OLYMPIAN Anita Lonsbrough was back in town yesterday.

And she was reunited with faces from her past and potential future swimming champions at Huddersfield Town Hall.

Anita returned to the town hall, which was also her former workplace, for a radio documentary for BBC Five Live.

She met up with old colleagues and members of the Kirklees swimming club.

Anita was last at the town hall on June 17 1965 when she married husband Hugh Porter, a former Commonwealth champion cyclist and current BBC commentator.

Anita said: “I was quite surprised to see so many people here, I did think it was a long way to come for an interview.

“I didn’t realise so many people would be here. But it was certainly lovely coming back and lovely to see so many people from my teenage years.

“I think it is great that Britain is hosting the Olympics, it’s a marvellous occasion for the competitors and the wider public.

“The build up will be brilliant. Of course for the competitors, the pressure will build but being British they will rise to the occasion.

“Host nations always do best on their home ground so it’s looking good for the team.”

Huddersfield’s Anita won gold for the 200 metres breaststroke in the 1960 Olympic Games held in Rome when she was just 19-years-old.

She went on to win three more gold medals at the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, Western Australia. But she never forgot her roots – Anita worked at the town hall as a treasurer’s office clerk and recalls losing £12.13 shillings from her wages due to her training schedule at the town’s Cambridge Road baths.

Today she rarely swims and instead is a keen walker, but she takes an interest in today’s young swimmers and understands the nerves they may experience.

She added: “The build up to the Olympics in 1960 was up and down for me.

“I’d lost the world record title in the May which took a lot of people by surprise.

“Everyone still thought I was going to the Olympics as favourite, but I think the world number one is favourite and that wasn’t me.

“The day of the final itself was relaxed, I swam in the morning and relaxed in the afternoon. It was a hot day being Rome in August and my race was delayed by the men’s race before me.

“There was no electronic scoring at that time and one team thought they had won and another thought they had won.

“By the time my race came I was really ready for it and I always say now that’s because of the delay and that they helped me win gold.”

Anita was the last British woman to win an Olympic gold in swimming until Rebecca Adlington in 2008 – some 48 years later.

Her interest in sport remains, largely due to her husband Hugh’s role as a commentator for the BBC in cycling, swimming and speed skating at the Winter Olympics.

She and Hugh met on the plane to Tokyo in 1964 and they married the following year. Hugh is a world champion cyclist, winning four world titles in the individual pursuit as well as a Commonwealth Games gold medal in 1966.

Hugh said: “We’ve a background of two sports that don’t really gel together, swimming and cycling, but it did for us.”

Anita’s documentary will feature on Radio Five Live from May 27 onwards on the run up to the Olympics, presented by Colin Murray.