Some dippy tales around England

  LAST GASP of SUMMER   Nearly halfway through September and so cold last week we had the heating on for a few days. But the sun has come again and temperatures rocketing for a few days so we went to Holkham Hall beach. Swimming in a lido is invigorating, and going to a lake can be peace-and-medidation, but nowadays going to a beach in the sunshine can be frenetic. Excited people were intent on making the day fun, (and  it was no surprise that the first car-park was already full at 11am) and a throng of people were walking the kilometre down to the low tide of the North Norfolk coast. It's perhaps the best beach in England. Easy to get to but no buildings or roads and every visit there a symphony of light, it being one of the few beaches that face northwards.  It all belongs to the estate of Holkham Hall and everything is correct, tidy and efficient, if a little costly to park. But no-one bothers about money anymore not having spent any recently, and who knows what the winter to co

Parliament Hill Lido  Hampstead. 17C. Unheated. 63m long.   We had to wait, whilst something happened in the Lido between sessions, when we arrived early yesterday for our reserved slot.  Not that it mattered as there really were only a few there. Perhaps 25 swimmers. Divided into 10 lane churners and 15 larkers  by which I mean groups of small boys and girls taking turns to push each other in and make a great noise.  It was built like many Municipal Lidos were, around 1938 and there were proud rows of photos of the opening scenes back in the day when the Local Authority had august figiures to give speeches and a Municipal Band to play "excerpts from 'Beauty and the Beast' all afternoon." It was made of dark brick with metal windows.  All square and functional. Parks and Recreation style. The Corporation Crest still adorned one end of the pool.  And the clock, now restored again, gave dignity and discipline to the whole pool. It was all clean and tidy. Apparently &quo

 Margate Sea Bathing Walking over the low cliffs of Margate one comes onto the sight of Walpole Bay Sea Pool, suddenly right below you. Laid out as big as an athletic stadium. In the seaweed-covered rocks between high and low tides, it looked darned cold in the blustery, spitting, Thames estuary rain.    WALPOLE SEA POOL   But there did seem  to be ten or twelve swimmers around the broad pentagon of concrete walls that surround it. Though being so big one could miss a few. Simply spotting the lonesome afficionados either dabbling near the iron runged entry ladders or lunging in front crawl in dark wetsuits in the dark green water was hard. It's gigantic..  We changed on the sand, balancing on one leg, as people do in such circumstances, holding towels around us, stepping into clingy swimming costumes and then, for women, further wriggling and  contortions to prevent the merest sun beam of vision to escape to the watching hordes above, ready to be shocked or offended by a glimpse of

PELLS POOL LEWES   Taking a train down to Lewes seemed a better idea than a fractuous drive down the busy Brighton M23.  So much better to stroll over the road from the station and through lovely Lewes, on over the hill to the park and 'Pells Pool', the oldest lido in Britain. 1860 A famous elegant flint wall hid the pool from sight so we walked confused around the perimeter once before returning in time for the padlocked metal doors, that had blocked it on our first lap, to be thrown open and the nice life-guards, cashiers and cafe workers there to be prepared for our arrival.  What a nice sight it was too. The sun came out and glittered off the sparkling wavelets, and the shouts of little boys jumping in and out, and then in again, made it one of those pools where fun is still the overal intention.   One or two people stroked self-consciously up and down in the natural spring water, today around 17C, but there was plenty of other space for the other 12 of us as it's one o

 Moonlight Swim On Monday a friend rang up to ask if I fancied a swim later, after he had entertained some old people with his music.  It was rather cold and a little windy, but not wishing to decline and so dampen anyone's enthusiasm for wild swimming I agreed and made a flask of tea.  Tea is my new craze, and discovering that it's no effort to make a flask of hot drink, and pop it into my back pack I then went outside and waited for a lift in the dark.  We walked along to the lake. This time I used my new wetsuit top (£35 Cornwall) and lay back into the inky black water surprised to find there was none of the usual shock. But in fact felt bouyantly floaty and thought again that perhaps it was safer. It wouldn't be good to slip under in the silent water, this night.  We swam over the lake and then along it and discussed the time of moonrise, it being so, he said, one day after full moon. I said that this would mean that 'after-full-moon would mean it rises after-sunset

No Women in the Mens! Bourne Lido is not your usual lido. It really hasn't altered a lot since it was just a bend in the river that in the summer held back enough water to swim in. And not much changed since when someone poured some cement around it and nailed some corrugated iron on top of some cowsheds for everyone to change in. It's not lane-marked-high-temperature Peterborough, where swimmers steam up and down in silence, but is just a place for kids to mess around and show off, just beside the cricket pitch and separated from the back gardens of the surrounding houses by just a hedge. I could see someone making tea. It's overlooked by the Bourne Abbey Church and sometimes you hear the bells of a wedding going on over there. Rooks circled and croaked over me. In the breeze, swayed a row of sycamores, and now and then today I heard the crack of bat against cricket ball outside on the pitch. "It's 24C today," the boy said as I went in. It seemed

Peterborough Lido 1936  This morning we got up to try the 07.30 pensioners' early swim at the Lido.      Changing in the row of empty cubicles and setting clothes down on the benches, we dived into a balmy 28.5C under the watchful gaze of two boys covered with  windproof blankets marked Lifeguard. As I swam up and down in silence with about 15 other elderly, rotund swimmers I looked again at the architecture surrounding the blue painted pool and mused about its significance. For it was built in the era of 1936.  1936 was the year of the Berlin Olympics and the movements of 'Health and Beauty' in Britain, and 'Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude)' in Germany. Things were all going swimmingly. Young people were swept up in the fashion of body culture, well-being, and healthy walking in the mountains. Fitness and mixed bathing and a good deal of general reduced-clothing recreation was greatly welcomed at the time. And probably a lot more besides.  Even in England