I began swimming at an age too young to have a clear memory, possibly I discovered my own levels of buoyancy in the warm amniotic fluid of my pre-birth state but in the common sense of swimming, as in like a fish, it was the cold tidal surge off Tenby that was, at about two years, my first true dip. Hurled off the shoulders of an adult into whose trust I had been placed, note Dad isn’t a natural water baby, I was dumped into the sea, sharks, jellies and crabs circling I paddled and flapped through the frothy effluence of the 1960s in search of the safety of the firm sand. Many years later I took a friends 10 years old to the very same beach and encouraged her to take life in hand and swim in the infested but hygienically superior waters of South Wales. She was, sadly, far more interested in the teenager and his boogie board skimming furtively past in the baby surf.
Swimming has always been, for me, a fairly serious activity, I cannot be doing with the pointless, giggling half wits that splash in the shallows, wrinkle rapidly and scurry for the warmth of their fluffy towels after only a few minutes of flapping around and then claim to love swimming. I am a sensible get in the water swimmer, goggles on, nose clip in place and swim, efficiently, quickly and economically. I found some of my swimming badges the other day, my first full length and my bronze personal survival and for one crazy delusional moment considered attaching them to my current swimming suit. Flipping back into reality the moment passed and I returned them the place from where they came.
One should not socialise when swimming unless of course one has reason to engage in either rescuing a panic stricken, water wary, land lover or to negotiate more space in a crowded pool.
I like to swim underwater, the isolation and silence is a pleasurable sensation, limited only by the fact that I would like to break free of the confines of the pool. When watching children crabbing off Cromer pier I thought save catching them how about diving with them, I was excited until I saw the colour of the water, sort of Cappuccino with extra froth, not sure how EU beach policing is doing at Cromer but it was significantly less desirable once I peered off the pier.

When I was small I had several toys that as an adult I remember clearly, a big doll that my Granny gave to me, a yellow chopper bike, wooden skittles that had been badly chewed by a dog, a glove puppet [that I still have], and many more precious items that gave me security and comforted me. In retrospect I was very lucky, although as a child I didn’t appreciate the effort which was put into entertaining me. I would spend long days in the Summer playing in the fields, trailing through the brook and walking the farm tracks, a freedom that has since become a fear for many parents. I was taken off ‘up the country’ to pilfer from nature, but there were strict guidelines as my Dad knew the meaning of sustainability before the politicians learnt how to use it, he like many of his generation and class had to suppliment their food with what was available in the fields and woods. Knowing the rolling fields of the landowners, the seasons and the woodlands, ditches and pits I would, with him bring home mushrooms, nuts, eggs and fruit in time to the beat of nature. But don’t let me fool you into thinking I was somekind of barefoot child at one with the elements, Cheshires own Huck Fynn, no I was a wimpy child, the sight of a dead Badger or a ‘mixi’ bunny would score deep wounds in my delicate mind, scared with nightmares of the true cost of nature and her unrelenting feast on the creatures at her mercy. I was squeemish, the big, flat mushrooms feeding on the nutients of cow dung caused me to heave as Dad cut them free from their foodsource. I still see clearly the sight of those alien fungi, gills black and skin soft suede, calling out to me, I would recoil from them as a child from a mould dusted grandparent intent on smothering you with wet kisses. I was also destined for a life on the straight and narrow, Dad on the other hand was happily intent on leading me astray in the art of trespass. Parking fertively down a long winding lane, car nose tucked deep in the hedge, we would scamper through knee high, dew soaked grass, sun bearly up, cold and fuzzy headed I was the happiest child in the whole wide world. My fears would cause my heart to race, my senses to excellerate into overdrive, startled at the calling of crows and the barking of dogs, trying hard to keep up with Dad as he fled off through the grass for cover. The smell of fox scent ripe on the breeze, the clatter of pheasents darting out of the spinneys, Dad was in tune but I, several beats off hurtled along like Pippy Longstockings, flapping in the wind, legs blue, hands numb but brain alive and sparkling in a festival synaptic euphoria. These are the points when we are formed, the charges of life that hit us head on, moments of extreme beauty, of devasting insight when the breath is riped from our bodies and we are reborn and reborn again in spontaneous happiness.