swimming with the Brits

Today being Sunday, I went to my second favorite place of worship.
I went to the swimming pool.
This time I took a 319 bus from Clapham Junction down to Tooting Bec and I went to the Lido.
It was opened in 1906.  It was called Tooting Bec Swimming lake.

They didn't allow women in until 1917. And until 1931 they had separate days for men and women.
Some ladies wrote strong letters of complaint and as of 1931 the pool was open to everyone, all the time.
In 1960 they opened the pool up all year. And there are photos of people in nifty swimming trunks hacking at the ice on the pool before they leap in.
There is a cafe and a children's paddling pool and little cubicles where people can change.

I just want to remind everyone that this is an open air unheated pool in Britain.
It is Sunday. It is sunny. But this is not flip-flop, sleeveless T-shirt weather.
No this is the last day of July in Britain and everyone has a cardigan on and an umbrella in their shoulder bags.
This pool is 100 meters long. That is long.

But what I loved about this pool, where people have been swimming for 110 years is that there are no lanes. Everyone just gets in and swims.
I was standing on the side and I asked this gentleman who was taking off his goggles.
" I am new here. Are there any rules about swimming?"
he said, " Oh no. You just get in and swim. it sorts itself out somehow."


And it did. Nobody cannoned into each other. Some people in the shallow end were even swimming across the pool. People in wet suits. People in bikinis.  Everyone just swam and gently moved around each other with not one cross word.

It seems that sometimes, things just sort themselves out somehow.