Affpuddle resident Bob Holman is to carry the Olympic torch on 12^th July, 2012.

Back in the hot summer of 1976, Bob started Bere Regis Swimming Club in the pool built by the parent-teacher association at Bere Regis Primary School.  He and his small committee of helpers were expecting around fifty or sixty swimmers at most on that first evening if they were lucky.  Attracted by the warm weather, a hundred and twenty people turned up!

That swimming pool has long been filled in and turned into a flower bed because of the high costs of maintaining it, but Bere Regis Swimming Club is still flourishing with Bob still its chairman after nearly thirty-six years.  Bob has his second generation of children, with many of the children of his first swimmers coming along regularly.

Over the years he has taught more than 1,000 children to swim.

The club has always been principally a teaching club, but also now competes in several galas each year.  It was the first Dorset club to achieve the Amateur Swimming Association's Swim 21 Silver Award accreditation in 2003.

In recognition of all his years of commitment, former club treasurer Adrian Stuart nominated Bob to be an Olympic torch carrier.

In September, he heard that he had been short-listed amongst 28,000, with a one-in-fourteen chance of being selected.  It was on December 8^th that Bob heard that he had been selected to be one of the bearers of the Olympic torch between Salisbury and Weymouth on 12^th July next year.