Opinion

Claire Simpson: Returning to the swimming pool was like coming home

Some swimming pools have re-opened as lockdown has eased. Picture from Press Association, iStock
Some swimming pools have re-opened as lockdown has eased. Picture from Press Association, iStock Some swimming pools have re-opened as lockdown has eased. Picture from Press Association, iStock

“If I were called in/ To construct a religion/ I should make use of water.” So said English poet Philip Larkin. He wrote about how going to church should involve a fording to “dry, different clothes”. His liturgy would refer to “sousing” and a “furious devout drench”.

It’s no accident that water is so important in the Christian tradition - from a warm baptismal trickle on a baby’s head to a full immersion. How strange it was to see fonts drained before the start of lockdown. That for me was the first sign that mid-March was going to be only the start of a long road.

While the re-opening of churches has helped to meet our spiritual needs, further joy came, for me anyway, when my posh gym’s swimming pool was allowed to re-open a couple of weeks ago.

I feel about public swimming pools the way others feel about pubs or hairdressers. “How could I have taken you for granted?” I said (thankfully not aloud) as I scampered to the pool one midweek evening.

It was all still there: the heavy door you have to lean all your weight on to get out of the women’s changing rooms; the over-lit corridor to the pool; that hit of heat and chlorine; the bliss of slipping into the water and navigating the scratchy markers to get to the slow lane. After that first kick off the blue tiled wall, I feared I’d forgotten how to swim, that I’d mess up my breathing and end up with a mouthful of water. But after a few laps those fears melted away.

One of the many things I love about swimming is that it takes you into a different world where the only thing that matters is how you make use of water.

As soon as I get into the pool, all I have to do is move my arms and legs and settle into rhythmic breathing. I don’t even have to move my limbs particularly well or efficiently - which is handy because I have a uniquely slow and splashy ‘technique’ which has been honed over many decades in glamorous leisure centres from Ballymoney to Newry. Clocking up a mile takes somewhere between a long time and an embarrassingly long time, depending on slow I want to move. There’s no competition in swimming laps, not for me anyway, no racing, no struggling to see who can lift the heaviest weight or run the fastest. It’s movement for the sheer joy of it.

The gym and I have a different relationship now. On my first evening back, I was one of only three or four swimmers and the pool has remained fairly empty since. Rather than relax in the sauna or linger under a hot shower after a swim, I now scuttle to the changing rooms, towel down and throw on my clothes.

There’s a degree of risk in returning to public spaces during the pandemic but for me it’s worth it. It’s also a privilege to be able to swim when many of our leisure centre pools remain closed.

The ‘Better Health’ adverts launched by the British government last week focus on exercise as a means of weight loss. According to the ads, we’re engaged in a fight against cancer, heart disease and coronavirus. Cue lots of images of lycra-clad people grimacing and struggling with weights. What the ads don’t convey is just how good it feels to move in a way which pleases you. Swimming has been a good friend to me since childhood and hopefully will allow me to stay active and mobile for many decades to come. And because I actually enjoy it, I want to keep coming back. As someone who’s suffered from insomnia for the last three years, the closure of pools meant that my sleep patterns became more and more erratic as lockdown progressed.

How different it feels now. After that first visit to the swimming pool a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t bother showering when I got home. I climbed into bed, my hair and body sticky from chlorine, and felt very grateful to be alive and healthy. And I slept better than I have in months.