Open Writing

I can’t remember just how old I was when it was decided that I should learn to swim. I wasn’t very happy about this. It was on a par with piano lessons, and anyway my experience of water was that it was wet, usually cold and there was a lot of it.

There was another drawback -- a green knitted swimming costume. At that time all little girls had to wear them on holiday, and if I remember correctly, little boys struggled with knitted knickers, and I do mean struggle. They sagged. Even if they only got a bit wet you had to struggle to hang on to your dignity. And if they got wet on the first day of your holiday, they weren’t properly dry on the day you were coming home. If you sat on the sand it clung to your cossie, and it was awful.

That was of no consequence or excuse to the grown-ups. I was duly taken to learn to swim by my aunt to Ramsden Street Baths, where I spent most of the time clinging to the side and trying not to get my face wet. My aunt’s patience used to run out. So, with Granny keeping her eye on me, Aunty went off and did her own thing. She was a large lady and was a very strong swimmer. She did things like the Australian crawl, as they called it in those days, and could dive off the top board. And she didn’t seem to mind getting her face wet. I was very impressed but I tried not to look it. She had large, what I thought were called ‘buswams‘, but more about those later. She tried very hard but never got me to take both feet off the bottom.

My father said he would take up the challenge. I don’t suppose it was really allowed even in those days, but on lovely summer days people used to go to Cupwith Reservoir to picnic and swim. I was filled with horror. We all went on the bus to Nont Sarah’s and then walked what seemed miles up the road to what to me seemed an enormous stretch of water in the middle of the moors.

Everybody else was having a wonderful time splashing about and laughing. Not me. There were bulrushes taller than me, and the water was freezing, and worst of all there was mud. At least at the baths there were tiles on the floor, but my toes curl up now with the thought of that mud squeezing up between my toes. And there were worms. I had to do something to put an end to this torture, so I did take both feet off the bottom, and Father claimed victory.

Now back to the ‘buswams’. Aunty was a very beautiful lady. She really was, and in her younger days she was a model, called then a ‘mannequin’. She modelled outsize clothes for a store in Manchester and sometimes one in Liverpool. She died two years ago aged 92, still very articulate and quite imposing still.

Now she had swimming costume trouble. Grown-ups then didn’t have knitted cossies, but they were made of thickish material and always black. And when they got wet, they sagged. Well, Aunt had had one or two near misses when one or even both her buswams had nearly escaped when the top of her cossie dropped. She had been to this store in Manchester and came home triumphant. She had managed to find the perfect garment. It was very expensive. She said it was made by Jantsen for large ladies. It had a high neck.

Well, we went to Cleveleys for our summer holiday. The new outfit was about to make its debut. Off we went on the tram to Blackpool and to, I think, the Derby Baths. I did take both my feet off the bottom, but in the shallow end. Aunt dived in, everything perfect and in its proper place.
At one end of the baths there was a chute. It looked terribly high up to me, but people were whizzing down it and enjoying it. Aunty climbed up the steps and came down spectacularly, face down, arms outstretched in front of her. Success! The new costume stayed in place at the neck, but unfortunately it went into the middle, and she ended up with a buswam out at each side like water-wings. It caused hilarity in the family whenever swimming was mentioned, but she laughed as hard as us.
I go swimming every Tuesday with a friend, purely for exercise. She does fifty lengths to my thirty. I do mine very sedately, still trying not to get my face wet.