This swimsuit belonged to Eva Tilsley, pictured here in 1918. It is a two-piece suit that was known in New Zealand as a Canadian. Eva earned her Royal Life Saving Society Certificate in 1917 and was a member of the Waitemata Amateur Swimming Club, which became the Waitemata Ladies Swimming and Surf Life Saving Club in 1932. She was club captain. The swimming club was first based at the Albert Street Baths then the Tepid Baths and, when the WLS & SLSC was formed, it was also allotted Mission Bay and Kohimarama to patrol. Although the club is no longer in existence, it formed the basis of many of our current Auckland Surf Life Saving clubs. Eva represented Auckland between the wars in swimming, diving and water polo, earning many national championships. In 1951 she chaperoned the NZ women’s swimming team on tour of Australia and in 1958 she travelled with the New Zealand diving team to the Cardiff Commonwealth Games as coach. Eva died in 1984 aged 87.