A retired Dunfermline teacher has been reunited with a man he saved from a Dundee speedboat crash for the first time – 60 years on.
Grant Sword was among four children and two adults thrown from the vessel off Broughty Ferry in July 1965.
Ian Lindsay was working as a lifeguard on the beach at the time and leapt into action to help pull the six – including Grant, his dad Bill and brother Neil – to safety.
A report in The Courier the following day told how the dramatic incident had unfolded.
It said the people on board the boat had been “catapulted” into the water, leaving Grant, seven, Neil, nine, and Bill clinging to the upturned vessel.
Dunfermline man’s heroics after Broughy Ferry boat crash
The two other children stayed afloat by holding onto a seat.
However, the second adult, Alex Stewart – who was fully clothed and a poor swimmer – was in danger of drowning.
The report told how Ian pulled Alex back to the surface before grabbing the Sword family and guiding them to a nearby rescue boat.
All six people were saved thanks to his actions.
Now, Ian has been reunited with Grant for the first time since that fateful day in 1965, along with other members of the Sword family.
Ian – an art student in Dundee at the time, who went on to work as a teacher at St Columba’s High School in Dunfermline for 32 years – insists he was only doing his job.
He said: “I didn’t have time to think – I just dived straight in and swam 60 or 70 metres out to where they were.
“It was the first time the boat had been out and the bottom had burst and flooded the thing.
“I got all the press coverage at the time but a girl called Kay Jackson who was on the beach also swam out to help save the passengers.
“She really deserves credit too and I always wondered what happened to her.”
The story had all but faded from memory in the intervening years until a chance conversation between Ian’s daughter, Fiona MacGregor, and a friend led to the families meeting – though Bill has since passed away.
Ian said: “By pure chance, my daughter’s friend knew someone with the same name (Sword) and contacted them to ask them if they knew anything about it.
“Incredibly, my daughter’s friend just happened to know Keir, the brother of Grant Sword, one of the boys I’d rescued that day.
‘Amazing’ reunion with family 60 years after boat rescue
“Keir hadn’t been born in 1965 and wouldn’t have even existed had his father not been rescued.
“It is amazing to be put back in touch with that event and those people involved after so long.”
At a lunch between the families, Ian was presented with an album of photos showing the many Sword family members who were only following because of his heroics that day.
In turn, Ian gave Grant his bronze cross lifesaver’s medal that had allowed him to be a lifeguard.
Ian added: “It is incredible after all this time.
“I had occasionally wondered what had become of those six people in the water that day.
“Now we are firm friends connected by an incident all those years ago.”
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