One of my fondest memories of childhood is of my mother, dressed in her bikini, lying on her stomach on a towel by the side of the pool. Her arms and legs skimmed the cement and her neck craned like a turtle’s as she demonstrated how to do the breaststroke. It was a floundering, impotent version of the breaststroke, born of the need to Not Put Your Face In The Water - but a method of locomotion nonetheless. By the end of the summer I was adept at it. 

 

My ever so patient mother spent weeks introducing me to the pool in tiny, painful steps. We had moved to New Zealand from the UK the previous winter, I was about to turn seven and I could not swim. I very dramatically could not swim. The story goes that when my parents hired the local swimming teacher, the only one in town, to come to our house for a private lesson, I screamed so hard and so loud at being forced into the water that the neighbors gathered to discuss calling the police. 

Ahh, the swimming teacher. Let’s call her Mrs Beteljuus. She was a legend around those parts. A solid, accented, lady, she came second only to the School Dental Nurse (more usually known as The Murder House) in the Horror Stakes among those of us of elementary school age. While it is true that she got results, her technique consisted mostly of holding childrens heads forcibly under the water while counting, and yelling “breathe!” in tones reminiscent of a lowing bull. She was Very, Very Scary. 

 

So I will for ever be grateful to my mother for saving me from Mrs Beteljuus, if only for one summer. I applied myself, learned my lessons well, and soon was bobbing along confidently, my head carefully tipped back so as not to get my face wet. My mother, with her patience and stamina,  is single-handedly responsible for my love of the water today. And I thank her.

 

But there was, as Baby Sister would put it, “Just One Pwoblem”. I could not bring myself to put my head under the water (and how could my mother teach me, when she had never learned herself?). I could not dive in, dive under or do the crawl. So, the next summer, I found myself shivering and clinging to the side of the school pool while Mrs Beteljuus stalked and shouted overhead. 

 

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This week I finally and reluctantly gave the T-Bot up to Mrs Beteljuus. Or her equivalent, Mr Justin, who does not hold childrens heads under the water even though he probably wants to. Desperately. At least in the case of my son.  Especially when my son is trying to bargain his way into using those fun floaty things instead of concentrating on the task in hand, namely Putting Your Face in the Pool. 

 

I signed him up for one of those two week courses. Half an hour, every day, in the hope that before he turns seven I will be able to turn my back on him without worrying about him going under and drowning. Today was Day Three and despite some serious whining and sulking, he has progressed from Inching His Way Around the Edge to Being Pushed Toward the Side, Arms Stretched In Front and Face in the Water and Coming Up By Himself. I am seriously amazed. This is the same child who, after Day One, told me that I had to get him another teacher, one who would “not make me put my face in the water”. The same child who, after every lesson, tells me he is “done and not going back”.

 

Yet, under all the dislike there is a glimmer of pride lurking, a real satisfaction at all he has achieved. I am sure he is looking forward to the freedom that swimming will afford him.

 

I know I am looking forward to the freedom that his swimming will afford me. And right now, my son? All that counts. Sorry.