Bryan Gallagher recalls his childhood experience of learning to swim...
 Bryan Gallagher |
"Nobody lives on the Rabbit Island any more. Nobody swims at the Sand-bed. It is too dangerous. The bottom is littered with cans and broken bottles, and even syringes. But when I was growing up it was the place to be on a summer Sunday.
In those days there were no such things as arm bands or floats when you were learning to swim. You went up to the back of the local pub, collected corks from the porter bottles, tied them securely in a flour bag and trusted that they would keep you afloat.
Only boys went swimming at the Sand-bed. The girls sat on the grass in their summer dresses and watched. The boys would tog out at a respectable distance and then gallop down to the water leaping over thistles and clumps of nettles on the way and the brave ones would hurl themselves bodily into the water while the timid ones like myself would, hands gripped together, body curved inward, flinching as the cold water crept up our bodies.
Always after a while splashing about, half a dozen of the big lads would set off to swim to the Rabbit Island, about half a mile away. I watched enviously as they went, chatting nonchalantly to each other, and some time later I could see their distant figures strolling casually about the shoreline of the island. I knew that they were the focus of all eyes. It became my ambition to swim to the island, and I fixed the date for a Sunday when all the big fellows would be away at a football match and I would have all the attention to myself.
At first all went well. I seemed to be making good progress and I could imagine the admiring glances from the shore, but gradually I tired and realised that the island was much further away than I had thought. I had now reached the point where I had to decide whether to go on or go back. It was a contest between pride and fear, and pride won. There was an expanse of reeds that stuck out a hundred yards from the island and I headed for these. The water was still deep but I could rest by catching on to a clump of the reeds which supported me.
Only then, did it dawn on me that I would have to swim back. I was dog-tired and starting to shiver with the cold. I could of course, shout for help, or go round the hundred yards to the island and ask the woman there to row me across in her boat, but that would be too shame-making.
Taking a deep breath I started back. As I got more and more tired my legs sank lower and lower in the water which slowed down my progress even more. The clouds came and covered the sun. I could see the crowds leaving. Stories of people getting cramp, of giant pike which would take your leg off and eels that would coil around your limbs came to mind.
I struggled feebly on. I was about half way and near total exhaustion when a miracle happened. My feet touched bottom, a small underwater mound that I did not know existed. I stood there, chest-deep, panting and nearly crying with relief. When I got my breath back, I set off again, knowing I would make it safely. I came ashore, my fingers and toes numb and corpse white. I was shuddering so violently that it took me ages to dress. My bicycle was the only one left.
Somebody had let the air out of the tyres. It was the final ignominy, the paths of glory did really lead nowhere, my day of triumph had turned to ashes and dust, but I was past caring and started to walk home, pushing the bike bumpily up the long steep hill."
