One day I'll swim the channel...but not here, I'm afraid

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.

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.

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.

I’ve been punched by a woman who thought I was too fast, had fingernails scraped along my skin by people who wanted me out of their way because I was too slow, been bashed by flailing arms and even barred from entering the shallow end. One morning a gang of three stood legs apart and arms stretched out to prevent me getting any further because I was doing lengths. “But there’s no sign up today,” I said. The rules, you see, can be quite arbitrary. “But WE swim in rectangles,” said one gang member. “We LIKE rectangles.” “No problem,” I said. “I like lengths and we’re allowed to do what we want today.” I called the sleepy guard over. “She can do whatever she wants,” he mumbled. So, I continued my lengths and the gang of three glared at me for the remainder of the session and got some sly kicks in when he wasn't looking.

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.