WHEN you have won more than 40 British titles and set nearly 30 world records, another handful may seem inconsequential, but by any standards it has been a remarkable weekend for Rosemary Chrimes.

She claimed five titles at the British Masters Athletics Championships in Birmingham, breaking the world 80-plus age-group record in the high jump and improving her own world best in the discus, despite soaking conditions. This brings her career world record haul to 28. She also set UK records in hammer, shot and 100 metres.

"I am delighted at the records," said Rosemary who lives in Edgbaston, "but you get a wee bit blase about winners' medals. I didn't bother collecting them. They are not engraved and can be recycled, so it saves money."

Born Rosemary Charters in Kelso, she was Rosemary Payne when she won discus gold at the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, but Scotland's most durable athlete is as competitive now as ever.

"I've entered the shot, discus, and high jump at the World Masters Championships in Brazil next month [she holds the world record in all three]. I've not done much sprinting this year, but I've entered the 100 just to see if I can get a place. Hopefuly I will be fitter and the weather will be warmer and drier.

"I guess it wil be my last World Championships. I'm beginning to creak, and arthritis is kicking in. I've had an eye operation this year, plantar faschiitis, arthritis. I'm a typical 80-year-old and they have a lot wrong with them. Usually I just stagger around and hope I can make it. I still enjoy the atmosphere, the folk you meet."

Yet the competitive gene remains intact, "There aren't any folk left in my age-group in Britain, so I'm always competing against numbers, times, distances, and heights."

Her late husband, Howard Payne, won Commonwealth hammer gold in 1970, and she competed in four Commonwealth Games, adding silver in 1974 and competing in the 1972 Olympics. "I felt you were not really an athlete unless you got to an Olympics, so there was big motivation to do that."

Growing up in Kelso, one ran round the rugby pitches, and after her marriage she and Howard had to lay their own circle. "We cleared a field at the back of the cottage where we stayed, got a wheelbarrow, and laid concrete in the corner. Then we made sure the cows were at the far end before we practiced.

"Kelso was a wee town. We had a sports day, but nothing technical. My brother-in-law, Harry Duguid, threw the discus and suggested I might be good at it, but I never got the chance to throw one until I went to Edinburgh University, after working for three years in the bank."

She was from a sporting family. Though her father was gassed in World War I, he retained an interest in sprinting. "He used to go to Powderhall, and my brothers, Sandy and Bobby, played rugby for Kelso. Bobby was killed on RAF service, but Sandy returned to captain the club to an outstanding post-war season."

Duguid, an Aberdonian, was twice Scottish champion while a vet student and set a British discus record in the 1951 university match between Edinburgh and Glasgow, at Craiglockhart. "He came down to practice in Kelso, otherwise I'd probably never have tried it. I had sprinted and jumped at school. There was no discus."

Her first big event was the 1958 Empire Games in Cardiff. "The Scottish selectors were very kind. I had no chance of winning, but they gave me a chance for the future, and that's where I met Howard."

She gained 51 GB vests, and returned to competition after having twin sons. When she retired aged 40, she had already won the inaugural women's World masters titles in 1975, at 100m, high jump, discus, and hammer. She spent 10 years out of competition, managing the British junior team and Scotland's 1978 Comonwealth team. Among future Olympic champions or medallists whose junior careers she impacted were Daley Thomson, Steve Cram, Fatima Whitbread, Colin Jackson, Fiona May, Linsey Macdonald, Kathy Smallwood, and Steve Backley. "Fiona went off and competed for Italy [winning World titles] and I remember telling Daley [future Olympic decathon champion] that he had better shut up and go to bed - he had so much energy."

Her own energy levels were hardly low. When she returned to masters events, she set World records indoors in shot, high jump, hurdles and triple jump; outdoors in shot, discus, high jump, triple jump, and hammer; across several age groups. In masters athletics one is reborn every five years, moving into the next age group.

"Bud" set four world records (55-59) on a single day, in March 1989. Two of them stood for more than 10 years. Her world 70-plus shot putt record remains unbroken after 10 years. "I've stopped the triple jump. My knees won't take it."

She has undergone countless drug tests, even in the veteran ranks. "If it's done with the youngsters, it should be done with the oldies. Drugs were high profile when I was competing. Testing was well organised in the '60s.

"I also went through gender testing. That was a serious thing and I spent quite a bit of time fighting it. It was appalling to fail a sex test - far worse than failing a drugs test. I was very aware of this when managing the GB juniors and taking teenagers to be sex-tested. Imagine being told you are not female. They were ruining their lives.

"Somebody once suggested it was very unfeminine to be a thrower. I asked whether she had any documentation to prove what sex she was. When she said 'No', I told her I had three or four, in several languages, saying I was female.

"But strange things happened when these tests were introduced. The Press sisters [Soviet Olympic champions Tamara and Irina] suddenly stopped competing. So did Ioland Balas [a Romanian who had set 12 world high jump records in four years]. But several women who supposedly failed tests later proved they were female by having children."

When Bud won the 1983 Masters title, the field included the 1960 Soviet Olympic champion, Nina Ponomaryeva - headline news in 1956 when arrested on suspicion of stealing five hats from C&As in Oxford Street. "The Russians were top dogs when I was throwing in the 1960s, so it was with great relish that I beat them in Japan and got a bit of revenge." She won four world golds and a silver there.

A college lecturer until well into her 50s, Bud took early retirement. "I still play the the piano and take lessons," she says, insisting she is not a serious performer. But others beg to differ, and compliment her virtuosity.

"I go to a couple of very good keep-fit classes for the oldies, and ocassionally use the fitness room at the university. My golf is pretty well wrecked by arthritis, though I play a few holes. But if I was really to train, I think I'd be wrecked, because my body can't take it any more.

"I have a lot of other interests. Birmingham has a good orchestra, a couple of good theatres, and we are not far from Stratford. My favourite subject at school was English literature, and there are good evening clases. I stay interested in as many things as possible and make at least one pilgrimmage a year to the Borders, where my roots are."

Scotland's only 1970 athletics medallist to repeat in Christchurch four years later, she was "very cross at not winning gold - vexed with silver." She is still second on the Scottish all-time discus rankings behind 1982 Commonwealth gold medallist Meg Ritchie.

When the years put lead in limbs and muscles, former athletes find it hard to accept fading powers. Bud tells how she has coped. "You have to stop saying 'Once upon a time I was able to do this.' I can't throw the discus even half what I used to. You have to accept it's nice that there are events the oldies can still do. Competing against your peers, it does not seem so bad.

"You have to accept you're a pretty crummy athlete by the time you are aged, but masters events are structured so you are not compared to the past, but with what folk can do now, in your own age group. That's a kind of protection. You just hope everyone else is feeling as lousy as you are, with their feet and hands all falling to bits the way yours are. You wish you could do better, but have to accept your limitations."