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I was born and grew up within a mile of the sea, which is where most people did their swimming when I was a child. I don't know any of my childhood friends who went to the swimming pool as that meant travelling into the nearest town, about 7 miles away.
I had alot of ear trouble as a child and was warned against getting water in my ears, so was always rather fearful of the water and never learnt to swim.
My children all went for lessons as part of the school week. They were taken into the nearby town, where their class teachers taught them to swim in the town swimming pool.
My grandson went for swimming lessons outside of school hours.
My step great grandmother drowned in the River Arun in Sussex. She was found floating in the river, but as she had earlier partaken of a couple of drinks at a local hostelry, one cannot be sure of the circumstances. The newspaper report mentioned that her hat was missing, as if that had bearing on the case....?
Looking through local parish records in my nearby town here near the coast, one often sees burial entries such' buried a male person, unknown. found on the seashore.' ...or 'buried a sailor washed ashore off the ship .( whatever) aged about 24, name unknown '.
Gwyn
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Janey, when I was at Primary school we were taught to swim, the school had a pool specially built. Like you, I cant dive. Nobody every taught me. When I went to the public pools I wanted to try diving in off the side and I would be standing there trying to pluck up courage and just when I thought ok, now, somebody would swim just below me, so I wouldnt go. My sister could dive. I am not sure who, if anybody, taught her. Many of our schools have the pools to teach children to swim, but I think these days it must be a qualified instructor.
We also have the problem with immigrants being unable to swim, or not very water wise. Quite a few get drowned, or have to be rescued at our surfing beaches. Some go out in boats to fish, but dont have life jackets and cant swim. Others fish off rocks in one place which is notorious for big waves sweeping people into the sea. The warning signs get ignored, if they havent been destroyed by slimeballs.
Huia.
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Just musing and wondering --
In a General Chat thread about narrowboats
http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.page/board/general_chat/thread/1268190
the question of lock keepers and their families drowning in the 19th century came up. It wasn't an uncommon event.
The Ontario, Canada, death registrations that can be viewed on line at Ancestry show the full details that can be seen only on full certificates in the UK -- name, age, place, cause of death, family names, length of time at address -- in most cases, most of that info. There are several death records per page.
When looking at death records there, I have noticed what seems an inordinate number of drowning deaths in the early 1900s, many but not all children.
Did our ancestors, even those who worked around water or on vessels, not know how to swim??
We can see this phenomenon today in immigrant communities in Canada and probably the UK. Immigrants (and their kids) are less likely to know how to swim and so more at risk of drowning. This is an article from the Toronto Star in 2007; I remember it being talked about at the time:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/836006
"Immigrants are at higher risk for drowning when boating and swimming than people born in Canada, according to new research being released Thursday by the Lifesaving Society."
The survey says that 4% of the Canadian-born and 19% of new Canadians can't swim. People surveyed said that in India, for example, people don't have access to swimming pools, so they don't learn. A 14-yr-old boy from India drowned in his condo swimming pool in Toronto the year the survey was done.
When I was a kid, living in a new little house in a new working-class suburb of London, Ontario, we all took swimming lessons every summer. I remember as soon as school was out, there I was getting out of bed *even earlier* and bicyling to the playground a couple of miles away in the cold damp mornings for two weeks, to get my Junior Red Cross and so on. (I flunked Intermediate because I can't dive. Headfirst into anything, no thanks, not me.)
Then it was two weeks' vacation in a rented cottage on Lake Huron, in the water all day. I could survive a long time in the water now, as long as it wasn't the North Atlantic or something.
So -- can you swim? Can your kids / grandkids? Did you / they take lessons, or just learn by doing?
Did you have ancestors who drowned?
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