When I was a kid, about 9, my swimming instructor told me I’d never been a professional swimmer because I was uncoordinated.
Now, ignoring the fact that, maybe I could learn to be coordinated (spoiler alert: I could not), I’m pretty sure these are not things you say to a 9 year old. It’s little wonder that I ended up pushing him in the pool; not on the same day as this conversation, but around the same time.
This is the first thing I remember whenever I think about learning to swim as a kid. Being told I was uncoordinated. And I am, though, I’m worse now I’m old and less fit than that 9 year old who swam three times a week (and I did karate).
The second thing I remember is exactly how my dad taught me to swim. It was less being taught to swim and more being thrown into the swimming pool when i was 5.
Literally.
I take my kids swimming semi-regularly. They have swimming lessons at school. Flower has for a few years now and the Bean will soon, so I don’t need to teach them to swim. I can take them swimming and encourage their advances in swimming and mess around with the floats and not worry too much about the swimming part. We can have fun. Flower was very afraid of the water at first, for her first year of swimming lessons with school, she didn’t even go in the water. We spoke to the school about it and we all decided to leave her be, and give her time. She went in eventually and has slowly been getting less afraid and more confident.
We went swimming yesterday so she could show me how much progress she’s made. She wasn’t attached the wall the entire time, using two swim boards (one under each arm) she swam away from the wall into the pool. The bean copied her, though she had arm bands on and after a while she was happy to float and kick on her own in the pool and move around like that instead of attached to me. They both did really well, and had fun and it was worth the 21 quid just to be proud of them. They both want goggles now.
Dad never really did take us swimming as an activity, but because I swam -a lot and mum worked three jobs. Plus taking me swimming counted as part of his custody I think. My grandad took us swimming from time to time in the summer. My gramps couldn’t swim though. He always joked that he was a marine who couldn’t swim. He was a royal marine engineer, and stationed on the Orkney islands during the second world war. I don’t think he ever was stationed on a ship, but I know he did some time in France during the war. He didn’t like to talk about it much. My nan drove ammunition trucks but that’s another story.
Whenever he took us swimming, he didn’t really swim. He didn’t really need to be there, as me and my sister were very competent swimmers and I had done my8 Bronze, Silver and Gold swimming certificates and could make a makeshift float out of a pair of pyjama pants and swim under water for almost a full length. But even in the 80s, swimming pools weren’t going to let a couple of kids under ten swim on their own. My nan used to take us and watch from the stands, so did dad, but gramps would get in the water.
And then just stand there.
And he didn’t really have proper swim gear, but like the same stuff he wore to the beach when he was in his 20s and he would stand in the water up to his waist and cross his arms and stand there watching us.
Which, in retrospect, is really fucking weird and creepy out of context. But he was just being a good gramps and looking after us the best way he could. He couldn’t swim, but he sure as hell could make sure we were safe in the pool.
I think, as the kids get better and more confident in the pool, we’ll go more often. I miss swimming, and we went a lot more before Covid and lockdown and cancer. We’d made a lot of headway with getting Flower used to the water before it all went to pot. Hopefully, I can get back into some light swimming, my dodgy knee permitting!
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