The Deep End

Monday mornings are usually dreaded by most school children. After a pathetic two days off, the week of lessons, teasing, and possible tellings-off are about to roll around again. This was not a concern of mine. I craved and longed for the week to last longer. I didn’t care about being picked on in maths by purvey Mr Crompton, or about sitting awkwardly next to the boy that smelt in English or even about waking early and sulkily trudging to school. I just longed for Friday afternoons between one and three to be scribbled out from the timetable and disappear forever. Friday afternoons were ruined by swimming lessons. The build up to this occasion would begin on Thursday evenings when I would half-heartedly carry out my chores of washing up and cleaning my bedroom. Pieces of food would be carelessly left on plates, tea-stains still rimming the bottom of cups, all because my mind would be consumed with constant anxiety about what was to occur the next day. I will always remember one particularly humiliating swimming lesson which deepened and intensified my embarrassing fear of water. After lunch on a piercingly cold January afternoon my class was teamed with the girls from 7F to begin the walk, lined up in pairs, to the swimming pool. I was paired with Becky Mason who was my safety net and fellow non-swimmer. We would always stick to the back of the line in hope that we would somehow get lost and no one would ever notice. Our plan always failed. The teachers would cunningly place themselves down the line of students, one at the front, one in the middle, and unfortunately, one at the back. Fully equipped with hats, scarves, gloves and an unattractive shiny blue puffer jacket each, we arrived at the entrance to the swimming pool clenching our draw string rucksacks filled with our swimming kits. As we got closer to the pool the pungent smell of chlorine stung my nostrils and made my stomach churn.
Mr Taylor was a large overly muscled man who carried a look of arrogance and disapproval. He had an unusually deep voice that always felt the need to shout even when having a one on one conversation. His lack of sympathy and his uncaring manner made him the worst candidate for the job of swimming teacher. But he was. The two classes, including me and Becky Mason, congregated in the reception area of the leisure centre. Mr Taylor was giving us instructions to be good and respect the space of other swimmers blah blah blah and then he suddenly shouted, ‘YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES TO GET CHANGED AND BE AT THE SIDE OF THE POOL, GO!’Panic filled every girl as we rushed towards the changing rooms and began stripping off, holding towels around us whilst awkwardly putting on our swimming costumes hiding our bodies from the judging eyes of others. We quickly pinged on our hideous lime green swimming hats and hurried to the pool side. Like always we were split into groups, strong swimmers, OK swimmer, and non-swimmers. This group consisted solely of me and Becky Mason. But unlike usual he did not just ignore us, in fact he seemed to go out of his way to make a spiteful attempt to humiliate us. After having free time to swim around, or in our case trying to doggy paddle, Mr Taylor took a strong blow of his whistle and called the non-swimmers to the deep-end whilst the other swimmers grouped in the shallow end waiting to see what we would be made to do. Fear immediately shot through me as we lowered ourselves in. We were given a rubber ring to pathetically and frantically attempt to make our way across the full length of the pool. My humiliation grew when I was handed one side of a pole to cling onto whislt Mr taylor, holding the other side, guided me to the safety of the shallow end. Everybody was laughing. We were humiliated and didn’t understand why we were being punished for our lack of skills. I never attended that class again.