'It's brassic, but felt amazing afterwards'*
Why on earth is this landlubber contemplating dips in the river, Googling outdoor swimming kit and buying tickets for moonlight swims in the lido?
Dear reader, how are you?
Greetings from sunny Penarth in south Wales where I landed yesterday afternoon. I parked up outside my sister and brother-in-law’s flat, sent them a text to say I’d arrived, but figuring they’d still be working, walked straight down to the pier and looked out to sea. It’s amazing how six hours of diving can be put right with a takeaway cup of tea, some sun and the sound of waves against the pebbly beach.
This piece has taken me longer to write than I anticipated so thank you in advance or reading and overlooking any typos and errors!
Being in or near the water has been a theme this past week after inhaling
debut book, her memoir Breaking Waves. In it she shares how wild swimming, how being in water has given her solace and respite from grief and pain, from the death of her brother, health challenges, leaving her career as an Air Traffic Controller and birth trauma. But it’s not just her story that she shares.She weaves in stories from some of the women she’s met while outdoor swimming over the years. Women both close to home and across the globe. We’re talking women who’ve swum around Manhattan and English channel relays and that’s just for starters.
Reading Breaking Waves last week led to a rare dipping of my toes in the ice cold beck that runs in between Cow and Calf rocks and Rocky Valley on Friday lunchtime. This is a beck I’ve crossed countless times and not once stopped to take my trainers off for a paddle. This small step escalated quickly into buying tickets for a couple of moonlight swims at Ilkley Lido in June and September, joining the Otley Bluetits swimming community and Googling outdoor swimming kit.
From land lubber to wild swimmer (maybe)
The things is though, I grew up in landlocked Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Bar a handful of family holidays in Brittany and north Wales, and a few Sunday afternoons in the public swimming pool in St. Albans with dad, water didn’t feature hugely when I was growing up. It was all violin and piano lessons, the occasional netball or hockey match with school.
I played tennis a bit once I left the organised PE and games lessons of school behind, but that was about it. We weren’t really an outdoorsy kind of family. Museums, art galleries and concerts. Sitting around a kitchen table and chatting over food and the newspapers and books. Outdoor swimming? What?
This was brought home with startling clarity the one and only time I’ve been scuba diving, this was in the Great Barrier Reef in 2001. My approach from the moment we landed on Hamilton Island up until we sailed out from our island idyll was to pretend that I wasn’t about to face my fear. I could barely put my head under water in the swimming pool and here I was, about to wriggle into a wetsuit, don a mask and oxygen tank and dive down I don’t know how many metres beneath the surface and swim with the fish. By contrast, this was my husbands idea of heaven.
I was fine with the sailing bit of the excursion, I could pretend that when the moment came I could duck out of it, say, ‘No, no you go. I’ll be fine here.’ I probably took a book with me in anticipation of having a few hours peace and quiet to myself, sitting on the deck in the sun while everyone else was in the water. But no.
While my husband and the rest of the group were beyond excited, listening intently to get through the safety talks, the ‘put your masks on and place your face in the water’ stage and head into the sea, I was frozen at the ‘put your face in the water’ stage.
Face in water, really?
I was spotted by a kind female guide who floated over to me, gently voiced and acknowledged my fear without laughing at me or minimising how I was feeling. My other fear, being laughed at. She pointed out that having got this far future me would be pretty p***** off that I’d sat on the boat while the others had the dive of a lifetime. And also, sitting it out wasn’t an option.
And so, with a firm hand she cajoled me. We ignored everyone else and she broke down each step, helping me through each one, letting me take my time, but not too much time, all the while saying ‘there, see, you can do it’. And I did.
The others had long left the boat but no matter, she stuck with me and we dived together. There were lots of reassuring thumbs up, pointing out sea creatures and just that one time when I needed to go up and poke my head above the sea, ‘just needed to check the sky was still there, did you?’ she smiled, ‘pretty much’ my answer and back down into the sea we went again.
Those Sunday afternoons in the heaving with bodies swimming pool with dad where I was terrified of being dunked under water, and being kicked by a flailing limb whilst also secretly wishing I could jump in with the freedom so many others seemed to possess, hadn’t prepared me for diving in the Barrier Reef.
Neither had the swimming lessons at secondary school in the unheated outdoor swimming pool. We’d be marched out of the changing rooms across the walkway in our regulation black swimming costumes, too small scratchy towels and swim caps and in to the freezing pool hidden behind wooden fences.
Teeth chattering, mottled legs we’d shiver while Miss Williams shouted instructions to us that we’d usually misunderstand before scrambling into the pool and trying to stay warm during repeated widths of front crawl and breast stroke. Then it was the pain of trying to wrestle out of a damp swimming costume, getting dry and back into our school uniform, the rest of the day spent with damp hair, body parts and school bag.
Six months living in Malaga in my third year at university (I studied French and Spanish at Newcastle Poly and spent my third year in Aix-en-Provence and Malaga) gave me an introduction to seaside living. That’s if you consider slathering on Hawaiian Tropic, gossiping about the antics from the night before while wearing cheap bikinis from the market as learning to live by the sea, ditto the summer I spent in Palma de Mallorca the summer after I graduated. These beach experiences were less about being in the water than hoping - in vain - that my milky white skin might, just might gather a little colour for once.
It’s not screaming ‘loves being the water’ is it even though I love that weightless feeling, the feeling of being supported by the water once I’m in.
I guess I never grew up knowing what my body could do, I’ve always been quick to discount myself. ‘I can’t do that’ the refrain and the longer that’s gone on, the harder it’s been to break that pattern, chronic fatigue and cancer compounding those beliefs.
There is also the vulnerability that comes with from swapping the safety of clothes that cover your body, that hide and mask your bodily insecurities and wriggling into a teeny tiny piece of material made of nylon, polyester and elastane. I was, still am, more of a tuck your shirt in rather than let it all hang out kinda person.
Living ‘by’ the sea rather than being ‘in’ it
And yet I so miss living by the sea, being by the water. We spent three years living in Bournemouth between 2014 and 2017 with Alum Chine beach at the bottom of our road but those years feel shorter and shorter as time moves on. I haven’t been back since we moved to Ilkley, but I am feeling the urge to revisit the stretch of beach that provided me with such peace and solace during the three challenging years when mum, dad and grandma died. It’s ten years this May since mum died, August for grandma and September for dad. 2015 was a tough year.
I’d love to tell you that I was in and out of the sea all the time when we lived there but I wasn’t. I did spend hours staring out to the horizon, walking up and down the prom with the dog.
I kept the sea at arms length, other than walking into the shallows, leaving the bounding in and out to the dog and children. I guess the key word here is living ‘by’ the sea rather than being ‘in’ it.
From the beck to the river
And now we’re in land locked Ilkley although we’re surrounded by water more than I initially thought. I mean there’s the beck that runs off the moor, passing our house and into the Rive Wharfe, a river that provides swim and dipping spots through the Yorkshire Dales. Our neighbours on the other side of the beck have created steps from their garden down the bank to a plunge pool in the beck and installed a sauna too.
Now there’s an idea.
Ilkley is an active town full of people doing things. Cycling, running, hiking, outdoor swimming. You can’t move for people moving about in lycra, Goretex and technical fabric. We have outdoor clothing shops galore, neither are we short on cafes for post-endeavour coffees. I mean, we have Ilkley Moor looming over us, it’s no surprise that this landscape seeps into every corner of our lives.
It can be intimidating when you don’t feel like you fit that active or outdoorsy image, as I don’t, or didn’t though. As time passes, and it’ll be eight years this autumn since we moved to Yorkshire and I feel stronger physically, am less prone to comparing myself to others who might whizz past me on the moor, am more secure in what makes me tick and what I need to make me tick, I’m finding my own way. My own way of being in this incredible landscape in a way that feels good for me mentally, emotionally and physically.
From the shallows of the sea
And so I figure, while reading Breaking Waves, why not give wild swimming a go? Is it time for me to stop letting this what? Fear, mental block get in the way of doing something I feel instinctively will be good for me. Lord knows the world is scary and chaotic. Finding ways to be quiet, to laugh, to spend time with others outdoors, shedding the layers of daily life feels like a good thing. And I hear cake and tea are often involved too.
There might be other, warmer ways to find this peace but I also want to have a go so that I can stop being the person on the river bank observing, the person who labels themselves as someone who doesn’t do things like wild swimming rather than someone who’s given it a go and even enjoyed it. Maybe.
Someone who, when tickets go on sale for the Ilkley Lido summer solstice swim buys one and swims under the breaking sky of the longest day rather than looking wistfully at the photos of smiling (mostly) women on Instagram later in that day.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve shut down chances to do things through baseless fear that I’m not built do these things, a perception that I’m not that type of person.
I’m aware of the dangers of wild swimming, the shock of the cold and I’ll ensure I’m in good hands when I head to the water whether it’s with friends who are already experienced wild swimmers (*including the friend who wrote the comment I borrowed for the headline), the Bluetits community of swimmers I’ve stumbled across down the road in Otley and there’s Emma too, who is generous with her support and general wild swimming enabling.
Asking the water to do the holding
Plus, after writing about all the things we hold onto the other week, the idea of asking the water to hold me, to allow me to float freely, even if it is for for a few freezing seconds, sounds pretty good.
And that, my friends is why I bought tickets for moonlight swims at Ilkley Lido in June and September on Sunday afternoon. Maybe I’m mad, but something’s drawing me to the water this Spring so wish me luck and I’ll report back!
Thank you as ever for reading and supporting my writing and please jump into the comments with any wild swimming tips and suggestions!
Harriet
We too have a burn that runs right past the house (and a sauna). I keep looking at the natural pool by the bridge. Maybe today will be the day I brave it?
What a beautiful journey. I have always loved the water, the shore is my sacred space, but when I found myself in New Zealand on a boat to snorkle with the dolphins I coudn't get myself off the boat. I'd been snorkeling before, but the wet suit. Something about it felt so restrictive I couldn't breathe. And yes, future me is annoyed at past me for not pushing through. Love your bravery.