I have a clear memory of my first time in the deep end of a pool. It was during a primary school swimming lesson in a pool in Luton. I must have been around seven years old. A brand new sensation of weightlessness and excitement. I felt brave and grown up and that’s where my passion began. I was good at swimming! I went from swimming widths to lengths.
Most of the swimming I have done has been in slightly grotty public pools. Notable exceptions are the swimming pools in Germany, which are modern and more like spa pools, sometimes with an opening to swim through to an outdoor pool. Amazing in winter. They are designed to be fun for children and good for the well-being of adults.
There was the pool at a David Lloyd gym, which was lovely but of course I didn’t use enough, so the cost per swim was outrageous. I was once a member of a gym that had female only days, when the pool, steam room and sauna were all no costumes required. I enjoyed naturist swimming.
From a child to a teenager, swimming was a part of my life. Once we had moved to and happily settled in Gloucestershire, both my primary and secondary schools had swimming pools.
The one at primary school was an outdoor pool. Pretty grim changing rooms, rubber verruca socks and a little chemical basin you had to walk through from the changing rooms to outdoors. Mum is also a good swimmer and she taught some of the swimming lessons, which was great.
I have very fond memories of that pool. From the coloured labels to sew on your costume as you reached a different level of swimming ability (the ultimate challenge being, of course, rescuing a black rubber brick from the bottom of the not very deep end), to winning my first cup at a swimming gala in a draw with my friend.
I imagine it was in the 80s when there was a public service advert called ‘ Learn to Swim’. I can still sing it:
Breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, and crawl. Doggy paddle, bellyflop, you can do them all. Learn to swim!
At secondary school we had an indoor pool. There were swimming lessons for PE, inter house swimming galas, and it was also open to the public evenings and weekends so my friends and I would go to swim, socialise and play in the water.
It was during these years that I joined a swimming club and was taught techniques for each stroke. I swam length after length after length. I was taught how to breathe, kick, stretch, reach, push, pull, glide. It was about the position of your head, shoulders, elbows, hands, fingers, hips, knees, ankles, toes. It was about rhythm, speed, and stamina.
I moved from the local swimming club to one a few miles away in a bigger pool. It was a competitive atmosphere, and if you caught up with the person in front of you, you would grab their ankle and pull them behind you, overtaking them. I was good but never very good. I had my ankle pulled more than pulling others’!
We were taught racing dives and tumble turns.
Those years of training gave me the ability to swim fast if I wanted, and for a long time. The smell of chlorine, the muscle memory in my body, the concentration on breath, striving for faster and further are feelings of pure joy. Head down, the sound of my breathing and the water. The world around me disappears and it’s just me, my body and my thoughts, or lack of them.
I swam less in my late teens and early 20s. I made pitiful use of the university swimming pool due to a ‘change in lifestyle‘. Let’s just say the first thing I did when I left the pool was have a cigarette.
In my late 20s and early 30s, I was on a constant search for a nice pool hence my ventures into paid gyms. Grottiness aside, the other problem with swimming pools is other swimmers. Unfortunately you can’t grab the swimmer in front of you by the ankle and overtake them.
By my mid 30s, MS was reducing my mobility and making me feel less safe poolside so swimming faded out of my life.
And then came the 2012 Paralympics and Stephanie Millward. An Olympic swimmer with MS. She was an inspiration and a revelation to me. Was there a possibility that I could still swim?
I looked into disabled swimming sessions and found the Marlins swimming club. Every Sunday evening, disabled swimmers and able bodied volunteers would be in the pool for 45 minutes.
With the help of the volunteers, I managed to climb down the steps into the pool. An elderly man, George, who had helped found the club 50 years ago, then supported me while I tried a few strokes. It took me a while to feel confident, but then it all came back to me and I was swimming.
Once I started, I didn’t stop. I swam and swam, length after length after length. For the first time in years, I could move without the fear of falling and for a sustained amount of time.
I felt freedom, joy, a sense of achievement and pride. I was still a strong swimmer, even with arms only. Breathe, stretch, reach, push, pull, glide.
It was a social swimming group and everyone was lovely, but they soon got used to the fact that I just put my head down and swam non-stop for 45 minutes.
I got in the habit of counting lengths, and when I turned 40 that year, I thought of things that had happened in each year of my life as I swam. I realised what a rich life I had lived.
One evening, I saw a poster at the pool to swim the distance from Dover to Calais for charity. The aim was to do it in 12 weeks which I knew I would never manage, but I decided to take up the challenge.
It gave me the motivation to swim faster and further. One evening, I swam 1500m and was awarded a badge to sew on my swimming costume.
I began a record of how many lengths I swam each week, which also became a record of my health.
By the end of 2015 I struggled to walk from the car to the pool and back and get changed, so I employed a PA to help take me swimming. I could no longer use the steps to get in and out of the pool, but there were pool chairs and hoist and once I was in the pool I could still just swim alone.
I found another disabled swimming session on a Saturday evening, a bit further away and decided to give it a go. It wasn’t a social group and there were far fewer people in the pool.
The pool was separated into lanes, and I generally had a lane to myself, and sometimes the whole pool, Absolute bliss!
It took me months to finish the challenge of 1416 lengths, but I was so proud! Plus generous sponsors raised £370 for Aspire
Once I’d finished the challenge, I was a bit lost as to how to motivate myself, so I decided to swim back again! Calais to Dover it was, just for me this time. Breathe, stretch, reach, push, pull, glide.
I would alternate between the Saturday and Sunday sessions, but the Saturday sessions definitely suited me best. It was here I completed my trip back to Dover.
So often I would think about how dreadful it would be if I ever lost the ability to swim. By 2018 my mobility was declining further. I had two PAs to help me get from home to in the pool, but was still able to swim alone.
During the summer holidays there was a disabled session with an exercise class in the shallow end. It prevented me from swimming lengths but I would still swim widths in the deep end. Full circle from my beginnings in the pool.
However, I had gone from swimming 20 to 30 lengths a week to around 15 widths a week. And then it happened. Gladly, I didn’t know my last swimming session was going to be my last but since the end of October 2018 I have never swum again.
The worst case scenario has happened, but writing this has taken me back to the pool and that feeling of freedom. It is one of the many things I have lost in the last few years, but a significant one for my independence, freedom, and headspace.
Each length brought me joy, and I am proud and grateful for every one of them.
During the process of writing this, I found the public service advert Learn to Swim (I had remembered the words correctly!) and the record of the lengths I swam from Calais to Dover, up until my last widths a week before I went into hospital.
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