94 The Swimming Race

Upbury Manor: On a blazing hot morning, few had any inclination to play football at breaktime. Summer had arrived in all its glory and with the end of term just days away, I was enjoying one of those wonderful world moments when I saw Stephen Clay striding my way.

‘Gerard! I’m putting you in the beginners’ race,’ he said.

‘What race?’ I asked, bemused.

‘It’s the inter-house swimming contest this afternoon. I’m putting you in second year beginner’s relay.’

I burst out laughing. As designated captain of Gordon’s swimming team, Stephen – a former Featherby Road pupil who lived on Eastcourt Lane – was under pressure to finalise his teams. I understood his urgency, but putting me in the team was the pottiest thing I’d ever heard. I couldn’t swim a stroke and told him so, but he wouldn’t have it. In the heated argument that followed, no amount of protest could get him to see sense.

‘You’re in!’ he shouted as he stormed off.

Why me, I wondered, until a sneaking suspicion came to mind. If some mischievous swine had told him I’d learned to swim, then perhaps he’d mistaken my honesty for apathy.

What a mess. I know, I’ll go and find Mister Charlesworth. He’ll sort it out.

I found Mister Charlesworth in the changing room, struggling to hold a football with one hand and lace it with the other. A grimace on his face suggested it wasn’t a good time to bother him.

‘What do you want Lynch?’

If the matter hadn’t been so serious I’d have made my excuses and left.

‘…and that’s it Sir,’ I said, as I concluded my perfectly reasonable argument.

‘You’re not getting out of it, Lynch.’

I was flabbergasted. ‘But I can’t swim, Sir!’

‘You’re in, Lynch!’ he growled.

‘But I can’t swim, Sir!’

Mister Charlesworth stopped lacing the football, and gave me the evil eye. In his best not-to-be-messed-with voice he spoke slowly and deliberately.

‘You’re… in… Lynch.’

I played my last desperate card. ‘I haven’t got my trunks, Sir!’

Mister Charlesworth lost his temper. Amidst much finger wagging he delivered an ultimatum. ‘Trunks or no trunks, you be in that pool this afternoon, or else.’

I left in dismay. A dinner time disappearing act crossed my mind, but the fear of else ruled it out – the Stoolball bat across the buttocks was something to avoid at all costs.

Full of doom and gloom I traipsed home for my trunks at dinner time. I was unlikely to drown doing a width at the shallow end, but the potential for a show-up was off the scale.

Absurdity proved to have no bounds in the changing room that afternoon. Our four man relay team boasted just one genuine swimmer, who shrewdly decided he’d go first. ‘To give us a good start,’ he said. It also ensured he’d be out of the water and gone before the shambles unfolded. I was to go second.

Desperate times call for desperate thinking. On the way out to the pool I reasoned that if I could hurl my lanky frame as far as I could, then I might get halfway across the pool in one go. Then I could stoop in the water and bluff my way to the other side. If the idea didn’t preserve my self esteem, it might just limit the damage.

As expected, almost four hundred kids and several teachers were assembled round the pool. Amongst them were friends and classmates, whose grinning faces I saw as I lowered myself into the water at the shallow end. Fully aware of my non-swimming ability, the evil sods were spreading the word and clearly looking forward to the spectacle.

A whistle blew, a cheer went up and the first wave of second year beginners came splashing through the water to roars of encouragement from all sides. There was little to separate the four houses as our lone swimmer touched hands with me.

I leapt like a salmon… 

Splosh!

...and hit the water like a breeze block. In blind panic I kicked for the bottom of the pool before standing up, spewing water, to a background of raucous laughter. Pausing only to get my bearings, I flung myself quickly into part two of my plan, clinging to a hope that not everybody had spotted the obvious.

I went straight under again and ended up on my hands and knees. When I came up coughing and spluttering, there was bedlam all around the pool. The game was up, but the ordeal wasn’t. I still had to reach the other side. Thrashing my limbs in all directions couldn’t stop me going under yet again. By the time I touched hands with our third man, the encircling wall of noise was deafening. With my face burning up, I pinched my nose and went under once more, voluntarily, to escape the humiliation. But there was no escaping the cacophony that reverberated in my ears.

Our third man wasn’t even half way across when I emerged, and no wonder. His contribution to the debacle was to wade ponderously through the water with his hands above his head, oblivious to the hysteria around him. He didn’t even get his hair wet. In the meantime our fourth man had mysteriously vanished. It seemed he’d climbed out and left when the other teams had finished.

Though I tried not to make eye contact with anyone as I left the pool, I could help noticing, amidst of a row of beaming faces, a laughing Mister Charlesworth. The Swine!