If there was a man born for a challenge, it’s 89-year-old Mike ‘Buthie’ Arbuthnot. He’s dived off boards, broken swimming records and when most sensible 60-year-olds might have settled for a gentle glide into their Third Age, Buthie jumped – albeit with a parachute. He broke his leg doing it but he’s a mind-over-matter kind of guy and refused to allow a leg in plaster to stand in his way. ‘Let your body know who is boss,’ he’s been known to say, which could go a long way to explaining why he has overcome cancer, a brain aneurysm, and a stroke. The ‘boss’ was not about to be thwarted by oil sanctions against SA either.
Back in 1974, when the dam was almost a decade into supplying water for the surrounding industries and municipalities, it was about to become a brand. The story goes that Buthie and his Seals Club team were short of funds for a polo ball and a fund-raising one-mile dash would solve the team’s shortfall. In those years with petrol rationing, the alternative swim in Buffalo River Mile in East London would eat up several valuable fuel tokens for a road trip. Midmar Dam was much closer and much more appealing.
And so it was that at 40 years old, and water-polo fit, Buthie launched – quite by chance – the largest open water swimming event in the world, what became known as the aQuelle Midmar Mile. On that Sunday in February ’74, 153 male swimmers took the plunge.
A year later the entries had doubled, women were allowed to compete and Buthie had spawned a legendary race that over the decades has grown to a field of 15 000 swimmers, children, world-class swimmers, disabled athletes, Olympic medalists, amateurs, professionals, families, and company teams. And Mike ‘Buthie’ Arbuthnot is at the start every year.
Although the water temperature can be a temperate 22 to 23 degrees, the weather can be fickle. Rain and mist can stall the morning start and by noon, the wind rises and makes for a choppy swim. In some years, drought has lowered water levels so that the first ‘swim’ for contestants is more of a dash in shallow water with a dog-leg path to deeper water. And then there was the year that thunder and lightening stalled the race altogether. But Buthie is there. Always.
While a top competitor flies through the ‘mile’ in roughly 18 minutes, these days Buthie must take his time and in that hour or so in the water, sometimes flipping onto his back to ease his muscles with a different stroke, his lean body cools rapidly. The son of his lifelong friend Mike Bath, Tony Bath, has become what he calls Buthie’s ‘guide dog’ making sure that he shadows Buthie’s swim and that he warms up after the race. When it comes to applause for his commitment or a trophy for his achievement, Buthie has been known to drift away quietly leaving organisers slightly baffled as to where their star turn has disappeared. It’s far more likely that he is with his family, his mates, congratulating other swimmers or – perhaps sharing a quart of Castle to celebrate.
There are times in the year where Buthie, is heard to mutter a bit about this being ‘the last one’ but in the months preceding the race, he’s soon discussing training strategies and what goggles he’ll wear. ‘I keep coming back as I have done all of them and would like to continue that record until my time is done here,’ he says.
Picture a boy of eight years old. He has lost his mother, a much-loved woman who encouraged outdoor sport. The close friends who took to raising Buthie enrolled him in the Pietermaritzburg Seals Swimming Club. Years later at Alexander Swimming Pool he would meet his wife-to-be, Yvonne. Water is the theme than runs its course through this remarkable man’s life, a constant flow that has inspired the fearful, spurred on the determined and created firm and lasting bonds. For Buthie, it is not a race, but a journey that will not be done until he, ‘the boss’ makes the call.
