Jim Douglas has done a lot for Carlisle. This includes being The Sands Centre’s first manager, running it from its opening in 1985 until his retirement in 2010.

That retirement is now at an end. At the age of 73, Jim has come back to run another key part of the city’s leisure life: Stonyholme golf course.

This is not exactly a case of putting away his pipe and slippers. Jim is a former international athlete - a man who held the British 1,500 metres record and remains admirably active.

Lean and fit with piercing eyes, you get the impression that if Jim wants to do something, he will find a way.

He has been in charge of Stonyholme before. In the early 1990s his Sands Centre role expanded to include all Carlisle City Council’s leisure facilities.

Jim has long been a member at Stonyholme. He has now ridden to the rescue following its sudden closure eight months ago.

National company Mack Golf began running Stonyholme early last year. All its courses closed suddenly last October when it went into voluntary liquidation.

Stonyholme has suffered a different kind of liquidation in recent years. The course flooded in 2005 and 2015. Instead of running through it, the Eden and Petteril rivers poured onto it.

First time around, the clubhouse flooded to 18 inches. Ten years later, Storm Desmond brought in muddy water to more than twice that height.

You wouldn’t realise this now, sitting in the newly decorated lounge. But the recovery took a great deal of time and sweat.

“The floods knocked the place for six,” says Jim. “Second time, the course reopened within a few weeks with a Portacabin in the car park for a clubhouse. It took two years or more for the clubhouse to be refurbished.”

Mack Golf’s collapse left no one to maintain Stonyholme. Regulars were concerned that its carefully tended fairways and greens could fall into long-term disrepair, and that their beloved course might never reopen.

Stonyholme is still owned by the city council. Jim offered advice on maintaining the course. Early this year he formed a company with a view to running it.

He has now come to a five-year agreement with the council, investing his own money to make it happen. He hopes this will be recouped. But his motivation is not financial.

“The reason I’ve done this is quite a personal issue,” he says. “I moved to Carlisle in 1984 from London with my wife June and our twin daughters. They were a year old.

“I didn’t want to bring them up in London. We’d just had the Brixton Riots. For the last thirty-odd years, Carlisle has been very good to me and my family.

“I’ve always thought Carlisle is a big village - everybody knows everybody else. I’ve had some great experiences working with some really good people. I thought it’s a shame to see this place on its knees again after the floods. I’d try and put something back into Carlisle.”

All but one of the four ground staff and four reception staff had worked at the course before losing their jobs last autumn. Jim was happy to take them back. “They’re really good people,” he says. “That helps.”

Another of Jim’s motivations is simply the desire to do a good job. Doing things properly through hard work fuelled his athletics career, his 13 years in the Marines, and his time in the leisure sector.

When Stonyholme was added to Jim’s brief in the 1990s he decided he’d better learn to play golf.

“I’d hacked around in my twenties but golf was never on my radar. I needed to become aware of the nuts and bolts of running a course.

“A friend of mine trudged round with me all winter trying to learn how to play. I can’t remember how many balls I lost. I ended up with a modest handicap of 21.

“I do like playing golf now, especially the social element and the nineteenth hole! It can be a very frustrating game and a very rewarding game. I haven’t thrown the clubs in the river, yet.”

He is proud of Stonyholme’s status as a course for players of all incomes and abilities. New members are very welcome.

“I want more people coming down,” he says. “We are affordable. I’m always looking to remove any barriers to stop anyone. It is my intention to work with Cumbria Golf Union. They run ‘get into golf’ initiatives.

“Golf can be quite expensive. We need to be able to offer packages for new people, particularly young people, so that price doesn’t become a big barrier. Our junior membership fee is £50 for a year. We’ll be doing packages: membership fee with a set of clubs, not necessarily new ones, and teaching.”

Jim says the attraction for many Stonyholme regulars is social as much as sporting. “There are groups here that have been meeting regularly for decades. When it was closed, a group called The Petterils continued meeting at Toby Carvery on Warwick Road.

“Over that two-year period there probably was a drift from here. When it did reopen there was a lot of enthusiasm to play the course and use the clubhouse.

“Inside it’s very warm and friendly. When Carlisle United are at home, sometimes it’s three-deep at the bar. People come from Stanwix through Rickerby Park. Some use it as their local pub. The restaurant has always had a good reputation.”

Ron and Denise Wood, who own Le Gall in the city centre, are now in charge of the bar and restaurant, which are open every day.

A golf course enjoyed by social players is a long way from Jim’s own sporting career. He ran the 1,500 metres for Great Britain in the 1969 European Championships in Athens, and for England in the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.

In 1972 he set a British record of three minutes 38 seconds. About six weeks later came the trials for the 1972 Munich Olympics.

“A week or two before the trials I started to develop pain in my achilles tendon. It just started getting worse and worse. During the final of the trials at Crystal Palace, I couldn’t finish. I ended up sitting with my heel in the water jump because the pain was so severe.”

Jim would never again have the chance to compete at an Olympic Games. Even at the time, he suspected that his athletics career was all but over.

“It was a huge disappointment. But I don’t dwell. I don’t wail and gnash my teeth. I was in the Marines at the time. Within a month or two I became a Marines physical training instructor. That tends to take your mind off other things.”

Jim’s first assignment as a Marine was three months in the Indonesian jungle, fighting rebels who were hostile to Britain.

“We got mortared once. That was an intense experience. You had to dig trenches with logs and sandbags. They just took potshots at night. Always at night. It put the wind up you. I was 18. When you’re young you think you can run through brick walls. You’ve got your mates around you. You’re all in the same boat.”

Jim left the Marines with the rank of staff sergeant and became a recreation and leisure manager with local councils. He arrived at the Sands Centre a few months before it opened, just in time to make a significant last-minute change to the design, by incorporating a gym.

He remains passionate about helping people of all ages to be active. This is one reason for his involvement at Stonyholme. The course’s oldest players are in their eighties.

“It’s not as physically demanding as some courses. If you can walk you can still play golf. As people get older they tend to become more isolated. Being active and involved is good for the physical side and the mental side.

“If you can only hit it 100 yards and take 100 shots to get round as opposed to the par of 69, so be it. It must be doing you good, as opposed to sitting on your own. I do know people who are alone through bereavement.

“I don’t want to give the impression that the course is just for the elderly. It definitely isn’t. Since we reopened we’ve had a lot of new faces. There’s a nice friendly atmosphere. There’s no cliques.”

Jim’s younger self was a hard act to follow. Has life after international athletics and the Marines ever seemed dull?

“I wouldn’t say it was dull. You do get a great deal of job satisfaction from the line of work I’ve been in. To a degree, it ends up consuming you.

“You can build the big buildings. But it’s the people that breathe life into it - users and employees. At the Sands we had great camaraderie. The users themselves became part of the team. They would generate their own enthusiasm. It’s very difficult to find that in many places.”

He says that, in hindsight, retiring at 65 was a mistake. “I needed a hip replacement. I was in quite a bit of pain. I’ve had a replacement and I’m fine now. I think I retired too soon. But you can’t dwell on what’s happened in the past. I enjoyed my retirement. I’ve done things that I enjoyed with the family.

“Sometimes you get restless. So I think of a new adventure. I drove to Turkey and back with a friend once. It was a great experience. I met some really nice people.

“I’m part of the Royal Marines Association Carlisle branch. Last year we decided to climb Blencathra on the anniversary of the birth of the Royal Marine Corps.”

He admits with a smile that such activities mean “I get a look from the wife now and again.”

But age is no barrier to Jim. Neither, you suspect, is anything else.

“Being active is in my blood. I have my aches and pains. I still work out in the Sands gym. Bikes, rowers, free weights. That keeps the muscles toned. It’s important to maintain your strength as you get older.”

From Stonyholme’s clubhouse you can see Brunton Park, the castle, the cathedral, Dixon’s Chimney. Jim is determined to re-establish this place as another Carlisle landmark. He already is one.