About forty
years ago I taught myself to swim in Bacup baths. Since then, I’ve swum on a
fairly regular basis in pools all over Greater Manchester and Lancashire, London,
Devon, Cornwall and anywhere else I’ve happened to be living, working and holidaying.
So many pools, some old, some new, some quirky, some like glass cathedrals, but always the same swimmers: beginners, improvers, dynamic torpedoes, and people who simply want to claim a bit of quiet for themselves – all ploughing up and down, up and down.
When I moved to Witney in Oxfordshire, one of the first things I did was join Windrush Leisure Centre. Swimming after work is calming and strengthening. I was entering my 50s and keen
to maintain good health. They do laid-back evening sessions which are quiet and focused.
I remember meeting a woman who was swimming the channel. "How many lengths is that?" I asked. "1,416." She said it had changed her whole lifestyle. She felt better than she'd felt in years. Another woman I met was swimming right up until the week before she gave birth. Her labour was virtually painless and only lasted a couple of hours. I decided there and then I'd do the Channel challenge, but then someone high up decided we would swim in
rectangles from now on. I checked out the other local pools. Everyone was still swimming up
and down. Only Witney was banning lengths. Bizarre, but I had no reason to think that swimming wouldn't continue to be an invigorating and inspiring part of my weekly routine.
So many pools, some old, some new, some quirky, some like glass cathedrals, but always the same swimmers: beginners, improvers, dynamic torpedoes, and people who simply want to claim a bit of quiet for themselves – all ploughing up and down, up and down.
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The thing
I’ve noticed with pools that have one or two basic rules is this: people
don’t dive bomb and run along the sides or attempt to plunge head-first into
shallow water; they get on with what they've come to do and hardly anyone comes to any harm. Swimmers are generally a rather friendly polite lot and altercations are very rare. We manage to glide past each other without mishap and try to give way to less confident people as well as steer clear of superheroes aiming to complete mega-lengths in record time.
At Witney, however, there are lots of rules. One lane is fast and clockwise, one is medium and counterclockwise, another is slow and clockwise, and the larger bit is for general use and goes counterclockwise, so you have to decide if you’re fast, medium or slow or whether you belong to some other category like floaters, couples engaging in foreplay or people who want to have a pleasant chat in the shallow end. There are also a handful of swimmers who are Very Committed to the Rectangle and this is a category completely unique to Witney.
At Witney, however, there are lots of rules. One lane is fast and clockwise, one is medium and counterclockwise, another is slow and clockwise, and the larger bit is for general use and goes counterclockwise, so you have to decide if you’re fast, medium or slow or whether you belong to some other category like floaters, couples engaging in foreplay or people who want to have a pleasant chat in the shallow end. There are also a handful of swimmers who are Very Committed to the Rectangle and this is a category completely unique to Witney.
Now, I’m
not fast, and I doubt very much if I’m medium, so I dived into the deep end and began swimming in the slow lane in a clockwise fashion,
which is impossible, given it’s only a lane’s width. I discovered this when
someone reprimanded me for bumping into him whilst doing backstroke. "By the way," he said. "Shouldn’t you be in the medium lane?" I apologised and swam under the
ropes to the next lane, but of course, I forgot which direction I was supposed
to be going in and got told off again. "By the way," the next person said. "Shouldn’t you be in the slow lane?"
The thing
with rules is the more you have, the more confused people get, and the more
confused people get, the angrier they are. I regularly get told off for being
at the wrong speed. Nobody knows what the official rectangle speed is supposed
to be, but most people have their own opinion. For the floaters it’s a nice bobbing along tempo; for the couple indulging in foreplay and the those
having a conversation in the shallow end, it’s zero knots per hour; as for
the rest of us, it seems that whatever
you do is wrong, unless you're the person who's doing it right.
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I should
mention that these are adult sessions. They can, on occasion, be utter bliss after a 12-hour
day. You turn up at 9 o’clock and, if you're one of only half a dozen people,
you really can just plough up and down for a whole hour at your own pace. 50 –
60 lengths before bedtime is the best de-stresser I know. Unless the
guard enforces the rectangle on you because one of the gang of three has just
turned up at 9:35. “It’s for safety,” he explains. “But we’re grown-ups and
there are only four of us. Why bother
heating up the middle of the pool if we’re only allowed to go round the outside?" He doesn't answer.
Witney surpassed itself last week. I turned up to discover a significantly reduced
general bit swimming counterclockwise. It was sad watching the floaters bobbing like gentle potatoes amongst the Very Committed to the Rectangle gang. The frottaging
couple was there, and the conversationalists were in full swing, so there was barely room to turn a corner. However, the
slow lane was free so I took my chances and dived in. To my left were the mediums
and, next to them, the superheroes powering along nicely. Farthest away was
the reason for the sudden squishing up of the general bit: something that
appeared to be aquaprayer. That’s novel, I thought. There was a lot of
kneeling and standing and some walking about and an enthusiastic instructor
making prayer hands.
I got to
length 32 and was feeling stronger and stronger, having settled into good deep
diaphragmatic breathing when a man crashed into me. “Sorry,” we both said,
because we’re adults, then he politely informed me I was going the wrong way. I
turned around and blow me if they hadn’t exchanged the slow clockwise sign for
a medium counterclockwise. I wasn’t just going the wrong way, I was going the
wrong speed. I apologised again and swam under the rope and joined the floaters,
frottagers and chatterboxes. It was chaos, but worse was to come. The guard
suddenly decided to remove the ropes. Now we were all in it together and no one
knew whether they were supposed to be fast, medium, slow, praying, clockwise,
counterclockwise or what. The only people who seemed utterly unfazed were the
frottaging couple and the two potatoes floating slowly towards the exit.
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