by Joe Minihane
Ten seconds – which felt like ten minutes – passed, and then there he was, soaked and pumping his arms as if he’d just struck a ninetieth-minute winner in the World Cup final. He disappeared again, and again my anxiety swelled, only to be allayed when I saw him jumping wave after wave after wave.
A quarter of an hour later he ran back, belting out the Baywatch theme tune at the top of his voice.
The only thing missing was an orange buoyancy aid and a tenuous mission to protect the coastline from a nuclear leak out at sea.
I was on the edge of tears with laughter, Tim’s loud cackle catching on the wind and sounding out across the empty beach. I felt ten years younger, delirious and happy.
‘Ah man, it’s fucking amazing in there. It’s not even cold,’ he said, his face fixing itself into the kind of grin only a hefty amount of time swimming outdoors can provoke.
I only half believed him. It was June, after all, and this was the first proper hint of what you’d call summer. Surely it hadn’t heated up that much.
I stepped out of my jeans, my swimming shorts already on, and made a run for it. Tim was right. This was like lukewarm, salty bathwater, albeit wilder. Everything around me was white. The bleeding edge of the sky and the sea, the bubbling water which was now up to my waist. I dived under and felt its force, surfacing just as another wave came in and slapped me backwards, causing me to fall and graze my knees on the sandy bottom.
I stood up and waded in further. A small break in the waves allowed me to swim a few strokes before the swell lifted me and sent me further out. I lost sight of the beach. I could have been miles out to sea, treading water off the side of a yacht rather than twenty metres from Tim and a pile of clothes.
A huge wave appeared on the horizon. I quickly spun around, swimming front crawl furiously in an attempt to ride its crest back to the shallows. Knees grazed again and mood rising, I turned and did it again. And again. And again. This cycle went on for ten minutes or so, until I was so worn out that my body cried out for respite. I dunked my head under, rubbed the salty water into my beard and made my way back to my towel.
Dried off and exuberant, we began to walk back over the beach. The lagoons Roger spoke of weren’t deep enough for a dip, so we contented ourselves by crunching our way over razor clams, their shells emitting a fizzing sound as the wind flung sand across them. I had forgotten all about the Waveney and our plans for Mendham. I was too lost in a seaside dream.
In Wells, I bought fudge for Keeley and ate fish and chips by the harbour. By now the sun was gone and grey cloud was billowing in from the north, a final reminder that summer wasn’t quite underway. It didn’t matter. We folded ourselves into the car, buzzed by the day’s restorative dip and drove back to the city along winding roads under high cloud.
A week on, I enlisted Tim’s driving skills and we set off east out of Norwich towards Bungay. We left the car by the town’s pretty church and set off across Outney Common to begin our search for Bungay beach or ‘the Sandy’ as some locals call it.
This elusive spot on the Waveney runs along the top end of the common, where an oxbow bends the river until its deep meander almost bites its tail. With rope swings and a sandy spot for laying towels, it sounded like the ideal place to cool off on what was fast becoming the hottest day of the year so far. The underwater roots hiding hungry pike from view didn’t seem too alluring, though. I decided I would swim well away from their reaches.
Once again, I had failed on the map front. If I was going to do this journey seriously, I was going to have to start collecting OS maps. The empty green space on Google Maps was never going to cut it and I was a fool to think it would. I scrolled over the dead space on the map until I caught sight of the blue Waveney, a squiggle on the screen of my iPhone. We tramped on through long grass and nettles towards the water, increasingly losing hope of finding the beach and having a lengthy session by the water.
Teetering over a rotten wooden bridge which crossed an old ditch clogged with brambles, we emerged onto the banks of the Waveney. Cries of ‘fore’ from the golf club which swallows up part of the common receded as we tracked along the water’s edge, looking for a convenient spot to slip in. Weed billowed beneath the current, green and abundant, lush in the summer sun. It looked like the perfect place for a pike to hide, readying itself for a nibble on a flashing toe.
Staring down into the depths from the high bank, I remembered the only time I’d ever caught one of these beasts as a teenager, my line tautening and reel screaming as it shot off down the River Stort. Pulling its huge body from the water, I recalled teasing out the hooks through its gills so I didn’t lose any fingers. It thrashed and thrashed before it tired itself out and I let it slip away out of the net and back to a better hiding spot, where it wouldn’t be so easily tempted by the quick, garish blur of an old spinner.
I mentioned this to Tim and he began regaling me with a passage from Swallows and Amazons about the dissection of a pike and the discovery of smaller fish deep within its guts. By now he was really getting into the subject, discussing strategies on how to get such a huge, angry, voracious fish off various bodily appendages. Nothing was left to the imagination, Tim’s instincts as a writer taking over. The thought of taking a swim here, so appealing as we walked over the common, was quickly receding.
We walked slowly, realising our hopes of finding ‘the Sandy’ were slim to non-existent. A muddy cutaway led quickly down from the bank to the water – not quite a beach, but good enough for wading in and out. I slung my towel around my waist and yanked on my swimming shorts. Unlike at Holkham, Tim was more than happy for me to go in first.
Despite the rising temperature, a long wet spring meant the river water was still bitingly cold. The sweatiness of the walk was quickly gone and I turned to beckon Tim in.
Last week he’d bounded in, but now I could see he was stepping with extra caution, sinking into the muddy riverbed and grunting as his waist edged towards the surface. He dived in face first and emerged shouting at the top of his voice.
‘Oh my fucking God. Oh my fucking God, it’s cold!’
Tim is prone to melodrama. This is a man who once thought he’d fractured his kneecap jumping off the front platform of a double-decker bus. And while I rolled my eyes at the show he put on for the bored cows on the far side of the Waveney, I did have some sympathy.
This was Tim’s first ever river swim. He had told me this in the car on the way to Bungay and explained how he’d mentioned our adventure on the phone to his nan that morning. There had been dark portents about Weil’s disease and the need for a hot shower the minute he got home.
I recalled my first time. The sliminess of the Granta’s bed and the slight pull of the slow current. The fresh whiff of the water which clung to my beard and didn’t leave me all day. I remembered not showering until the following morning, wanting to keep that natural scent about me as long as possible. I realised now, as I swam along the Waveney, just how grim that must have been for anyone who’d come into close contact with me that day.
Staying warm was doubtless Tim’s top priority as we each settled into our own pace and peered up at the Suffolk sky, streaked with vapour trails.
We shambled out together after twenty minutes of perfect summer bathing. By now it was scorching and neither of us was in a particular hurry to get back to the car. We passed an amiable half an hour nattering and snoozing on the bank, sussing out swimming spots nearby and deciding when we’d hit Roger’s trail together again. The cool water and pike talk hadn’t deterred Tim. If anything, he was already more of an evangelist for jumping into rivers than I was. Being around him had left me energised and enthused about what was beginning to look like an epic trip around the British Isles.
CHAPTER EIGHT
July
Mendham Mill, Suffolk – Geldeston Locks, Suffolk – Hampstead Mixed Pond, London – River Itchen, Hampshire – Little Ouse, Norfolk – River Avon, Fladbury, Worcestershire
A month passed,
and as the heat soared I really should have been out swimming my way through Waterlog, heading deeper into the maze, as Roger put it. But a holiday in New York to see friends, followed by the need to crack on with work to cover the costs of my transatlantic sojourn and my recent dips, meant it was over a month before I made my way out of London for a dip. It was a beautiful July day when I met my friend Joe at Liverpool Street and we boarded the Norwich train, chatting about Andy Murray’s recent Wimbledon win and how Joe’s beloved Swansea City were shaping up for the new football season. Joe is a writer of some renown, an old friend and one who’s never been afraid of doing anything which involves more than a modicum of mild peril. I’ve heard tales of him climbing cliffs in South Wales in howling gales while mutual friends looked up from the beach in horror.
He was also the subject of one of my favourite swimming mishaps, thankfully one with a happy ending. After a particularly heavy night at the Port Eliot literary festival, Joe decided to join a group of hardy fellow festivalgoers for a brief dip in the nearby estuary. At least, he thought it was going to be a brief dip.
After two hours’ sleep, he woke up and joined a bunch of swimmers who issued him with a number and a swimming cap, before ushering him into a minibus and driving him a mile to the start point. Everyone waded in through gloopy mud, setting a mean pace with the tide. Joe, usually a man capable of holding his own in physical challenges, battled gamely on to the end, only to emerge blue and in need of a long lie down.
I had been regaled with this story by Molly, who had witnessed it first hand and swum strongly that day, somewhat delighting in Joe’s misery as he brought up the rear. We were on our way to meet her, as well as Tim, Yanny and another friend, Luke, for a swim at Mendham Mill. Having failed to get here in June, I was desperate to have another crack and swim in yet another section of the Waveney.
The mill pond here is where the painter Alfred Munnings, an official artist at the Western Front, learnt the basics of the breaststroke, according to Roger, and it was outside the pub named after him in Mendham village that we congregated, shading ourselves while Yanny headed off in search of a convenient place to enter the water.
It wasn’t looking promising. It seemed Roger had stolen a swim here. The mill is private and the grass cutters were in, the river filling with cuttings billowing from the lawns. We walked slowly back through the village, peering over the bridge which crosses the Waveney as it widens. Open to the road and in view of houses, it was hardly an idyllic summer swimming spot.
Yanny assumed the role of my wild-swimming Sancho Panza, tilting at watery windmills, desperate to don his Victorian gentleman’s swimming costume and submerge himself in Roger’s favourite river. He said he knew of a spot further downstream, and so we piled back into our respective cars and took the short drive to Shotford Bridge. Despite running close to the road, the Waveney here was well hidden down a steep bank, a convenient landing stage for fishermen, and perfect for changing out of sweaty clothes and into swimming shorts.
After sharing swims with just one or two people, this was the first time I’d had what could be described as a swimming party. The July weather lent the whole morning an end-of-school-year vibe and we each plopped into the shallow waters shouting and jostling. Yanny disappeared away upstream, wading off in his striped swimming costume. Molly and Luke went belly-sliding downstream, the Waveney here shallow enough for underwater exploration as long as we shared the two pairs of goggles Joe and I had remembered to bring.
Tim and I swam out of our depth and splashed out fast circles while Joe disappeared back up towards the road, emerging at the top of a high, metal-clad retaining wall, readying himself to jump. He fired imaginary pistols above his head like a cowboy, his long blond hair and pale frame striking against the deep greens of the trees. The water was far too shallow for jumping, but he did it anyway, legs wheeling, his face gurning into a comedic grin as he looked towards me, crashing into the river. We sent up a cheer as he emerged unscathed, scaled the bank and did it all again.
Each of us slowly drifted off into our own river trance. I put on my goggles and breaststroked up and down as far as this short stretch would allow. Small chub swam nonchalantly back towards the dark, rooty spaces beneath a willow tree as I floated face down, the light refracting on green and gold pebbles just inches from my nose. Shade from the high branches and swaying nettle beds made the river cool and calm, a blessed respite from the scorching heat of the open road.
Luke, Tim and I took it in turns to sit on the landing stage, warming up for a few minutes before going off exploring again. As I finally dried off, I looked up to see Molly on point, leading a band of wild swimmers upstream through the centre of the river, each one picking out an awkward path over the slippery stones. Luke was still wearing his Wayfarer sunglasses, his hair slicked back, somehow managing to retain a level of cool. The woozy opening bars of ‘The End’ by The Doors looped in my head as I watched my friends in their own strange Apocalypse Now here in the East Anglian countryside. It wasn’t quite the long swim up to the mill pond which Roger had indulged in, but my faith in river swimming as an inherently social experience, something to be embraced rather than feared, was reaffirmed. Sharing this sometimes illicit activity with a big group added to the warm glow of my already strong endorphin buzz. It soothed my anxiety, it made my depression feel less all-encompassing.
Suitably geed up after our excursion at Mendham, we formed a convoy and drove to Geldeston and the locks, where I had swum with Yanny and Amy back in the gloomy onset of autumn. Down by the water a smattering of schoolkids were lounging, drinking cans of cheap cider and holding cigarettes daintily between thumb and forefinger. Occasionally, one of the boys would execute an impressive dive from high up on the concrete bridge, watched by the girls who cooed further up the bank.
It was great to return here on a steamy day and see the river taken over by swimmers and idlers. No one from the pub complained about people jumping into the water. In fact, they seemed to positively encourage it, bar staff occasionally popping up and waving encouragement to those down on the banks.
Most of all I was excited to be back without my wetsuit and wasted no time yanking on my wet shorts and sinking in. The water here felt deep and luxurious compared to the shallow, riffling white stuff near Shotford Bridge earlier in the day. Not ones to be outdone by younger revellers, Luke and Joe set about showing off to the assembled crowd.
Being a stand-up poet, Luke’s predilection for public boasting is a source of professional pride. His wild hair, each strand usually styled just so, was a browny-blond mess now that it had begun to dry out in the summer sun. He strutted over the bridge as if he was walking on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe, threw a long leg over the high fence and then carefully balanced himself, ready to jump, enjoying the encouragement of onlookers.
After milking the attention, Luke threw himself ten feet below into the weed-packed water, an ungainly whirl of limbs disappearing into the Waveney’s depths. The young lads didn’t even try to hide how impressed they were, even if Luke emerged gasping and spitting out the long draught of the river he’d accidentally taken on board.
Joe was up next. Ever competitive and always looking to one-up his pals when it comes to feats of derring-do, he picked his way through the kids’ bags and errant limbs, flexing his toes over the retaining wall, opting for a shallow dive rather than a cannonball from the bridge. It was nigh on perfect – a small splash as his hands, head and then feet disappeared. The appreciative cheer sent Luke scurrying through the kissing gate and back to the bridge’s crest for another go.
Molly, Tim and I eschewed the festivities for something more sedate and in keeping with the hot weather. The poplar trees on the far bank sang in the light breeze as I swam off against the sluggish current and let the cold take hold of me. The water was thick with weeds which wrapped themselves around my arms and legs. I swam on regardless. Once again, there was no chance of spotting otters. No matter. Three successive swims in thi
s hallowed river had made my summer, and there was so much more to come. We crawled out one by one, sunk quick pints of Green Jack ale in the sunny beer garden and readied ourselves for more adventures, following wherever Roger pointed.
I returned to London thirsty for water. As the weather got warmer, every day without a dip – a Waterlog dip – was beginning to feel like a waste. But with work tying me to town for a few days, a longer trip wasn’t immediately possible. Instead, I packed my swimming things and headed up to Hampstead and the mixed pond.
Roger’s passing mention of this shared bathing spot meant it wasn’t strictly on my list, but I had come to see it as my version of his moat. There was no chance of me digging my own in the small yard that passed for a garden at the back of my Camberwell flat, after all. The place held happy memories for me. It was, after all, the first place Keeley and I had swum wild, not to mention the perfect place for skipping out of writing up features on the latest expensive tech for the day. Phone reception here was non-existent, thanks to the bulk of Parliament Hill.
I had been coming here regularly in between my Waterlog adventures ever since it had opened at the end of May. Now it was late July, the last chance for a midweek dip before things got crazy and the place became a hormonal theatre, with demob-happy teenagers from across north London looking to impress each other on long, hazy summer afternoons.
On my recent visits I had found the place empty, muddy after a long series of downpours and free for me to roam around at leisure, strewing my clothes and bags over benches and flagstones, allowing me the chance to indulge myself in a slow lap of the rainy pond without distraction. It was a quick fix for anxious thoughts which welled up when I worried about why I didn’t feel like a success with work and how long this Waterlog adventure was going to take. My spreadsheet was turning green at an alarmingly slow rate and it was beginning to sink in that it was going to take a lot longer than anticipated. I beat myself up about failing to follow through on my initial plan to be finished by the end of the summer, even though this whole trip was meant to stop me from doing just that. When I got to the pond, whatever the weather, these concerns were washed away in the murky water.