Two Scots reunited 60 years after one rose other from the dead at Govan Baths (2025)

Neil McPhee was just 14 when he suffered an injury and drowned at Glasgow’s Govan Baths on September 1, 1965.

Two Scots have been reunited after 60 years after one brought the other back from the dead.

Neil McPhee was just 14 when he suffered an injury and drowned at Glasgow’s Govan Baths on September 1, 1965.

With no lifeguards on hand, staff evacuated children while Neil lay dead at the bottom of the pool.

But when 19-year-old Tony Lenaghan found out, he dived in to pull Neil out of the water and performed CPR for 10 minutes.

Last year, Neil, 74, tracked Tony, 79 down enabling him to receive his second Bravery medal at Glasgow’s City Chambers yesterday after the first was stolen.

Tony, who enjoyed a career as a physiotherapist for football clubs including Clydebank and Tottenham Hotspur, the latter under Ossie Ardiles, and also worked for Jock Stein and Don Revie, said: “60 years ago I saved a little boy’s life. He drowned and I brought him back.

“There were hundreds of kids at Govan Baths that day and they didn’t have properly trained health and safety.

“All they were interested in was clearing the pool.

“I was getting ready when a woman ran past and said there’s a wee dead boy in there. They had left him in the bottom of the pool at the deep end. I said, ‘You’ve got to get him out’.

She said, ‘It’s ok, the ambulance is coming.’

“I went in and got him out. He wasn’t breathing. He was blue.

“I turned him upside down and started working away and gradually a pink spot appeared on his cheek that got bigger and bigger. It took five or ten minutes and I kept going until eventually he was sick as a dog and his colour changed.

“I pumped at his heart and he started breathing. That was the last time I’d seen him.”

Late last year, Neil tracked Tony down.

Tony said: “That little boy contacted me. It was quite emotional.

“He told me he had a fantastic life and if it hadn’t been for me that wouldn’t have been possible. I burst into tears.

“He had become a successful businessman and contacted the City Chambers to get the new medal presented to me.

“My friends are all moved by the story.”

Neil recalled: “I’d been at the swimming baths and a ring fell off my finger and I went down to the bottom to get it. Halfway, there I began to struggle.

“I grabbed a friend’s leg but he thought I was joking and kicked out, hitting me between the eyes. That was the last I remember.

“Apparently, all the kids had been running past Tony and he asked what was happening and he was told there was a boy in the water and the staff didn’t want the kids to see him.

“That is when he pulled me out and did CPR and saved me. I woke up at the side of the pool as Tony was giving me CPR. ”

Neil added: “I didn’t know he had got a medal back then because a couple of weeks later my family had moved house.

“Over the years I tried to find out who he was. Last year I found the original Daily Record article and I made contact with him and asked if he saved a boy from drowning in 1965. I told him I was that boy.

“That was when he told me about the Bravery award.

“I contacted the Lord Provost to get him a replacement medal because the original had been stolen from Tony in a house-breaking in 1990.

“She kindly arranged the new medal. It’s not a replica because the old Glasgow Corporation doesn’t exist any more.”

Neil, who made a full recovery, went on to enjoy a successful career, first at BT then as the director of a construction company. He is now retired. He also married. His wife passed away last year.

Neil said: “Everything I’ve done since the age of 14 is down to Tony.”

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