Think or Swim

I was a late learner as far as swimming was concerned.

On a personal level I was petrified of open water. I am not entirely sure if my fear was because I could not swim in the first place or was for a deeper psychological reason like not wanting to drown. I have a very strong recollection of tumbling through water and looking up to see a shaft of sunlight and hazy figures just before my father scooped me out from the shallows at the foot of a beachfront slipway. Not quite a near death experience with a tunnel of light but nevertheless extremely frightening enough for my 3 or 4 years of age.

In my early years I had been brought up in riverside towns. There was good familiarity with water from almost daily jaunts along the riverbank or towpath. Earliest memories were views from a pram seat above the rain cover with my younger sister below, on toddler reins and later in a pedal car and bike with stabilisers. We lived near the Thames in its meandering course through Oxfordshire. A favourite place to go after dropping off big sister at her infants school was a small cafe and ice cream shop at one of the lock basins. To get to it involved negotiating a narrow walkway bridge over a thunderous white water weir. The prospect of a hundred and thousands speckled FAB ice lolly did help me to overcome my well rooted misgivings about the river crossing.

It was the late 60's and early 70's and where we lived there were no great Civic edifices which included such a modern facility as an indoor heated swimming pool. There were municipal pools and Lido's but these were outside and could only be survived on the hottest of summer days because they did not show any indication of in any way being warmed by mechanical means. The first tentative submersion into an outdoor pool was quite a performance. The mean kids, out of line of sight of parents, lifeguards or just the general attendants could hasten the cold water baptism with a short, sharp shove or a skillfully implemented accidental collision on the poolside. Otherwise it was a case of sitting on the edge and dangling in one and then both legs. This did give some indication of how cold the water was. Braver souls climbed down the ladder in the shallow end and pranced about, teeth chattering and arms waving as the water edged up over and saturated trunks or costume. The actual immersion over shoulders or head could take some subsequent time. No attempt at speech or communication was possible as the icy water took your breath away. The overriding sensation of the experience was a very strong and, for many days after, lingering smell of chlorine.

I suppose that many outdoor pools had represented small progress from the old Public Baths which were the only source of bodily cleansing for a good proportion of an urban population. Put the thing in a nicer outdoor setting and it becomes a leisure facility with no social stigma. Chlorine , in strong concentration, was the common link between the generations of users. The responsible person in charge of getting the correct parts per million at our local pool must have been on holiday when the weekend swimmers all vacated the pool with involuntary greenish bleached blonde hair.

My first real swimming lessons were at junior school. The excuse for a pool was in a polythene shrouded greenhouse type building within the grounds. It was about 5 metres wide and 15 metres long. The depth was uniform at only 1 metre. Water colour was milky white and the fumes from a cocktail of disinfectant were overpowering within minutes. Those with nits, verucca's , recent cuts or fresh scabs and impetigo were generally excused but this was very much on the basis of honesty and self diagnosis. Inevitably some of the more contagious infections got through the chemical warfare cocktail.

Doggy paddle was not, I was disappointed, a recognised swimming stroke. I adapted it to a close impression of breast stroke and amazingly got a 10m distance badge but 'not in good style'. The better and more determined in the class acheived up to 25 metres and some even learnt to swim in pyjamas and rescue bricks placed on the gritty, dirty floor of the pool just above a murky residue of detritus, skin flakes, sticking plasters and small brown organic looking solids.

In the late 1970's some dignatory was roped in to formally open the town leisure centre and indoor heated pool. This sounded the long overdue death knell for the petrie dish which doubled up as the school facility. Amongst the social benefits was the fact that the number of children drowning in the river that ran through the town declined sharply. Saturday mornings at the pool became part of the courting ritual for us as early teens. I still did not learn to confidently swim for some years or, saying that, get a girlfriend.

Things have changed significantly and for the better in the access to and availability of public pools and my own children were quick to take to and feel confident in the warm and reasonably odour free water.