The Water and the Wild

The poet Sylvia Plath (October 27 1932 – February 11 1963) was a keen swimmer, and her writings make many references to being in the water. For instance a 1947 letter to her mother mentions a long cycle ride to a beach where 'The waters were a light, salty blue and a sandy, smooth bar stretched out into the ocean. The water was free from crabs and seaweed, and I went swimming with Sally… We had loads of fun swimming underwater and sitting on the smooth sandy bottom pretending to comb our hair'.  Plath was staying at the time in a summer sailing camp at Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard. Going to Smith College in Massachusetts gave her plenty of time to spend at the beaches on Cape Cod. A 1951 letter describes a restless night-time swim:  'I looked at the angry grey ocean, darkening in late twilight. So I put on my bathing suit and ran barefoot down to the beach. It is a queer sensation to swim at night, but it was very warm after the rain. So I splashed and kicked and the f

Walpole Bay Tidal Pool encloses four acres worth of the sea between high walls on the Margate sea front at the Cliftonville end. When it opened in 1937 it was the largest pool in the UK, not sure whether it still is but there is plenty of room for swimmers. It tapers from 167 metres wide at the beach end to 91m at the seaward end.   You can walk in from the beach with the pool getting gradually deeper to a depth of around 2m, or if you walk around the walls there are ladders at various points to get in somewhere deeper The 'floor' of the pool is the natural beach, essentially you are just swimming in the sea with a bit of protection from the vicissitudes of tides and waves. The pool was originally built to ensure that people could easily swim/play in the water at low tide when people would otherwise have to walk a long way out to reach the water. But at high tide the walls are submerged and the pool is more or less invisible. On our most recent trip last month we timed our arri

Anita Klein, Swimming in the Rain (2020) The artist and printmaker Anita Klein has been painting swimmers for a while, but Covid lockdown has prompted her to create and bring together a whole body of swim-themed work - the subject of her exhibition 'Water' at Eames Fine Art Gallery (Bermondsey Street, London SE1) which we visited last week. There are swims in pools, in lakes, in the rain, in Italy, in Lake Windermere, and in London's Royal Docks which like many other swimmers this year Anita took to for the first time when so many other swimming spaces in London were closed. As Anita told 'Outdoor Swimmer' magazine (October 2020):  'Before lockdown I was definitely more of a pool swimmer, but I missed swimming so much, then I discovered the London Royal Docks and I realised it was possible to swim again.…Swimming at the Dock has been really beautiful. Have you ever noticed the reflections of the buildings? There are these buildings that are vertically straight i

“I’ve got a magic charm That I keep up my sleeve, I  can walk the ocean floor And never have to breathe" Maya Angelou, Life Doesn't Frighten Me (That would be very handy for swimming! Photo taken at 'Do you live believe in magic?' exhibition at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, 2020)

Our coldest and warmest swims of the year (so far?) took place on the same memorable day at the start of February 2020 in two nearby pools in the West Country. Portishead Open Air Pool The cold one was at Portishead Open Air Pool , 7°C with a few hardy swimmers and very welcoming staff followed by lunch in the volunteer-run cafe.  The story of the Pool is told in a book by John Birkinshaw, 'Celebrating Portishead Open Air Pool' ( Clevedon Community Press , 2018).  Its a tale familiar from many other pools - a municipal heyday (the pool opened in 1962), decades of under-investment and funding cuts threatening closure, and a community campaign to save the pool. In this case leading to the establishment of the Portishead Pool Community Trust, who took over running the pool from 2009. Mural by Emma Hill, 2018: The pool is next to Portishead beach, overlooking the Severn Estuary. Bristol Lido The warmer swim was just a few miles away at Bristol Lido in the evening. Of course the ai

'The mind evolved in the sea. Water made it possible. All the early stages took place in water: the origin of life, the birth of animals, the evolution of nervous systems and brains, and the appearance of the complex bodies that make brains worth having.… the early history of animals is a history of life in the sea. When animals did crawl onto dry land, they took the sea with them. All the basic activities of life occur in water-filled cells bounded by membranes, tiny containers whose insides are remnants of the sea… When you dive into the sea, you are diving into the origin of us all' (Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life', 2016)