Swimmer out of water
General | Georgina Lock | 14.04.08
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Swimmer out of water
by Georgina Lock
I so look forward to going swimming at the Victoria Leisure Centre. I love that pool’s Olympic length in its resonating, vintage surrounding. But that’s not why I long to go.
My back aches and swimming will stop it aching. Twenty years ago my bicycle and I were run over by a skip lorry. I never saw that bike again, but the only long term damage to me was an unstable fracture in my spine. The vertebra mended but never returned to the right position. I don’t call myself disabled but it’s swimming that keeps me upright.
Swimming is not a chore for me. It’s a massive pleasure which relaxes my mind too. Doing a different thing with my body engages my brain in a different way. I’m not thinking “head on” about them, but after about ten lengths, nagging questions and challenges drift and somersault into new perspective so that any time after twenty lengths I’ll have workable ideas about what to cook for dinner, how to understand my husband, employers and students or, even, what I should write next. I don’t have to grab those new angles and make dash right then for the changing rooms and a dryer world. They’ll stay with me until I’m ready to emerge.
Finding a Municipal Pool offering a swimming session for my convenience and circumstance is where the real hard work kicks in. I’d like to go every day but it’s just too complicated. Still, with some flexibility in my job, my leisure card and a head for timetables, it’s Monday: the Portland Leisure Centre for the Women’s Swim, Tuesday: the General Public’s lunch-time session at Clifton, and Saturday: The Victoria Leisure Centre.
The Victoria Leisure Centre is the oldest Municipal Baths in Nottingham. The brick building dates from 1850. It’s seen internal changes over the years, but it’s always been a Bathing facility for the local, densely populated, diverse community. Recently it’s offered swimming and a range of classes that are competitively priced and well taught. Two hundred yards away are excellent bus connections to and from the town centre, which is less than a mile on foot. You can even park your car for a fee and stroll round Sneinton market.
It’s worth it.
Apart from the variety of enterprising shops, stalls and cafes, so many buildings here should be listed…like the swimming pool – and for its original purpose.
It makes no sense that, as our Government instructs us to lose weight, give up smoking and get excited about the Olympics, Nottingham City Council, despite vigorous, organised protests, is closing pools. Noel Street Pool is another target, another Municipal Baths in a working class area, with few gardens and local parks. So when the kids complain there is nothing to do around there, they will probably be right.
“What does Municipal mean?” asks a friend, without irony. It’s a fair question. The word is probably a bit archaic – a reminder of a time when social idealism and politics went hand in hand. We don’t hear it much since Margaret Thatcher said, “There is no such thing as society.” So I’m using it – in defiance - as much as possible now, before “Municipal Pool” is replaced by “Private Gym.”
I could be surprised, but I think it will take years to build a similar facility in Sneinton. Meanwhile, the community around Sneinton will have good reason to sit on couches watching television. And when the facility does arrive, it may not be a Pool or Municipal. Nottingham City Council is still asking for ideas, asking us, when we access its form, to choose between “green space, better market facilities, better connections to the city, more family housing or more food or retail options.” Only one answer is allowed. Three options seem poorly researched, given the buses, thriving market and proximity of the town centre.
In the meantime, I’m being courted by another new private gym, a definite car ride into open country with no other services; this despite more Government advice to reduce credit card spending and my carbon footprint. I guess I’ll have to start running.
I, Georgina Lock, have been swimming regularly for 22 years and am a screenwriter and occasional short film maker, who teaches Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University.
Posted in General | Georgina Lock | April 14th 2008 Comments so far (0)
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