IT HAS been a landmark week for James Heatly, leaving school on Thursday.

And returning from the European Games in Baku with gold, silver and bronze medals.

At 18, he has already written several chapters in diving history, but this capped everything to date. His title in the three-metre springboard was the first by a Scotsman in an international championship since his grandfather, Sir Peter Heatly, won Empire Games 10-metre highboard gold in Cardiff 57 years ago.

James was just six when the seminal moment occurred in the garden of the family home. There was a climbing frame, trampoline, and a small swimming pool. James dragged the trampoline between the frame and the pool, climbed up, leapt off and bounced into the water.

Grandfather was a fascinated spectator, and turned to his son, as Robert Heatly recalled this week. "Dad said he ought to give diving a go. He saw something, and made the suggestion, so there's no doubt he sewed the seeds with James."

That was in Virginia Beach, North Carolina, where Colonel Heatly was on a Nato posting with the Royal Marines. "There was no diving club there, so James did gymnastics and a bit of trampolining. He did not start diving till we came home to Edinburgh about three years later. So he was actually a relatively late starter - nine - when he had his first lesson and 10 before he got into the club."

James recalls it as his earliest memory of jumping into water. "That, and jumping off rocks while white water rafting," he said.

On his return from Azerbaijan there was a visit to 91-year-old Sir Peter. "We took the Baku videos and my medals. He was delighted. He was the influence. If it wasn't for him I would not even have started."

In Baku, gold completed the match set, having won silver in three-metre synchro with Sheffield's Ross Haslam, and bronze in the individual one-metre.

Grandfather won five medals in what is now the Commonwealth Games, including three successive golds from 1950 to '58. He also won the Scottish championship treble twelve years in succession. At 18, James has already done six in a row. "So 12 is now definitely a goal for me," he said.

His first Scottish junior title came at 11, with the senior treble just a year later. He was first to achieve that since his grandfather who was a proud spectator in Glasgow 2014 where James was the youngest finalist in both the three and one-metre events.

But with three English divers ahead of him in the former, and two in the later, Rio Olympic selection is a big ask. "I have not really thought about it," he says. "I don't like thinking about the future too much, about what could be. I don't like to stress myself and just take things as they come. The Olympic trials are in January, and only two per event can go to Rio. Competition in Britain is pretty intense, but diving is a sport where anything can happen on the day."

Hitting the water at 35mph without leaving a ripple (the rip entry) gives no margin for error.

His grandfather was the first British diver to master the three-and-a-half front somersault off the platform in what was a very different era. "I have watched videos. The technique is so different. In his day the springboard was not much more than a plank with coconut matting. They would hit the water, but never ripped. Now everyone has figured out the completely no-splash entry. The springboard is now a real flexible thing, and conditions are much better."

His training occupies 22 hours a week, with land drills, circuits, customised weight sessions designed by the Scottish Institute of Sport, and diving sessions six days a week.

Sir Peter, who was studying and holding down a job while competing, went on to become chair of the Commonwealth Games Federation, and of the Scottish Sports Council (now sportscotland). "My competitive career ended when I realised the fathers of my rivals were as old as I was," he said.

Glasgow was his 17th Commonwealth Games in some capacity or other.

James says he received much latitude at George Watson's before leaving this week. "They gave me time off, extensions to work because of training."

It's the alma mater of quadruple Olympic gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy, the Hastings rugby brothers, Scott and Gavin, world bobsleigh champion and Commonwealth Games athlete Gillian Cooke, and fellow 2014 diver Grace Reid, who left last year. Together she and Heatly made history by taking bronze in the first mixed 3m synchro at the Diving World Series in London.

Both Scots are coached in Edinburgh by Jenny Leeming, and James aims to stay in the capital city, hoping exam results will access a college course for which he has a conditional place in sport coaching and development. "Everything is laid out perfectly. Lots of divers in England would want what we have here. I have no desire to go elsewhere."

Baku was his last junior competition, and he will close his season at the FINA grand prix in Bolzano next weekend where, "making a final would be cool". Then he must undergo knee surgery. "I have an extra bit of bone on the side of my left kneecap, and muscle development is aggravated. So I'm having the bony bit chopped off. It will be eight weeks till I am back at the stage I am now."

This will inhibit driving lessons, "so I will need my taxi for a bit longer." That is father, who is up at 5am two mornings a week. Other pool sessions are a bit later.

Travel was more difficult when the Commonwealth Pool was closed for refurbishment and the springboards were transferred to Newbattle "With no highboard option I had to work really hard on springboard," he says. Perhaps a mixed blessing, helping avoid wrist injuries which often plague platform divers.

He disarmingly plays down one career headline, a springboard synchro victory ahead of world champion Tom Daly. "It was cool to see my name above such a high-profile athlete," he says, but points out: "He does platform, and I train for springboard all the time. In the platform, he'd beat me. I do platform for fun now and again. Who knows if I could have been a platform diver? But I'm happy on springboard for now."