The Water and the Wild

Mermaid street art in Forest Hill, South East London. A long way from the sea but just down the road from the swimming pool. This was apparently painted by Brazilian street artist Derlon Almeida (the scrawl on her belly obviously a later addition), linked to a Brazilian culture exhibition in 2016 at the nearby Horniman Museum. Derlon's mermaid has appeared elsewhere - this one is from an exhibition at Villa Zapakara in Surinam: Photo from Gypsy Soul Diaries Mural in Recife, Brazil Mural in Newcastle, England

Written by Janet Bassett-Lowke and illustrated by Lunt Roberts, our copy is undated but was seemingly published in 1946 by Puffin, the children’s imprint of Penguin books.  

 'I have seen the sea I have seen the glory I have seen its power the power of its kingdom I have swum its angers I have swum its misery I have swum its velvet flow the corals the cities underneath I have swum under islands I have swum close to shore in shallow waves and seen children playing' (Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch)

Some great images in Nancy Farmer's swimming-themed 'Facing the Storm' 2021 calendar ( available here ) Ours came with some fabulous synchronised swimming snowflakes wrapping paper too!  

'That summer I was seventeen and perfectly happy. At that time "everybody else" was my father and his mistress, Elsa... he had rented a large white villa on the Mediterranean, for which we had been longing since the spring. It was remote and beautiful, standing on a headland jutting over the sea, hidden from the road by pine woods. A goat path led down to a small, sunny cove where the sea lapped against rust-colored rocks... From dawn onward I was in the water. It was cool and transparent, and I plunged wildly about in my efforts to wash away the shadows and dust of Paris. I lay stretched out on the sand, took up a handful and let it run through my fingers in soft, yellow streams. I told myself that it ran out like time. It was an idle thought, and it was pleasant to have idle thoughts, for it was summer' (Françoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse, 1954). The 1958 film version of Sagan's story includes many seaside scenes filmed on the Côte d'Azur/French Riviera, inc...

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 ou...

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 a...