In Good Company: Don't Jump In - You Might Be Thrown Out!
If you go down to the swimming baths today be prepared for wagging fingers and disapproving whistles, Enid Blackburn warns.
Are your children rapidly driving you out of control? Are you running out of suitable punishments? Then why not take them to the local baths! An hour or two spent under strict supervision there should soon restore the equilibrium.
But it saves a lot of whistle-blowing if you explain the rules before you go.
Swimming is allowed – within reason. There is a long list of ‘Do nots’ stuck to the bath’s wall and for safety’s sake these must be adhered to.
Then there is another long list of unwritten frivolities which are severely whistled upon by the badge-wearing guards. No nonsense here. This is a swimming bath and they have ways of making you swim. Naughty daddies must not ride offsprings on their backs - the power behind the whistle sees to that. No bodily contact is allowed with Mum – it makes the guards whistle. Yes, you can dive in from the board, but jumping in is only allowed from whichever side does not evoke a sharp blast. But there is no need to worry about the rules really, any one of four attendants will be pleased to point them out. They all have especially flexible index fingers.
I am not certain about the rules concerning spectators, which explains the neurotic feeling I get the moment I enter the swing doors. For instance, do we cross right leg over left in the sitting position, or vice versa? Whichever position I adopt seems to depress the attendants and they are definitely not impressed with my front teeth.
Perhaps there is a law against shopping trolleys (not the supermarket version), as mine seemed to incite such alarm the moment I wheeled it in. I wondered if the dog had followed me. I know we are both slightly mis-shapen, due to excessive weight carrying over the years, but we are quite harmless. Did they think it was some strange nautical contraption I was going to sail up and down the bath in, I wondered as I tried to ignore the smouldering glances?
One poker-faced performed a mime about something that ‘ought not to be allowed,’ the other agreed, her whistle-hand twitching excitedly. I considered detaching the wheels and popping them out of sight in the bag. Perhaps this would bring the colour back to their cheeks. But two little boys playing hide and seek and a girl laughing and splashing soon had them whistling again.
It is amazing how infectious the abrasiveness can be. When my youngest daughter dared to emerge from the bath without permission, I was outraged! With a realistic, rigid finger impression that would have delighted any whistle wearer, ‘In that bath’ I ordered. When I saw her unwind her twisted legs in the shallow end I realised she had been to ask me where the toilets were.
Yes, I could see it was time to leave. After a while the atmosphere gets up my nose!
Charles Lamb wrote ‘I have been trying all my life to like Scotsmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair.’ I have reached a similar conclusion regarding autocratic females.
On holiday we met a lovely lifeguard. I use the term lifeguard loosely, he actually had two jobs. During the day he guarded the bathers and in the evening became an entertainer in the ballroom. Both were places of enjoyment. Although the large overcrowded pool boasted only two attendants, no lives or tempers were lost and the only overbearing obstacle was the heat.
But even this did not stop him, or us from being happy.
