Thursday 18 October 2018

Shout out to my unsung heroes #1

Late afternoon, high Summer, sunshine, warm water.   I was elated; I had just managed to propel myself across from one end to the other – only the shortest distance, but still -  my first width! With no armbands!

Do you remember that feeling when you learned to swim?  The moment of transition, I mean. Much like learning to ride a bike - the first time you manage it unaided comes as a big surprise.  There’s a sense of disbelief.  In your head:  Are you sure no-one's pushing me?  Are you sure there’s nobody helping? 

And then, it sinks in: there’s no turning back, you won’t lose it, you’ve got the knack, you’ve got it!  and you’re away.  There are still things to learn, but the biggest block of all – the lack of confidence to try – has been conquered.

Mine happened in Mrs E’s back garden.  There was a small group of us, we were about nine or ten years old.   The school trips to the local indoor pool had been awful for us.  We were the inferiors in this scenario; we couldn’t join the main activities because we hadn’t yet learned to swim.  So the teacher cordoned us off in a tiny secton of the shallow end, gave us armbands and (pretty useless) polystyrene floats, shouted out a few instructions which made us feel worse (it wasn’t instructions we needed, it was understanding) and treated us as a major inconvenience to their proceedings.  Fellow classmates dived and jumped in at the deep end and we just tiptoed about nervously, never daring to venture beyond where our feet could touch the floor, not believing our clumsy little bodies were ever designed to float.    I already hated Rounders, I dreaded Sports Day and now Swimming was another thing I couldn't do properly.  You know, it still irks me today that my school experience in general (both primary and secondary) didn’t place as much value in the ability to draw pictures as it did in running or hitting a ball.  How different things might have felt if it had.

However, Mrs E came to the rescue, and here I am writing about her because I started thinking about the unsung heroes in my life – nothing grand or dramatic, nobody saved me from sinking in quicksand or from falling down a well, but there are people I think of whose inspiration in one form or other made a huge personal difference.

She had this little pool in her back garden and had come to some arrangement with my school to start teaching the non-swimmers in small private groups each week.   No more trips to the local indoor baths with their stench of chlorine and fiddly lockers.  That Summer in her garden she nurtured my confidence with great patience, kindness and individual attention, until after a number of lessons everything just fell into place.  I'll never forget that moment, just as I'll never forget the cycling one either.  Anyway, it was just something she did and enjoyed, and once I’d learned there was no need to go back and I was off to secondary school and I hardly ever saw her again, nor had much reason to think of her.  But all these years on I realise what a simple difference she made - not that I do a lot of swimming these days but the point is:  I know I can.  Any time I’ve ever lowered myself into a pool, fooled around in a lake, or let the salty waves of the sea support me as they rise and fall and tangle seaweed round my feet, I  should thank Mrs E for teaching me to trust in myself.

Wire: Our Swimmer

13 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thank you Martin. I was eventually drawn to the deep end :-)

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  2. Replies
    1. Thanks CC, the pool was a bit like that too I think, she kept it nicely heated...

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  3. What a lovely idea for a series C. I guess we must all have a few unsung heroes dotted through our lives, but for most of us they fade from memory.
    I was a whizz in the pool with a polystyrene float. Alas though, I never did learn to swim without one.

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    1. Thanks TS, I'd be interested to know of other people's similar heroes, the ones we probably don't appreciate at all until we get to a certain age.
      I'm afraid the polystyrene float never worked for me - all but my hands would still sink! Never too late to learn to swim though, I'm sure.

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    2. It's far too late. No-one deserves to see my decrepit body in swimming trunks.

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  4. Another top post, C. My mum says that I caused my swimming teacher to have an actual nervous breakdown. I had armbands, floats, and inflatable dolphin and that pole they used to stand on the side and reach in with...but still I sank to the bottom. My teacher actually did go off on long-term sick, and my mum swears it was the stress of trying to teach me.

    Every Friday now I take Sam to swimming lessons and sit at the side of the baths while his teachers show him how to do it. The first time I took him, seeing him trying so hard, and so happy to be doing it, made me cry. Most things make me cry these days though.

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    1. Ah thanks Rol - but oh no about your swimming teacher! I have an interesting image in my head of a boy entirely encompassed by inflatable floating things being prodded with a stick. I'm sure it wasn't you who caused her long-term sickness, it was more likely the smell of chlorine day in day out, ugh...

      I can understand you being moved at Sam's swimming lessons. Great that he's learning so young, he'll be well-equipped.

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  5. I recently drove by the public baths I learned to swim in 50 years ago. And though I was safely cocooned in my car driving past at speed, I swear I had a full on flashback & could hear that distinct swimming baths echo and smell that sixties chlorine. *Shudders*

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    1. Shudders, indeed! I can also get that horrible feeling/taste memory from when you accidentally get that chlorinated water up your nose.

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  6. Mrs E sounds lovely - you were so lucky to have had that chance to learn to swim without all the distraction of people like "Mike - He can swim like a fish" (remember him?).

    I too was relegated with two others to the shallow end with a polystyrene float (they always had bits gouged out of them too) - I came from a small village without a pool, but went to secondary school in a bigger town where the kids had all learnt to swim when they were young. So embarrassing but I eventually got the hang of it although by the time you get to age 13/14 mixed swimming lessons were less than fun. My friend's peach coloured swimsuit might have been a good idea in the shop but it was rendered see-through in the water.

    By the way, I'm seeing a pattern emerge here. By it's very nature blogging attracts people who are drawn to words, stories and in our case music. Seems none of us were ever much of a Sporty Spice - Makes sense really!

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    1. Yes I'm so grateful to Mrs E. Not sure how I'd have got on without her and the nice gentle set-up she had - no "Mike"s there!

      I sympathise with you re. the adolescent mixed swimming lessons! My secondary school was all girls, so no such issues, although I was once late for the lesson and got changed in such a rush that I didn't realise until I was stepping through the footbath on the way to the pool that I had pulled my costume on back to front! Aarghh - that low slung back - a little too revealing! Quickly dashed back before anyone else noticed....

      Indeed, we don't appear to be dominated by very sporty types on these pages. Far more into words, music and art. Much more my scene!

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