Home Truths
Hairs
A contribution to Radio 4's Home Truths programme way back when John Peel was alive. The piece is introduced by John Peel and the reading was by a BBC actor and the sound effects cutesy of the BBC too.
When he was around my dad often set me physical challenges. My inclination to easy tears annoyed him. He was forever urging me to climb higher, run faster, push harder.
One of these 'Let’s put hairs on his chest' activities was a course of swimming lessons at the municipal baths. The water was twenty degrees below air temperature and at least a metre beneath the side of the pool. To a five-year-old this was the equivalent of a leap from a Mexican cliff. The water was cloudy and uninviting and the building echoed with the cries and yells of other unfortunates.
Dad and I would cram into a cubicle designed for one very thin person. Shivering with cold and dread, I was forced into woollen bathing trunks that became so heavy with the weight of water there was a danger they would drag themselves off as I climbed out of the pool. I was thrust into the arms of a brutish woman, seventeen stone, baggy green cardigan, a whistle slung round her many necks and hair pulled back so tightly it gave her face a permanent sneer.
These lessons were not run on soft principles of encouragement and praise. No, this was the real world. Tied to the end of a rope I was hauled up and down the pool, water rushing into my mouth and out of my nose as I waved my skinny arms frantically in the desperate but vain hope of remaining topside. My trunks occasionally won the battle and pulled me under. As I spluttered along the bottom of the pool I was sure that this was the end. After surfacing I looked in vain for hairs on my chest.
