When I was younger, as far as I recall, there was no such thing as wild swimming; it was just swimming. Husband growing up in the Midlands swam in the polluted waters of the River Trent, while I swam in the polluted waters of Swansea Bay. That was fairly wild I suppose.
Back in the 1950s and 60s the last remnants of the valley's industrial heritage were still allowed to pump their waste into the River Tawe, which carried it to the sea. It wasn't until they banned people from eating cockles gathered in the bay that we began to wonder if swimming in its water was a good idea.
We decided it was as long as we tried to keep our mouths closed. And extreme sports definitely hadn't been invented then!
3 comments:
I've never even heard the term "wild swimming" before. When I was a kid, our local "swimming pool" was just a pond diverted from the local river too. It had leeches in one part so we learned to avoid that area, yuck.
Same here, as a child I swam in rivers, the sea and lakes. Nowadays I only swim in swimming pools, close to the edge, I'm not very confident now.
Yes and we are going to try one warm sunny calm clean day aren't we 😂😂
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