Glorified Splashes

Ladies' Mirror, Volume V, Issue 6, 1 December 1926, Page 90

Glorified Splashes

A Frank Talk with Bathers who just Flirt with Water

gathing, in the minds of many people, is associated chiefly with the sea. Even then it is only too often little more than a glorified paddle with an occasional splash. Not much more than 5 per cent of those who go down to the sea in bathing costumes can swim. The Romans were a wise and great people. They have left behind them, in the relics of their civilisation, eloquent evidence of their fondness for bathing. They enjoyed it. We, who for long have been taking our pleasures too seriously, are only just beginning to understand that we may bathe freely and openly without being immoral. To enjoy bathing to the full it is necessary to be able to swim. Paddling about with now and again a bob down into the water and occasional partial immersion, is, to swimming and a real bathe, much as flirtation is to love.

W I say our public swimming baths leave much to be desired, I deplore (a) that no refreshments are provided; (b) that too much noise and skylarking is allowed; (c) that the attendants are only too often slovenly in their performance of their duties. A cup of coffee after a bathe is not only acceptable but healthy. Shouting and wild splashing spoil the enjoyment of all who do not want to skylark. Courtesy and neat, clean dress in attendants would give tone to our baths, which they lack. A little intelligent effort would do much to popularise our swimming baths. It is unfortunate that they are looked upon so much as places provided for the poor. They are really provided for the whole community and should be made attractive to educated and refined people. gwimming is matchless for strengthening the body, securing freedom from colds, and giving grace and freedom to the movement of the human limbs.

Since it is beyond contradiction that it is pleasant and useful both for children and for adults to swim, why it is that there are not instructors constantly in attendance at public baths to show people how to swim and help them in their efforts to teach themselves? It is pitiable to see novices floundering in the shallow end of the bath and doing nothing better than swallow water and shiver, partially immersed, all for want of a little intelligent help and encouragement. Bathing should not be limited to a week or fortnight at the sea, but should be enjoyed constantly throughout the year, especially in the summer. We have swimming baths. These, however, leave much to be desired. We are also just beginning to get, at long last, openair baths. For every one we have of these we ought to have a hundred.

Bathing in the open air is more enjoyable in good weather than under a roof. It is also less noisy. It is a fine tonic to body and mind. It is, perhaps, the shortest cut to making a man, or a woman, hardy and healthy. get it not be supposed that having a bath is anything like as healthy for the body as a bathe. Stewing in hot water in a stuffy bathroom is one thing. Exercising the body in swimming another. The cold bath or the shower is invigorating ; but it is often too much of a shock. The immersed body of the swimmer glows with health in a far more natural manner. It is so with the bather. The bather has got to learn how to bathein other words, how to swim. But the public must be helped. That is why we need greater facilities for bathing than we have, and more attractive public baths, with refreshments and, generally speaking, a more enlightened and up-to-date atmosphere. Graphic.