I sail through the air like a bird before landing with an almighty ‘splosh’, into cold, dark and wet.

“SWIM”, I hear and I clamber to get to the top, my arms trying desperately to claw the surface.  My mouth opens but makes no sound; water is everywhere. I open my eyes and see his big, hairy legs, standing on the side.  I rise again and hear the angry voice, “SWIM”.  I want to do as he says, I want to please, but nothing is working.  I thrash around but it’s not happening.  I try and try to stay on top of the water but it’s everywhere and I cannot get to the side.  I can see it.  I can see the legs but they seem so far away.  Everything is heavy.  The water will not go away.  My body hurts, my arms are tired, my legs won’t work any more.

I try to scream but the water fills my nose, my ears, my head.  I cannot breathe.  As I go under again I think I hear him yell  “S W I M” but I can’t be sure.  I can see the legs standing there.  They do not move.  My eyes close.  No more yelling.

I am coughing and retching.  I feel embarrassed; I have been a bit sick.  I cannot stop shaking.  There is lots of shouting and yelling.  A man is crouching beside me, his big hand is on me and he is really cross with him.  He is saying things that make me more frightened, I can hear his really angry voice in response.   I know this is not good.  I know I will be punished for not doing as I’ve been told.  I want to move but want to stay still, stay there, stay safe.  I know what’s waiting for me when I go through the changing room door…

I am four. 

It’s many years later, yet I am still shocked by my reaction as I write this. The recollection is so vivid, the colours, the smells, the emotions, the sounds.  At four years old, from that moment – the moment of welcoming nothingness – I learnt silent screaming, outright terror, fallibility, self-reliance and ultimately to stay safe.
I shower so water never touches my face, I avoid swimming pools unless I can stand up in them, I paddle in sea water no more than 3 inches deep.  I watch from a large boat, deck chair or shore as friends dive head first into blue-green water.  My fear condemns me to the position of watcher and waiter.  Pretending that I am fine to stay dry but, inside, dealing with the mix of jealousy, self-loathing and anger.

And then I meet Craig and one of the first memories we share is of a public information advertisement that the Government of the time was prone to inflict on the population.  Craig remembers it word for word and copies the accents with precisional accuracy.  I am in tears of laughter and it is a real bonding moment.  The advert is “learn to Swim”.  And of course it would be the perfect time to explain that I haven’t learned to swim but I am embarrassed and still wanting to impress, so I say nothing.  A few weeks later, and as friends, we take a trip  to the West of Uganda, as Craig has some diplomatic reason to visit a prison near Fort Portal.  We are staying in the beautiful Ndali lodge,  in Kibale Forest.  Perched on the side of an old volcanic crater ridge, Ndali also has a private lake at the base of the crater.  So when Craig suggests that we hire the (only) rowing boat, I agree.  Perhaps this is the point, when it’s just we two in the middle of a crater lake, that friendship may turn to romance?  Reality dawns when we are standing by the side of the murky water, the Colobus monkeys shaking the trees with laughter.  We are going out on a sliver of a canoe, small enough for only two people and rackety enough to have been there since God was a boy.  But I am in full show-off bravado mode and clutch my overly large camera bag for comfort as I gingerly sit down. We push-off,  Craig seems to expertly wield the paddles and in no time at all we are away from shore heading like some Victorian steam boat towards the middle of the lake.  Just as my anxiety is subsiding, I become aware that my feet are damp; err, they are definitely getting wet and I look down to see, to my horror, the swirling green of the lake comfortably filling the bottom of the canoe.  Surely not?!!  No. Its got to be my crazy imagination.   It is coming in, it’s not the splash of canoe paddles.  “Craig”, I practically shout, “water is coming into the boat” He glances down, and laughs, “Yes, we might have to swim for shore”.  Even at this point, where I can feel the terror rise, I still don’t want to admit I cannot swim.  “What about my camera, it will be ruined”. ” Haven’t you got insurance”? he responds calmly.  Only now do I have to confront my reality.  Only now  do I confess.  And I feel so ashamed.  He responds by telling me to bail as fast as I can and, somehow, miraculously manages to get us back to the safety of shore.  I am astounded that we did not see the hole at the bottom of the boat before we set off.  And although I’m a bit shaken, I’m laughing as we trudge back up to the lodge while he regales  “Learn to Swim” once again.

Determined to make sure that I don’t pass on my fear of water, I take Roscoe  to a Mother and Baby swimming class when he’s just 6 weeks old.  By the time he is 18 months, he can only go with Craig as I can no longer keep up.  When he is two and a bit, I nervously watch as Craig takes him into the warm Bajan sea water so they can swim with the turtles.  Roscoe is shrieking with delight and as the boat bobs up and down, I realise that I am going to miss out if I don’t sort out what is a completely irrational fear.  But the years pass and I am relegated to the side once more as they jump into pools, career down water-slides, run into the sea.  Roscoe barely hiding his irritation that I am unable to join in.

Then comes the side effects of my cancer.  To take out my lymph nodes, the consultant surgeons have to cut into the nerves and muscle surrounding my neck and shoulder.  Some damage is done and as it turns out I am having problems with raising my left arm as my rotator cuff has stopped working and my Levator scapulae is so knotted that it’s making my Trapezious do its job.  I find myself in the warm waters  of the hydrotherapy pool doing exercises to get the ball of nerves to loosen and these muscles back to work.

I like this warmth and its great to be able to move my arm more freely.  Water is now no longer an enemy; it is part of my support system to get better.

And so, emboldened and enlightened, I take a big deep breath, put my pride and fear to one side and sign up at our local gym.  Every Sunday morning,  I meet Vicky, and we slide into the cooler waters of the pool where she encourages me to put my head underwater, breathe though my nose and swim.

It’s not easy learning to put a long-term fear to one side.  And some weeks it’s easier than others. Thankfully Vicky has infinite patience, delivers the right amount of encouragement and has a command voice of steel.    Today, I almost didn’t go.  I got caught in traffic, had left my gym card behind and it almost seemed just too darned difficult.  But I talked myself off the ledge, got into my swimming ‘cossie’, snapped my goggles over my head, gritted my teeth and got into that pool.

And now I’ve ‘come clean’ and shared this, I’m going to have to continue.  I will front crawl the length of the pool by lesson 10.

For it turns out that – for me – the fear of admitting failure to do something so simple is far greater than the fear of the water itself.