A journalist has taken his first swimming lesson in 20 years as part of a water safety campaign, urging others to do the same. He is among the one in three adults who cannot swim the full length of a 25-metre swimming pool, despite receiving lessons until age 11 at his inner-city school.
The decision came as part of the Save Lives for Sam campaign, after years of low confidence in his swimming ability. He admitted to panicking and floundering dangerously when attempting to swim during summer holidays, and was keen but scared to re-enter the water, even in a controlled environment like a pool.
With the help of an experienced teacher at Highbury Leisure Centre in Islington, North London, he rediscovered some lost skills. As thousands of Brits head to the seaside this summer, he recommends others do the same, especially if they have never learned to swim.
Childhood memories and lost confidence
He has happy memories of learning to swim as a child, receiving praise from family and teachers for being relatively good at it. He even earned Frosties badges while Kelloggs sponsored the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) in the 1990s and early 2000s.
However, having spent all of his 31 years in London, he, like most inner-city Brits, has not encountered many opportunities for a swim. Swimming has become more vital than ever, especially during hot years when people try to beat the heat on the coast, whether in the UK or abroad.
According to the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS), partners on the Save Lives for Sam campaign, most drowning deaths occur during extreme heat. Dozens of people have died this summer alone, with 52 deaths of both adults and children between May 24 and August 9. Among them is six-year-old Saja El-Khawasm, who died days after her parents Hassan, 55, and Zeina, 37, and sister Sara, 14, perished after getting into difficulty in the sea in Shoreham, West Sussex.
Learning from a professional
The RLSS put the journalist in touch with their partners at Greenwich Leisure Limited to organise lessons with a teacher named Martine. She teaches across ages and abilities, from the very young to older people wanting to brush up on skills later in life, when swimming can serve as an essential health boost.
Before entering the pool, Martine stressed the importance of knowing how to swim. She said: "Swimming is a life skill, it's a survival skill. It's something that, if you learn as a child, you're lucky. It's something that never really leaves you."
She added: "If you consider those children who haven't had any experience at all, as they go into adulthood, there's nothing there. So any time spent near the water is potentially dangerous, because if they fall in, they won't know how to save themselves, or how even to call for help, how to alert. All of those things are really important."
Overcoming panic in the water
Martine was encouraging from the moment he entered the pool, allowing him to get acquainted with the chilly chlorinated waters and teaching him the appropriate way to breathe. Unlike most forms of exercise, swimming requires measured and practiced breathing. He learned nearly straight away when attempting his first front crawl in decades how important it is, as water can flow into your nose and mouth if you don't breathe properly.
Water flooding into your orifices creates a unique panic, one that made him abandon mid-length and stand up in the shallow end. In any other situation, like in a river, lake or the sea, a move like that could have been dangerous. But Martine calmly helped him through the moment, and he came out ready for a second attempt at the front crawl and back stroke.
When he reached the middle of the pool, they moved to the deep end, where he learned his most important lesson: that he can still manage a serviceable breaststroke. After a short demonstration, he remembered many of the important motions, and Martine explained that many people will find the same happens to them when they try swimming.
A milestone achieved
He was eventually able to swim an entire length of the pool, a milestone he didn't think he'd achieve. He has been figuratively and literally buoyed by the experience. The only negative was that there was no Kelloggs badge his mum could sew onto his shorts this time.
The Mirror has launched the Save Lives For Sam water safety campaign to tackle the UK's growing drowning crisis. Backed by MPs, Olympic champions, national water safety organisations and bereaved families, the campaign is calling for urgent action to make waters safer, including compulsory water safety lessons in schools, a nationwide public awareness campaign, better lifesaving equipment at high-risk waterways, the introduction of Sam's Law, and a dedicated Minister for Water Safety.
