Each summer, as regular as clockwork, warnings are issued about swimming in our lakes and rivers, but when it comes to taking a dip, are we letting the scaremongers win? asks Chris Benfield.
It's as hot as you know where and the sea is 70 miles away. Why don't we just take off all our clothes and jump in that pond?
The answer, as we all know, is that we might die if we do. Every summer, somebody drowns and the Royal Society for the Pre
vention of Accidents (RoSPA) issues its warning that fresh water is a trap ... almost always deeper, colder, and more polluted, than it seems to be.
Last year, its point was tragically underlined by the deaths of two teenage boys in the lake in Roundhay Park, Leeds, and this week, as schools broke up for the holidays, Leeds City Council issued a general warning to all children: "Do NOT swim in open water. It's simply not worth the risk."
The lake at Roundhay is deep and nobody would want to be responsible for encouraging anybody else to jump into it. But is it realistic to try to stop anybody from swimming in any water which is not chlorinated and contained in concrete? And is it, anyway, what we really want to do?
The voice of swimmers' liberation is the River and Lake Swimming Association (RLSA) at river-swimming.co.uk. As somebody asks on its website ... Is a dip in a clean moorland pool really more dangerous than stuffing the kids in a car and helping clog the roads all the way to a beach where they can dice with tides and jellyfish?
The RLSA is leading a backlash against what it sees as ridiculous demonisation of fresh water.
Chief culprit, in its eyes, is Roger Vincent, the long-serving press officer for RoSPA, who was quoted last year saying: "Inland water in this country does not heat up."
As the swimmers point out, this is simply nonsense. Some fresh water heats up, some stays cold, depending on currents and sunshine – just like the sea.
But its legendary coldness is only one of its hazards, according to the safety industry. If we do not seize up from hypothermia, we could catch Weil's Disease, a horrible bug spread by rats. If we do not die from that, we will probably be poisoned by blue-green algae. And according to the authorities in charge of the water in question, they will be sued if they do not try to stop us taking the risks.
One by one, any pond or lake or pool we are likely to want to take a dip in is fenced off or surrounded by prohibition notices. Even boating is out of favour on municipal water, in case somebody gets splashed with the evil stuff.
Only the labradors still do the obvious thing when it feels like Arizona in August.
But a rebellion has begun – and it is making progress. Twice in the past three years, swimmers have been through the courts to make the point that legal liability is over-used as an excuse by the consultants, pundits, insurers, lawyers, bureaucrats and busybodies, behind No Swimming signs. The Prime Minister has publicly declared himself against the kind of health and safety overkill which denies simple pleasure to millions. Even the Health and Safety Executive has declared itself against "unnecessary precautions" and issued a guidance statement making clear that it does not expect "wild water" to meet the same standards as a municipal swimming pool.
"Swimming where you want to is now as legal as we can get it," says Yacov Lev, the 72-year-old Israeli Liverpudlian who started the RLSA when his favourite lake was fenced.
"Now it's up to local authorities to recognise the change of mood."
His members have organised a series of symbolic swims in inland waters this summer. Meanwhile, the website points out...
• The temperature of Ullswater, in the Lake District, reached 27C in the top two feet in July last year – warmer than most swimming pools.
• When somebody drowns while swimming, the media (and RoSPA) usually quote figures for drownings from all causes – including anglers who slipped, suicide leaps, boat capsizes, cars driven off bridges and foolhardy diving. The accident figures for swimming are small, and nothing in comparison with climbing, motorbike racing or letting off fireworks. In some cases alcohol is a factor.
• Weil's Disease is rare, confined to dirty water and more likely to affect farmers than swimmers.
• Blue-green algae is dangerous mainly when it is so concentrated it has made the water unappetising anyway.
Making waves: For newcomers to open air swimming a lido, like this one at Ilkley, is the perfect preparation for dipping a toe in the water
Rob Fryer, a 67-year-old printer, and a veteran of the Farleigh and District River Swimming Club, based on the River Frome, in Wiltshire, has become a spokesman for the anti-RoSPA resistance. He says the turning point was a book called Waterlog, by Roger Deakin, a chronicle of swimming through Britain, published in 2000, which has become the bible of the "wild swimmers".
Fryer says: "In the old days, everyone swam in rivers and lakes because that was all they had.
"Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, when we started to get municipal pools, RoSPA started developing this policy that it was not safe to swim anywhere else. They did not dare say we shouldn't swim in the sea but they started coming up with reasons why inland water was dangerous and it just snowballed.
"In the end, we were losing heart. We were beginning to wonder about ourselves. Perhaps we were a bit odd. Then Waterlog came out and everyone loved it and ever since then, it has been our turn on top."
Roger Vincent of RoSPA was on holiday this week but his deputy said: "However he has been quoted, what he would want to say is that water is often colder than people expect."
Even Rob Fryer advises: "Always wear footwear; always ask local advice; and try to follow other swimmers who have been there before."
chris.benfield@ypn.co.uk
In The Swim – Outdoors And In
• The campaign for "wild water" has gone hand-in-hand with one to save open-air swimming pools, which forced Sport England to change what seemed to be a policy of refusing them lottery grants.
• Remaining lidos are listed at lidos.org.uk, which mentions three in inland Yorkshire – Helmsley, in Ryedale: call 0777 239 5368 for opening times and charges; Ilkley 01943 600453; Ingleton 01524 241147.
• Rob Fryer, stalwart of the River and Lake Swimming Association, is working on a Directory of Cool Places and is happy to swap notes with anybody interested at wildswim@talk21.com.
• His Yorkshire recommendations so far include the Wharfe at Bolton Abbey, Burnsall and Appletreewick; the pools below Stainforth Foss, on the Ribble, north of Settle; the Wharfe by the campsite at Skirfare Bridge, near Kilnsey ("for paddling and picnics"); the Swale at Round Howe, upstream of the Green Bridge at Richmond; the Cauldron Pools at West Burton, on a beck near the Aysgarth Falls in Wensleydale; the Eller Beck at Fen Bog, near Fylingdales; and Low Gill Beck, Glaisdale, to the west of the North York Moors. Access charges are made by the land-owners in some cases.
