Learning to Swim


Can you remember where you learned to swim?  We took our first, unaided strokes in the sea - not something that's particularly easy for small children to do in the choppy English channel with salty splashes in our faces, stones underfoot and fronds of slippery seaweed floating around.  In the 1940s, armbands had yet to reach Sussex.  I vaguely remember rubber rings with unreliable stoppers and also some flabby perished water wings which any passing wave could sweep away from under our arms. We had a huge inner tube from a tractor tyre which was fine if one could position it correctly and avoid the large metal valve giving us a painful jab.

Bobbing about in the water with me and my brother (below) is the dearest German helper called  Margaret who lived with us for many years from 1946.  She was known as Tante (aunt) and I adored her.  At that time the four of us were all under ten.  Tante was probably in her late 30s but what mystifies me is how come we had a German national living with us so soon after the War?  My father, who'd served in the trenches in one world war and in the Home Guard in the next, couldn't bear any reference to Germany at all.  Yet such rancour was overcome as there we were, a household of seven, all living peaceably together with Tante teaching us German songs, stories and rhymes whilst helping the four of us build a strong, positive view on her culture.

I see the bridge-building hand of my far-sighted and wise mother at work here.






My brother, Tante and me at Middleton in 1949




Happy fit to burst, the day I learned to swim


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Gateway School, Felpham - 1948 - 1954

Image
Starting School Early School Days and Grateful Thanks to Chicken Licken  An energetic and capable pair of women, Miss Millicent Glencross and her life partner, Miss Spence, ran the Gateway School. I started there at in 1948 aged 4½ and travelled with my brother on the 50a bus, which ran along the Sussex coast to Pagham, west of Bognor Regis. For years I was fascinated by the bus’s ultimate destination ‘á Becket’s Ave though had no idea who Becket was with that funny á and what was Ave ? Did it rhyme with Save or with Have ? The Gateway was a traditional, tightly organised prep school where mastery of the basic skills was paramount. The teachers , were kind and caring, the school routine was unvarying. The classes were named after characteristics for us to emulate; the Reception class was called Happiness then we went on to Kindness, Goodness, Unselfishness, Courage, Truth, Loyalty and Perseverance. I can recall the formica-topped table and the tiny chairs and can see the first sum w
Read more

Barnham Junction

Image
For several years before the War and for 20 years after it, my father Wilf Richards commuted to London via Three Bridges from Barnham Junction.   He drove from Middleton to the station and although my father was a dear and lovely man, he was a hopeless driver.   Born in 1892, he was from that generation who’d gone into WW1 on horseback and who’d learned to drive before there was a test.   Stalling and jerking, he’d crunch his way up through the gears, though the fourth remained an unattainable mystery to him.   He drove so slowly that the milk float or a sprightly pedestrian could overtake him.   He would leave at 7 am, drive up the Yapton Road past PC Luck’s house and Comet Corner where the old stagecoach stopped.   Up towards Bilsham where our family admired the handsome farmhouse covered in Virginia creeper.   He’d grind and buck through Yapton, past the old windmill and under the railway bridge to park in a friend’s garage near the station.   He never learned parallel parking but
Read more

Ponies

Image
Ann on Dushka - Southdean Drive My older sisters were a mere 16 months apart and they did everything together.  Once the family returned to Middleton after the war, the girls were frequent visitors to the nearby stables run by the patient and steady Miss Seagrim with her cheerful second-in-command called Bunty – a name that is never heard these days.  The riding school was on the Yapton Road and comprised an attractive set of whitewashed flint stables by a field with riding ring.  Although keeping horses is an expensive business, children from all sorts of backgrounds can gain access to riding stables. My sisters started by volunteering at these stables where, exchange for mucking out, grooming, leading beginners around a ring and doing general chores, they were given a ride with the group. It was hard but purposeful  work  and the reward much appreciated.     The ponies had been trained to relieve themselves on a certain patch by the edge of the riding ring
Read more