Autumn, 11, makes a big splash in the Forth

FOR most children her age, a few lengths of the local pool is probably achievement enough.

Yet 11-year-old Autumn Farrell isn't content to just splash around in the shallow end – she would rather tackle a freezing mile-and-a-half swim.

Autumn is thought to have become the youngest person to swim from North to South Queensferry – and she beat adults more than twice her age in the process.

The youngster was the third female home in last weekend's Forth Swim, with a time of 35 minutes.

Her achievement has given her a taste for outdoor swimming, and she's now planning to become the youngest person to cross the English Channel.

The first year pupil at Livingston's St Margaret's Academy had to contend with jelly fish bites and freezing temperatures to complete her Forth challenge, while the swimmer who emerged from the water behind her collapsed with hypothermia.

She said: "It was really hard because I did it without goggles – they fell off about five minutes after the start, and being salt water, it makes your eyes sting.

"I got two jellyfish stings on my arms and my neck, which were really sore.

"They had one safety boat and luckily we had a canoe each to direct us, but I still got lost – I was straying towards the Forth Road Bridge instead of staying near the rail bridge. It's hard to swim against the current, and I'm not the biggest in the world, but I wasn't tempted to stop. I was exhausted but I was glad I did it."

Autumn, from Eliburn in Livingston, has been swimming since the age of four, and won her first medal within a year of taking to the water.

She first heard about open water swimming from other members of her club, Fauldhouse Penguins, and only started training outdoors in May.

She takes to the pool at her school every evening and one morning a week. She also travels to Loch Awe in Argyll for outdoor training once a week.

She said: "I think it was just the enjoyment that got me started. I've just got a passion for it.

"I don't know what I'd do if I gave it up, because I do it every night, so it would be difficult. My friends all think they could do it, but they couldn't.

"You get more of an adrenalin rush through swimming outdoors because of the temperature, and the fact that no-one else can really do it."

She now has her sights firmly set on a life as a professional athlete: "I think I'd be quite young for the Olympics and I wouldn't be ready, but I'd like to do the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow."

Her mother Jacqueline, 41, a manager at letting agent Letting Solutions, revealed she also had her eyes on another challenge.

"She's a very determined child and her goal is that she wants to swim the Channel. The record for the youngest child to do that was 14 and it was a boy.

"She's only just started, so she'd need to put in an awful lot of training."

She said of her daughter's performance on Saturday: "She was definitely the youngest swimmer ever in this event, and we don't know of any other event that would have children swimming across the Forth."

She added: "She's strong-minded. She wouldn't do it if she didn't want to."

Around 20 swimmers took part in the Forth swim, and the race was won by another youngster, 14-year-old Aaron Sievewright, who trains with Autumn.