WHO’S WHO

Local Personalities: Simon Simms

by Dr. Iain Corness

Simon Simms has what many people would regard as an idyllic lifestyle. Retired and living in warm sunny Pattaya for eight months a year, and then going to warm sunny Australia for the rest of the year. However, this is not just a hedonistic way of life, Simon has a life that is involved in helping children, especially orphans, as he has first hand experience of being raised in a home without both parents.

He was born in the UK near Maidenhead, but never really knew his father, being raised by his mother, as an only child in a single parent household. When he was 13 his mother decided that life in Australia would be a better situation and they migrated to South Australia. He was still in a single parent household, but at least the weather was better!

He stayed at school until he was 16 years old. He was not the best student. “Very, very average,” said Simon, “but if it was sport, I was fine!” However, 16 years was enough for the young boy. He wanted to do something in the big world outside school - but it had to be exciting! How many of you older folk had ideas that being a fireman would be thrilling? That is exactly what Simon thought, and he enrolled as a fireman. “It’s one of those exciting things when you are young.”

For the next five years it was sliding down chrome poles, polishing brass helmets, unrolling hoses and chasing fires! But after five years of it, the excitement had obviously worn off. “I started chasing dollars instead of fires,” said Simon. That chase saw him carrying flammable liquids, instead of water, when he joined a petrol company as a tanker driver.

What you have to understand here is that these were not the small tankers you see running around Thailand. Simon was the driver of a ‘road train’ carrying petrol. These consist of a prime mover, plus several bogie tankers on behind (like a railway train), and are used to transport fuel long distances across the inhospitable Australian bushlands.

Simon was carrying 60,000 litres at a time, always mindful of the fact that one accident could mean the end of not only his life, but the potential to encompass scores of others as well. He spoke of several “near misses” and admitted to having three or four very bad accidents. “The money was huge,” said Simon, “but after 20 years my nerves were shot at the end.”

Probably to relax his nerves, Simon became very involved with the Australian Surf Lifesaving movement at weekends, the association which patrols Australian beaches, ready for all emergencies, be that drownings, heart attacks, or even shark attacks. Being a sporting man, he was a keen SCUBA diver too, but the Lifesaving movement was the main draw for him, now having been a member for 30 years.

After two decades on the road, Simon felt it was time for him to find something easier. “I was looking to semi-retire in 1993.” The idea of having a “little shop” close to his favourite beach at Normanville looked very attractive after the millions of kilometres behind the wheel away from home. So with some of his sack of gold from the petrol company after 20 years “hard yakka” (as they say in Australia) he bought the little shop.

Was it the easy, relaxed semi-retirement he was looking for? “It was seven days a week of sheer hell! It was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life,” said Simon.

It was during this period of “sheer hell” that a friend who had been to Thailand before convinced him to come over for a holiday. He arrived in Bangkok, and like us all on that first visit, wondered why it had taken us so long to discover the magic kingdom!

From Bangkok, it was then natural that someone who loved the water as much as Simon did, would come down to Pattaya, the closest seaside resort to Bangkok. “Pattaya? I’ve been in love with it ever since,” said Simon.

He returned to Australia and put the little shop on the market and then returned to Thailand to look for that semi-retired lifestyle. He took up painting as a relaxation and has been happily following an artistic side of himself that he was previously unaware of, painting landscapes and portraits in oils. These days he even gets commissions from Australia for some of his work.

In the afternoons he follows his sporting and more physical side of himself. That includes exercise programs and, more naturally for the surf lifesaver - swimming. In fact he lists his hobbies as “Lifesaving, fitness and drinking, in that order!” That in turn brings Simon to his latest physical pursuit in Pattaya. Marathon swimming!

In Australia he had joined Rotary International and enjoyed becoming involved with their charity projects helping people. To help raise money, he combined his Rotary work with his swimming and came up with the idea of sponsored marathon swims across the bay at Normanville. These were 4.5 kilometre swims and generally take about one and a half hours, but if there are sharks around would take a shorter time in the water!

Now spending the majority of his time here, he has become associated with the Jomtien-Pattaya Rotary Club and suggested that he would organize another ‘swimathon’ but this time across Pattaya Bay from the Royal Cliff Beach Resort to the Dusit Resort, a distance of around 3.5 kilometres, and no sharks!

The charities to be supported are those caring for little orphaned children. “Education for children is so important,” said Simon, children always being important for him. “I’ve tried to be a good Dad (for his own children), not having had one myself.” He is now trying to expand that concept with orphans.

If you would like to sponsor Simon’s marathon swim, contact any member of the Jomtien-Pattaya Rotary Club, or Thor Halland, tel. 038 488040, e-mail [email protected]