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The other sport we had in our primary school was swimming.That was always in midweekWe also went swimming once a week which I loved once I'd learned to swim. There was also friction there as one school would be coming out of the local baths as we were waiting to go in but this was mainly limited to name-calling and when we met yet another school coming in as we were coming out I always joined in with my mates in standing up to them as I felt “tough” after a good swim. The only thing that I can tell you about there is the fact that I was one of the best off in terms of swiming trunks. Like all boys I'd always worn the same pull up elasticated swimming trunks for school swimming lessons that we'd worn on seaside holidays. These were of all sorts – plain colours, striped or whatever. Sometimes when we went on
holiday with my mum we would have forgotten to pack them(the most important item for a seaside holiday!) - but that could happen in the rush to get away and my mum would always buy us a new pair from Woolworths in the resort that we were staying in. They weren't that dear [expensive]. However when I joined my swimming club when I was 10 we all had the same trunks. They were bright red and made by “Speedo”. They were also very expensive and my mum made a big deal out of buying them for me. I was so proud of those trunks – they had a proper tie at the waist and no one else in my primary school had them. I had raced
against (and beaten) boys older than myself in Germany in them so I saw them as “lucky”.The German club also had uniform trunks – theirs were blue and with their own club logo on them – ours just had the “Speedo” logo. The German boys also had blue tracksuits. They normally just wore the tops when they came out if the water – they were two shades of blue too. We just pulled on a jumper if we were cold. But back at primary school I was king. Some boys had swimming badges –
100 yards etc. sewn on to their trunks – but I'd never have a badge sewn on to mine (I'd swum across a lake in the Bavarian Alps!) and besides I associated sewing badges onto things with cubs (and therefore my brother!) and thought that it was “showing off”.
When we were very little we used to sometimes use the paddling pool in the local park. That was before my little brother started
school and my mum hadn't started back at work. She used to pick us up from school then and when it was hot we sometimes went to the paddling pool along with a lot of the other kids and their mums from all of the local primary schools. I often didn't want to go as I wanted to go straight home for some reason. The pool was just for the under-eights and most kids just went in in their underwear or even nothing – it was no big deal then. The ppol was only about a foot deep with a wall all round it where the mums sat chatting and occaisionally telling their kids to behave or they'd have to go home. I didn't like it as the kids were running around screaming and kicking water at each other. Mum would get us out of our uniforms but I wouldn't go in the pool. My elder brother used to spend his time either joining in with his friends splashing water about or protecting my younger brother who went in too. I used to sit on the wall watching in between my mum and someone else's mum who she'd get talking too. I wanted to go home – but I sort of knew my mum was making friends of her own as she didn't have relatives in the area. When it was time to go home she'd call my brothers – who never wanted to come out and asked for 5 more minutes or something. I remember once my elder brother wouldn't come out and my mum slipped her sandals off and paddled in to get him. I thought that was funny.
The other sport we had in our primary school was swimming.That was always in midweek. We also went swimming once a week which I loved once I'd learned to swim. You had to take a towel in to school on swim day too of course. We had quite a few towels and mum always found an older one for swimming day. I had a favourite – a turquoise one and I always tried to stop her drying our hair with it the night before as I wanted to take it into school. There was nothing fashionable about this – it was just one of my fads – I'm sure I recall that towel on a beach somewhere when we were very little so maybe that was it. I took in the trunks wrapped up in the towel in my satchel – but also a net shopping bag. Some boys took in seperate duffel bags with their swimming stuff in but I just put mine into the net bag – we left our satchels back at school. I already used to complain when I had to carry my plimpsoles in in a seperate bag when we had P.E. Without doing the same for swimming. I liked to have both hands free – why I liked satchels. Afterwards though at the end of the school day I would have to carry the towel and the swimming costume home seperately in the net bag as I didn't want to get my books wet. Mum said we had to do that too – and she'd always rinse out the trunks and the towel that night, hang them out to dry and then they'd dissapear somewhere and we'd have to hunt them
down the next Sunday. As I said the pools were heavily chlorinated and mum thought that would rot the trunks. She said the same of
salt when we were at the seaside and always rinsed out our trunks at the tap at the top of the beach after we'd been swimming. Some
of the girls took in hairbrushes and things for after – but only one or two boys had combs and we'd all share them – or not bother at
all. Sometimes we'd share towels too if someone had forgotten his. I never liked sharing mine. Some boys – and girls too – would
“forget” their costumes – normally those who didn't like swimming. They'd still have to go though and there'd normally be spare pairs at the bath's lost property bin for them to borrow. The only excuse not to swim was sickness or a veruka – which is a contagious foot complaint – but then they'd have to sit in the gallery and watch. The pool would also provide blow-up armbands and floats for those who couln't swim yet. Some boys would bring cheap goggles they'd bought on holiday – but these weren't allowed in the pool.
Some girls did wear bathing caps. As we were going out there'd be another school going in. They used to have professional wrestling
at the baths on Saturday afternoons and there were always posters up advertising the next bout. Some boys would be arguing who
was the best wrestler – it was on T.V. - but I never knew what they were talking about as I hardly watched T.V. - I'd be out
playing. There was also friction there as one school would be coming out of the local baths as we were waiting to go in but this was mainly limited to name-calling and when we met yet another school coming in as we were coming out I always joined in with my mates in standing up to them as I felt “tough” after a good swim.
The only thing that I can tell you about there is the fact that I was one of the best off in terms of swiming trunks. Like all boys I'd always worn the same pull up elasticated swimming trunks for school swimming lessons that we'd worn on seaside holidays. These were of all sorts – plain colours, striped or whatever. Sometimes when we went on
holiday with my mum we would have forgotten to pack them (the most important item for a seaside holiday!) - but that could happen in the rush to get away and my mum would always buy us a new pair from Woolworths in the resort that we were staying in. They weren't that dear [expensive].
I'm not sure about this but I think all primary schools were required by law to provide swimming lessons. Ours started at about 8 years old and I know some children didn't like it - but they had to do it and get at least a 100 yards certificate. I took to it immediately and when the instuctor saw I was quite good at it he told me about the club - which my mum let me join eventually when I was 10 and I could
go down there on my own. We met on Friday nights so she wasn't so bothered about getting me into bed early as she was on school nights. We used to get up very early on school mornings as mum wanted us to eat a proper breakfast and get washed properly etc. So she also had us in bed early - I never objected as I was normally worn out anyway and, looking back, she probably wanted a bit of time to herself in the evenings. As I say, rhe swimming must have kept me fit - something I still am benefitting from I'm sure.
When I joined my swimming club at age 10 I had to get the special swim suits the team wore. They were bright red and made by “Speedo”. They were also very expensive and my mum made a big deal out of buying them for me. They had a proper tie at the waist. This tie at the waist rather than being elasticated was no trivial matter. At school swimming or if we went in the Summer holidays there would of course be the occaisional time when a boy's trunks would come down as he dived
in - the elastic being worn - and you can imagine the laugh we had at that. I'm sure it happened to me a couple of times! Competitive swimming though was deadly serious and there's no way you could risk anything like that happening - a good start in the dive at the start was vital and so the proper trunks with the tie was essential - we were even showed how to tie it properly with a double bow and
tuck it out of the way. Every little thing counts for speed in the water. I never remember other boys wearing anything but brief trunks for swimming (never shorts or anything) but even then our club ones were a lot lighter and shiny - I don't know what material but that was what made them expensive but also helped with speed (less "drag"). I always kept my hair short to swim in too for the same reason, even though long hair at the time was becoming more popular.
Anyway it was the swim club that got me to Germany. That was one of the most exciting things I did as a boy. I took a summer trip to Germany in 1968. I was 10 years old at the time. Between the ages of 10 and 14 I was in a swimming club. We did an exchange trip with a German club. Most of the German boys were older than we were but we still competed against them and they put us up with their families. We also had a race swimming across a lake up in the Alps - which I remember was freezing even though it was the height of Summer. I lived with a German family that had a boy my age. We became good friends. While there I mostly wore my school clothes. His father was an avid photographer and took lots of photograph to send back to my mum so she could see how I was doing. As a result, a lot of my surviving boyhood photographs are from this trip. Here are some of those photographs.
The German club also had uniform trunks – theirs were blue and with their own club logo on them – ours just had the “Speedo” logo. The German boys also had blue tracksuits. They normally just wore the tops when they came out if the water – they were two shades of blue too. We just pulled on a jumper if we were cold. But back at primary school I was king. Some boys had swimming badges –
100 yards etc. sewn on to their trunks – but I'd never have a badge sewn on to mine (I'd swum across a lake in the Bavarian Alps!) and besides I associated sewing badges onto things with cubs (and therefore my brother!) and thought that it was “showing off”.
I was so proud of those trunks because of all my swimming awards. And no one else in my primary school had them. I had raced
against (and beaten) boys older than myself in Germany in them so I saw them as “lucky”.
The other thing with school swimming was that every year there'd be a Swimming Gala with all of the Primary schools in the area competing. The baths [Brit speal for swimming pools] had spectator galleries and the noise of hundreds of kids screaming for their particular school's representatives was deafening. I was of course expected to help win for our school. I did in a few of the individual races but in the team events (the medleys) I always resented the fact that I was always put last and was expected to make up the time lost by the others but I always tried my best. I never was much of
a team player as a kid in anything - similar reasons to why I never liked cubs and other organised stuff I suppose.
Besides school and club swimming I didn't bother too much outside of seaside holidays. I never liked carrying stuff around when I
was away from school. Swimming for me was serious and even if I had the money you couldn't swim properly in the public baths – they were too crowded. When me and Michael climbed into the open – air baths we'd just swim in our underpants – and then you'd dry off quickly in the sun so you didn't need a towel (we only went when it was very hot). The same with the canal but that didn't last long once our mums found out.
Outside of school and club events I hardly went to the indoor swimming baths outside of the Summer. They were always either too hot or too cold and were full of chlorine which hurt your eyes.On Saturdays they were packed and you couldn't swim properly.
We swum in the sea when we went on holiday and that was always fun. Sometimes mum came in too which was weired – but she was always in a different mood on holiday and we always did different things and had a really good time.
What I did like were the open-air pools which were open in the Summer. I've told you how me and Michael used to try and blag our way into Chiswick open-air baths on hot days in the Summer holidays. If that was not successful and we couldn't think of a way to get some money (and we had a few schemes – nothing illegal or anything but they did get us into trouble sometimes) the alternative was Blomfontein Road open air baths. That was easy as you could climb in over the
wall at the back – loads of kids did it. The trouble was these were on a pretty tough estate out of our area and you'd end up getting into a fight or even having your clothes stolen or something (you couldn't use the cloakroom facility if you hadn't even paid in the first place! - you had to show a ticket).
We'd been warned against swimming in the River – and you could see the eddies and the currents so I knew not to.
That's why when we came across the canal one day it was so good. It was a fair way from us and we just came across it when walking around looking for something to do. It was hot and we were just about fit to drop and we had no money for drinks or to get the bus back or anything when we went down a side street at the end of which was the canal with locks and what is more six or seven boys of around our age diving in from the lock gates. I was always wary of other kids I didn't know but Michael never cared – he'd talk to anyone - and he just took off with a whoop, stripped down to his underpants and dived in. I hung back to see what would happen but he got talking about various dives and things and they seemed friendly and I soon joined them. They even had a big bottle of lemonade which they shared with us. After that we went up there a few times when we felt like a swim and had no money and often met the same boys or others but we never got really friendly with them. Anyway it didn't last much beyond a few weeks as Michael blurted out about the canal in an argument with his sister who
told his mum and we were banned from going up there on pain of dire
consequences. The thing is with the canal is that it was filthy – but it didn't smell or anything and the rubbish floating about in it would get washed out of the locks so that area was pretty clear. My mum always knew if I'd been down to the River and she always said I brought the smell back with me. She always asked seriously if I'd
been in the water and I could always truthfully say no other than paddling but she never banned me outright from going down there. When Michael's mum found out we'd been in the canal she went mad. It was unusual as she was normally easy going although she'd call you all sorts of names but she'd be patching up any cut or graze you had or whatever while putting a hunk of bread and jam into your hand. She'd rarely smack Michael or anything if we came home filthy dirty – but
she get out the iodine to apply to any scratches we'd picked up and that really stung but she said it served us right. This time she was really mad though and started going on about us getting the plague or something while stripping him off and telling me to get home and into a bath. She was probably going a bit over the top – but, later on, I did see a dead dog in the canal and all sorts so maybe she was right. Anyway she was genuinely concerned and did 'phone my mum who picked up the hysteria and she put me in the bath, washed my hair three times, made me scrub my fingernails and then made me promise never to go in there again – which I did as she was deadly serious. She also put all of the clothes I'd been wearing into a bucket to soak and made me rinse them out first thing next morning. So that was the end of the canal. As I say our mums were careful but not over-the-top except seemingly on occaisions like this.
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