Fifty Years Ago: Sunday, 1 August 1976
Set the alarm for half past seven. Woke just before it went off and turned it off.
Did my loosening-up exercises: swinging and stretching my arms, then sitting back on my ankles. I had been shown these at Sedbergh and now did them every day as part of my swimming routine.
Gran got breakfast. She and Grandpa had come to stay with us, though they lived only five minutes away. Gran was still in her nightdress. I’d never seen that before!
Did the kitten’s ears with a few drops of cream. My younger sister had found it and brought it home. I cannot remember its name, why its ears needed cream, or who told me what to do. Both my sister and I were allergic to cats, which did not seem to prevent us from acquiring one. At some point Mum got rid of it.
Wrote up ideas for a science-fiction book: teenagers landing alone on an uninhabited world.
Watched the time. My watch was slow, but by chance this meant we got to swimming in good time.
Morning training at Newcastle City Baths probably began at eight and lasted two hours. I was unused to this intensity of training. Swimming at boarding school had been only a fraction of the volume and effort expected by a serious club like Newcastle.
The two Newcastle coaches drove their swimmers hard and had a reputation for getting results. What I remember most is the shouting and cajoling: do more, and do it faster.
There was far too much butterfly for me. I had never done it at Mowden, where the woman in charge of swimming had been neither a teacher nor a proper coach. At Newcastle, nobody taught the stroke from the beginning. They corrected faults while expecting me to keep going.
Whatever was wrong with my technique, I had an excellent feel for the water. That was not enough. I struggled to keep up with swimmers who trained there regularly. Butterfly was a physical battle and by the end I was exhausted.
Sedbergh was beginning to improve. We now had, or were about to get, a former Scottish swimmer as coach. He would gradually become a driving force behind swimming at the school. But on this Sunday morning, the difference between school swimming and club swimming was brutal.
Afterwards, I dried myself and changed, then waited half an hour for Grandpa on the steps outside the baths.
The pool formed part of Newcastle City Hall. Next door was the concert hall where the Rolling Stones and David Bowie had played. Nothing was happening that morning. It was the quiet summer period, but there was a poster advertising Eric Clapton on 12 August.
Grandpa was seventy-nine and normally entirely reliable. He drove well into his eighties. I don’t remember him apologising or explaining why he was late. It was odd, but it was what it was. I waited.
Lunch.
Television.
The closing ceremony of the Montreal Olympics, then a firm favourite, Space: 1999.
That was as adventurous as the day became. It seemed dull compared with being at the castle in Cumbria.
Bad headache.
I had suffered headaches and sinus pain for as long as I could remember. Sometimes it was an infection; sometimes sugar or milk seemed to bring it on. Swimming could force water into a compressed sinus where it could not drain away, leaving pain in my ear or deep inside my head
Leave a Reply