What sort of lunatic goes for an outdoor dip in Arctic Britain?
SARAH RAINEY joins the die-hards who swim every morning in Hyde Park — whatever the weather!
MY TOES are numb, my legs are turning an alarming shade of purple — and I’ve got goosebumps in places I didn’t know I had.
It’s just gone 7.30 am on one of the coldest days of the year (-14c, to be exact) — and I’m standing on the snowy banks of the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park, wearing a swimsuit.
Shivering doesn’t come close to describing the strange way my body is convulsing as I tentatively dip one foot in the icy water, followed by the other.
The pain is excruciating, as if I’m being stabbed by razor-sharp pins. It’s such a shock that I can’t tell if the water is freezing cold or burning hot — all I know is that it feels like my skin is on fire.
As the numbness kicks in, I wade in up to my knees, then my waist and finally — using every bit of willpower I have left — sink into the arctic lake up to my neck.
I am not, I assure you, stark raving mad. Or, if I am, at least I’m not the only one. As the Beast From The East came snarling and biting across the UK this week, what was the general advice from meteorologists? Stay at home? Make only the most necessary journeys? Pop a shovel and a flask of soup into the boot of your car if you do have to venture out?
Can anyone remember someone recommending a dip in a frozen, open-air pond — actually cracking the ice with your bare foot before you plunge in — while snowflakes swirl around your mottled thighs? No? Me neither.
But while the rest of us shivered under our duvets, there were groups of hardy swimmers — all perfectly sane, rational people — doing just that. The UK’s oldest swimming club, the Serpentine Swimming Club, based in Hyde Park, has never seen such a busy week. The snow and super sub-zero temperatures just add to the fun, say members.
And all over the country, from Penzance to Brighton Beach, people have been stripping off and wading into the water, in blizzardy conditions. This week (the coldest of the year), against my better judgment, I decided to join them to find out what on earth compels them to jump into water cold enough to kill.
FIRST of all, let me describe what it feels like to plunge your warm body in to a frosty lake. You take one step down the ladder into the water, then another. The moment the water closes around you the air is knocked out of your lungs, leaving you gasping for breath.
You are momentarily paralysed, the cold so intense it feels like it’s seeping into your bones. Your heart, previously hammering in fear and anticipation, slows down so much you fear it might stop. Your instinct is to save yourself, to clamber out, to get to safety. A strange, whooping, gulping sound comes out of your body as you try to gasp for air — and help.
But is it fun? I’ll get back to you on that.
The Serpentine Swimming Club members, I discover, aren’t elite athletes or hardened professionals: most are ordinary, middle-aged folk who simply pop in for an early-morning swim on their way to work. There is only one rule: wetsuits are deemed ‘not within the true spirit of an all- year- round, open- air swimming club’, so it’s swimwear only.
‘ It’s totally rejuvenating!’ insists Catherine Ferguson, 57, an artist and art teacher originally from the Midlands, who’s been swimming here for three years. ‘When I get into the water, I feel like all my stress ebbs away.
‘I have four children so most of my life has been about them. As soon as they were old enough and I didn’t have to bring them to school, I started coming here. It forces me to get up in the morning and it’s something I do for myself.’
Catherine comes to the lake four times a week and swims 300m — roughly three lengths of the designated swimming area, which in summer makes up the public lido. In winter, it’s only open to club members (the annual fee is £20).
Beatrice Heller, 31, a management consultant from London, is another regular. ‘I was persuaded to join eight years ago by a colleague,’ she says. ‘I got hooked. I can turn up in a bad mood and I leave feeling great.
‘I’m sporty — twice a week I’ll go for a run, followed by circuit training and then a swim here. But the swimming is my favourite part. It gets me through a really tough day.’
Finland-born Jaana Tarma, 62, agrees. ‘I’m used to the temperature — in Finland ice swimming is very common — but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the cold. The wind chill on days like today is vicious. But you get out of bed, you grit your teeth and you do it. Afterwards you feel so proud of what you have achieved.’
Their enthusiasm is infectious and they’re not the only ones developing a taste for swimming in the great outdoors, even during the most extreme months.
The Outdoor Swimming Society, which started in 2006 with 300 people, now has more than 23,000 members. Amateur groups — many of them women-only — are popping up across the country, from the Chester Frosties to the Penzance Battery Belles and Buoys. The Big Chill Swim, a winter gala which often takes place in February in the Lake District, attracts more than 1,000 competitors.
So why do they do it? Studies have proven dunking yourself in cold water boosts circulation, reduces the stress hormone cortisol and even improves the immune system.
Exposing the body to extremes of temperature provokes a ‘fight or flight’ reaction, which sends electrical impulses from nerve endings to the brain. That ‘alive’ feeling comes from the water activating sensors under the skin which increase the heart rate.
NOT only is there a rush of endorphins when you get out of the water, but outdoor swimming is said to stimulate the ‘dopaminergic pathways’ in the brain (responsible for lifting mood and keeping up energy levels), meaning it can be used to treat depression.
This is something members of the Serpentine Swimming Club, which dates back to 1864, appreciate. Some say it helped them overcome personal tragedies; others say this bonkers activity makes them feel youthful and stress-free.
The club boasts more than 100 members, aged seven to 94, from 17 different countries, including Colombia, South Africa and Japan.
Every morning, swimmers squash together in its spartan lakeside changing rooms. Pleasantries are exchanged, clothes stripped off —nudity doesn’t seem to bother anyone — and runners make the frantic dash to the water, before huddling back inside, red-nosed and gasping, for steaming mugs of tea and cake.
President robin Hunter, 77, has been a member for 24 years. Every morning before his swim, he drops a thermometer into the lake. Today, he pronounces, it’s a balmy 0c. The strong winds have made the air temperature drop to -14c.
The day before my arrival, swimmers had to crack the ice on the water with their heels before diving in. To my horror, some seem disappointed it’s not quite as cold today. ‘It’s exciting when it’s really frosty,’ says Laure Latham, 46, a mother
of two who joined in 2012 and swims three times a week.
‘Your blood rushes to protect your internal organs, so your extremities get really cold. Your fingers in particular cramp up. My trick is to see if I can touch my thumb to my little finger — if I can’t do that, it’s time to get out of the water.’
Her words send a shiver down my spine. I like to think of myself as tough: I grew up in Northern Ireland and used to join my Dad on a charity swim in freezing waters off the north coast every Boxing Day.
But this is a whole new level. As I look around the changing room at those who have already braved the lake — a man with his feet in a basin of boiling water; a woman shaking so much she’s spilling her tea — there’s nothing to suggest this was a good idea.
‘The best way to do it on a day like this is run straight in,’ says Merlin Marr- Johnson, 46, a geologist from Amersham who’s been a member for nine years. ‘Normally you should take it slowly — especially if you’re new — so your body doesn’t go into shock. If that happens, you can feel breathless and panicky, which makes some people gasp and inhale water.
‘But when the weather’s like this, you’re more likely to be at risk from hypothermia, so it’s better to get it over and done with.’
To prevent hypothermia it’s important to have the right gear. While the swimmers wear ordinary costumes, most have waterproof, wetsuit-material boots and gloves, and some are wearing two swimming caps to insulate their heads.
Another — 30- year- old Flora Spencer — is going in wearing a woolly bobble hat. ‘I used to push myself and stay in the water too long, but a few times I got cold and hypothermic, so I don’t do that any more,’ she says. ‘I just swim ten strokes then turn round and come out. That’s all you need.’
Standing in my Baywatch-red swimsuit with a set of ancient goggles and a pair of glittery M&S flip-flops on, I don’t feel very wellequipped — but it’s difficult not to get caught up in the moment as a trio of women skip, whooping and shrieking, into the cold.
I pad after them, losing sensation in my toes with every step of the 10m walk to the lake. A fierce wind has whipped up outside and as we ditch our towels with a friendly passer-by — gawping tourists are an occupational hazard — all I want to do is turn back.
By the time I’ve plucked up the courage to plunge in, gripping the icy handrail for dear life, my fellow swimmers are several metres away, doing front crawl across the choppy water. They barely pause. Their entry into the water is seamless.
If it weren’t for the snow on the ground, you’d swear they were slipping into the turquoise waters of the Caribbean.
READERS, I confess my ‘swim’ turned out to be more of a fivesecond doggy paddle, but as I wrench myself back up the steps and into the biting air, I am ecstatic.
My legs and arms have gone blotchy and itchy — this, I later learn, is called ‘ cold urticaria’, a common reaction to severe cold — and my legs are so numb that they don’t feel like they’re attached.
But my body is buzzing with adrenaline. High-fives await in the changing room, where the regulars seem suitably impressed by my performance. ‘Isn’t it just the best way to start the day?’ asks Octavia Williams, 34, hands trembling as she pulls on her clothes. ‘You see the most incredible sunrises — and it’s good for the skin, too.’
Speaking of which, there are no showers — unless you fancy a cold one outside — and I’m desperate to wash off the lake water, having read about the risks of blue-green algae (fever, vomiting and diarrhoea) and parasites (which can burrow into skin and cause a rash).
‘None of us has been sick since we started here,’ says Catherine Ferguson. ‘We very rarely get colds or flu, and I put that down to swimming.’ She, and the rest of the club, do look remarkably healthy, with clear skin, glossy hair and lean physiques — and seem far younger than their years, too.
Among the club’s only professional swimmers is Duncan Goodhew, 60, who won gold and bronze for GB at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. He’s enjoying his first winter season.
‘I’m still wondering what on earth I’m doing,’ he grins. ‘The first time I got in there I felt like my fingernails were going to drop off.
‘But I’m addicted. We spend most of the winter sitting inside with the central heating on, and this is a wonderful contrast. You are completely at one with nature.
‘Swimming has been in my life for ever and this has added a whole new dimension to it.’
Having survived my first dip in the Serpentine, I bundle myself up in as many layers as I can manage and head back out into the snow, with a hot water bottle inside my coat.
Someone shouts after me: ‘Same time tomorrow?’ I’m tempted to say yes, but my teeth are chattering so much I can’t get the words out.