In the swim

There’s a lovely number by Loudon Wainwright III called ‘The Swimming Song’ that evokes the delights of bathing with both sharp wit and faux-naïf innocence. Kate and Anna McGarrigle covered it on their eponymous 1975 debut album — one of the all-time great records in my view, mixing folky exuberance and wrenching heartache in a manner that never seems to go stale — and in recent weeks I too have been singing ‘The Swimming Song’.

‘This summer I went swimming/ this summer I might have drowned/ But I held my breath and I kicked my feet/ and I moved my arms around,’ sang Loudon and the McGarrigles. To which my reply is, ‘Excellent news, guys, but how wimpish can you get?’ Swimming in summer is easy. In contrast, I, dear reader, have been swimming in an outdoor pool in the bitter depths of winter, often before sunrise with a sharp frost on the ground.

All this will sound wildly unlikely to anyone who knows me but I swear it is true. There is a single fact, however, that turns what would otherwise be cruel and unusual punishment into a rich and sensual pleasure: the pool is heated to 28 degrees centigrade (that’s a little over 82F in the old money). The steam rises from the waters, and, after taking the 12 freezing steps from the changing rooms, entering the pool is like climbing into a warm bath. Some of the hardier swimmers — and hardy swimmers are legion here — have been heard to complain that the water is too warm. They are wrong. It is just right. On the days when it drops to 26.5C, as it does occasionally, you really notice the difference.

The pool is in Hampton, on the edge of Bushy Park just round the corner from the house where the actor David Garrick used to live (he erected a splendid Temple to Shakespeare in his gardens by the Thames which survives to this day).