A fitness instructor at the NSC has celebrated 20 years in the job.

Elizabeth Corran was surprised by her colleagues last week after one of her classes to congratulate her on two decades of work.

She said: ‘I was really surprised. I was just finishing one class and a couple of my colleagues came walking in and I saw them with the flowers – I didn’t know what it was for at first but I was totally shocked.

‘A few weeks ago I was asked how long I’ve been here so I told them it would be 20 years at the end of March. It never dawned on me what they were planning, no one gave anything away.

‘I got a lovely framed certificate showing how long I’d been there so that was lovely.’

On her career, she said she ‘couldn’t believe’ it had been 20 years since she’d started.

‘I did accounts before and I went part-time and I had a trainer up at Mount Murray and he said “why don’t you do this?” because I was a race walker,’ Mrs Corran said.

‘Then I went away and looked at some courses and the days that I had off I used for training and the exams.

‘I remember saying to my husband, “I’m not getting any younger and if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it, so I think I’ll try it”.

‘I originally told my colleagues I’d give it a year and try it out and they all laughed – and here I am 20 years later.’

Since then, throughout her years at the NSC she has taken on many more classes, ranging from swimming lessons to various exercise classes.

‘It definitely gives a good variety,’ she said.

‘It’s such a wonderful job and you feel like you’re really helping people.

‘There was one woman who was going to physio and she could only move her arms so far, she came along to the classes and I told her to take it as far as she could and to stop before the pain but within a year that lady had movement back in her arm.

‘It just makes you feel that you’re doing something useful. Nobody thanks you for doing a set of accounts whereas people are thanking you all the time in this job – I just get so much pleasure from it.

‘I make a point that people should work at their own level. If you go out the door and you’ve gotten out of it what you wanted to get out of it that’s all that matters so don’t try and keep up with your neighbour. When you say that to people they do relax.’

Before making the move into the field, Mrs Corran was an avid race walker.

She added: ‘I still do a bit of race walking, like I did the End to End last year and I’m hoping to do one in Easter, but I don’t do it competitively like I did years ago.

‘I’m still heavily involved and I’m in the Parish Walk committee, which I’ve been on for 28 years.’

The instructor recalled her first class, saying how anxious she felt going in.

‘I wish I could go back and tell myself how many classes I’m doing now because I was so nervous for the very first class,’ she said. ‘I said to the tutor in the UK “I can’t stand up in front of a class and teach” but they said “you’ll be fine because once you do it, you’ll enjoy it so much”.