Not much happens in Darnall and the summer of 1965 was particularly uneventful.
The Sheffield suburb was covered in a cloak of heat - the oppressive kind that doesn’t just stick to you, it sticks with you.
It certainly stuck with ten-year-old .
On one broiling July day, Kevin’s mother cast him out to the park to wear himself out before dinner.
“I came home gasping for a drink,” Kevin said. “I ran into the kitchen and picked up this mug with fresh, clear water in it and chugged the whole lot.
“It turned out to be the pot that my mother put her false teeth in. Bleach.”
Kevin was rushed into hospital and into the surgery as the bleach scorched through his lungs. The wee man would live, but not without complications.
Black British Olympians through history
“The specialist told my mother, ‘he’s fine but he’s still got some bleach in his lungs, so he’ll need to exercise them.’
“She asked how and he said: ‘you’ll have to teach him how to swim.’”
First black British Olympic swimmer
So Kevin Burns started swimming and kept going, until he became Britain’s first black swimmer at the Olympic Games.
It is a jaw-dropping Olympic origin story and loses nothing in the telling when, 56 years later, Burns reflected on a series of happy accidents that form a life well lived.
He is the son of a British Honduran, Wallace Burns, who came to Glasgow to work in 1942 and met Kevin’s mother when he was transferred to Sheffield.
Burns’ first brush with water was an unhappy one. He nearly drowned aged two when he was knocked into a local lido by a labrador; he was stomach pumped, given gas and air and emerged with a phobia of water.
Eight years later, his mother marched him down to Attercliffe Baths where he would be coached by Glynn Mettam and won the British Junior Championships within a year.
“Glynn was a fantastic coach and a brilliant teacher of swimming,” said Evans, “but he worked at a school and clocked off at 3:30 each day.
“He wouldn’t come to the swim meets at the weekend because he wasn’t paid for it - a true Yorkshireman.”
Burns went, unaccompanied, to the British Championships in Derby for under-13s and befriended Alan Sunderland, a rival swimmer from York.
“Between the heats and the finals, Alan and I went out the back of the baths to get some air,” said Burns.
“There was a little kid on a scramble bike going up and down these jumps, so I asked him for a ride. Of course, I came off at the first jump, scraped my legs and my arms before the final.
“I was bleeding everywhere and Alan was panicking, saying, ‘get your coach!’ and I had to tell him I didn’t have a coach.”
Sunderland ran to fetch his coach, Trevor Tiffany, to look after Burns.
“Trevor just became my lifetime mentor and still is,” said Burns. “We still talk three times a week, without question. He changed my whole outlook on life.”
Specialising in the 100m freestyle, Burns broke the British junior record in 1968 and his new mark of 1:00.3 stood for five years.
First black swimmer to represent Great Britain
Aged 14 in 1970 he became the first black swimmer to represent Great Britain when he competed in a junior match against the Netherlands, and then did the same for England.
Fresh from a senior GB debut, Burns expected to qualify for the 1972 Olympics in Munich but missed the cut in the era when judges decided by eye who touched the wall first.
He describes that as his biggest low in sport, and his biggest high when he righted the wrong and secured his spot at Montreal 1976.
“Trevor was commentating for a radio station,” Burns said. “I just remember finishing, turning round and seeing him jumping around, sending cameras and microphones and wires flying.
“He knew I’d hit the qualifying time. It was quite emotional, and it was probably the greatest moment of my career.”
In Montreal, Burns missed out on the semi-finals of the individual 100m freestyle by 0.03 seconds.
In the 4x100m medley relay he came close to a medal, finishing fourth in a British squad that featured the legendary likes of Duncan Goodhew and David Wilkie.
“David was a great inspiration,” said Burns. “When I got my scholarship to Miami, he was in his fourth year there and he played a major role at my wedding.
“You meet some incredibly like-minded people in swimming. Once you get into swimming, there’s very little elitism. Everyone mucks in and you’ve got to work hard together.”
Burns was lost to the world of swimming soon after Montreal, turning his attention to a career in sales, rising to become a divisional manager at Levi Strauss.
He still swims, every day, in Nottingham with fellow Olympian Margaret Kelly. Kelly represented Team GB three times and won relay silver at Moscow 1980.
“I’ve had a very cherished life, and spent it taking a few risks,” Burns said.”It has kept me entertained.”
Tom Harle, Sportsbeat