Chapter Seven

Sink Or Swim

Wherever there is water there lurks an ever present danger.  It was always so on our island; that is, the danger of drowning was a palpable reality.  Many’s the time a wee bairn was lost to the murky depths of the canal, or the fast-flowing currents of the river.

It is an unfortunate fact of life, however, that wherever danger lies, for a child, there beckons also tantalising adventure. It is a universal law of nature which dictates to any child that what is forbidden by adults must be attempted at the very first opportunity.

It was just so with Mike and me. We were forever getting into deep water (ahem!) and in the process incurring the most awful wrath of dear Pater. So much so, in fact, that he decided to utilise the latest training methods in teaching us both to swim.

This was done by taking each of us in turn by one arm and dragging us along the edge of the canal as he walked the footpath above us. I’m not sure how Mike took to this, but I think I report accurately when I say that for me it was one of the most effective methods of scaring me half to death.

It was not enough that we were submerged a good deal of the time, but it seemed a necessary part of the course that we had to endure the cuts and weals upon our puny bodies, caused by being scraped along the canal wall.

I’m not even sure that in the end I did in fact learn to swim at this particular juncture. I have a feeling that my swimming skills developed much later. Yes, I’m fairly sure that this modern method Dad swore by did not do very much at all to take away the fear of the water; rather, it served only as a new source of nightmares.

At some stage in this general period, however, the water gods must have decided that it was time to allow me to float at last upon the surface. One day I came home from school proudly bearing a certificate which stated that I had been able to swim the breadth of the local swimming baths – a feat no less significant to me than swimming across the English Channel.

Now it just so happened that the breadth of the swimming baths was slightly wider than the section of the canal where the barges entered the locks. It was this stretch of water which was to be my greatest challenge. Unlike the baths, where the water was a mere three feet deep or so, the canal was a million fathoms, or fourteen feet, whichever was the greater.