swims – particularly the ladies. They were backed up by several stalwarts such as Colin Mayes and Ian Murray who had extra swims. Colin had two sets of consecutive swims. At one point the officials stopped Colin getting out of the pool because of "over-the-top" starts, when he had to swim in the next event. Fortunately he was not the lead relay swimmer on that occasion. Liz Woolner also had more than her fair share of swims and also had to "swim down" into a younger age group. In one relay she moved us from 5^th. to 1^st.
We won events 1, 11, 12, 23, 25, 28, 29, 33, 24, 45, 50, 51, 57, 59, 65

The final results were:

1st Essex 246

2nd Norfolk 226

3rd Bedfordshire 214

4th Suffolk 168

5th Hertfordshire 155

Cambridgeshire DNS

50 Backstroke 0:31.29 17.11.18 South Beds Frances Merridan Basildon

50 Breaststroke 0:46.94 17.11.18 South Beds Christine Ayers Basildon

50 Backstroke 0:29.77 17.11.18 Flitwick Dolphins Mike Outtram Basildon

50 Butterfly 0:30.30 17.11.18 Flitwick Dolphins Mike Outtram Basildon

50 Breaststroke 0:44.64 17.11.18 Biggleswade Joe Lound-Keast Basildon