I have joined an adult swim class

I can’t swim and I am afraid of the sea. I once shut down a water flume at an Essex leisure centre because, halfway through my brave decision to go down it, I changed my mind and wedged myself into the bend to avoid crashing into that unpredictable splashy bit at the end. They had to send down a lifeguard.

It is not that I have a phobia of water, per se; I just never learned to swim as a child. There were no holidays and there was, I suppose, an unspoken conservatism within my Pakistani community about wearing very little at a public beach. And by the time I got to adulthood, I based my activity choices around what I could do (eat, mainly), rather than what I couldn’t. As a result, swimming-related holidays were avoided.

But now that I am in a relationship with a man who loves swimming, and water, this is not so easy. So, as part of my project to embrace the great outdoors, I have joined an adult swimming class. The first thing to say about my class is that nearly all my fellow students are BAME and all the teachers are white, which confirms – unscientifically, but still – the theory that permeated my entire childhood that swimming is yet more “white people stuff”.


Source: theguardian