Near Death Experiences Part 3

I am not the world's strongest swimmer. I did get my Swimming Proficiency Badge while in the Cubs so I am able to swim 25 metres and rescue a brick from the bottom of a heavily chloronated pool while wearing pyjamas. But, this has not proved to be the perfect training for the real thing. The sea. The ocean. The big blue. Maybe I should always wear pyjamas when I go swimming.

I have nearly drowned twice. The first time was in the beautiful lagoon of Oludeniz in Turkey. C and I were on holiday there a few years ago. Oludeniz is beautiful with its white fine sand tipping into the beautiful blue/green water of the lagoon. The lagoon is framed by sheer cliffs. Paragliders launch themselves from the top of these cliffs and soar like graceful eagles until they decend onto the beach. Indeed our neighbours, who are big in the paragliding world - Neil was former captain of the UK team - have flown here themselves. But, not on the day that C and I were there.

It was very hot. C and I decided to swim a while in order to cool down a bit. The water was clean and cool. The beach sloped gently into the sea, giving an expanse of shallow water, before falling away quite dramatically into deep water. While swimming you could tell that you had crossed the "ledge" by the considerable drop in water temperature.

C and I were close to this ledge, taking in the views. Earlier we had spotted a bunch of local lads, in their early twenties, teaching one of their number to swim. Right now this lad was stood alone near to us, waist high in the water, while his mates were catching some rays back on the beach. After a while he started to jump up and down in the water. After a little while longer he began to wave his arms around. His mates waved back. After a little while longer he began to slip under the water. It suddenly became clear to C and I that he wasn't messing around. He was in difficulty. He was clearly caught on the edge of the ledge and the sand was slipping away beneath his feet. His mates hadn't noticed and were too far away to help him in any case. And, then he disappeared.

I dived into the water, over the ledge, and grabbed the lad. He was really panicking at this point and grabbed me and pulled me and dragged me down with him. It took a huge amount of energy and strength for me to get beneath him, to grab his legs and literally to hurl him away from me back into the shallows. He crawled to the shore. I emerged from the sea, gasping and gagging on water I had swollen. I crawled to the shore. There his mates surrounded me and patted me on the back. They had no English but it was clear that they were very happy that I had rescued their mate from a potentially dangerous situation. I was quite proud of myself that day. I think I save that lad's life.

The second time I nearly drowned was a lot more recent. It was Christmas 2005. It was the second day of our holiday in Australia. We were in Sydney staying with a very good friend, K, who was working over there. We were taking in the coastal path walking from Clovelly to Bondi Beach. About half way round we stopped for a bite to eat at Bronte Beach before walking on to Tamarama. We were all a bit hot and so we decided to stay a while at Tamarama and take a cooling, refreshing dip in the beautiful blue sea.

After a little sunbathing C and I went into the water together while K was guarding the bags and applying her suntan cream. C and I were bobbing up and down in the waves, sometimes hopping on one leg, sometimes with C holding onto me as I bobbed. We were ecstatic. We could not believe that only a couple of days earlier we had been in the depths of a British winter, complete with snow. We were engrossed in the view, the excitement, the whole experience.

I should also add that this was considered to be a safe beach. And, there were lots of other people in the water at the same time as ourselves. The beach was guarded by life guards and we were well between the flags that designated the safe swimming area.

Anyhow, after chatting for ten minutes or so, C and I noticed that we had drifted a few metres away from the main crowd of bathers. At the same time, waves began to break on top of us, taking us under. But at this point, once the wave had broken, I was till able to hop and bring my head above the surface. We looked at each other and decided it would be best to swim for shore.
We swam. We swam for a good five minutes. We were getting nowhere. Actually we were getting further from the shore. We were swimming backwards. We were in a rip tide. We were in a rip tide that was taking us beyond the edge of the rocks and into the open sea. Into the open, shark-infested sea. We had already heard of two swimmers who had been killed by bull sharks since our arrival Down Under, so this was not a pleasant prospect. And, again, waves began to break onto us and take us under. But, by now I was tiring and there was no sand beneath my feet when I attempted to hop. By now, I was beneath the surface more than I was above it. I realised that I was helpless. I was too tired to swim to shore. C is a stronger swimmer than I am. I told her she should leave me and try and swim back. She refused. She wouldn't leave me. This was the closest I have ever felt to death. C and I were actually, silently, beginning to say goodbye to each other. Helpless. But, at least were were together.

I got taken down again by a big wave. As I spluttered back to the surface and looked around for C I was surprised to hear another voice: "G'day folks. Do you need a hand?" It was a lifeguard. Sat there on a surfboard, all bronzed, blond and muscular in his red swim shorts. I could have kissed him. They must have been watching us from the shore and realised that we were in difficulty. He had swam out beyond us on his board to come to our rescue. However, we were in a very rough bit of sea so as we clung to his board he signalled for another lifeguard to came and help. And soon, another surf knight arrived on his gleaming steed.

Being rescued was not the easiest. For a while both rescuer and rescuee spent a good time somersaulting around in the water, gripping a surfboard, as waves crashed about us. My knuckles were raw from gripping the cord and being pressed against the board. Eventually we made it to some flat water. Now they attempted to get us onto the boards. C was hesitant. Throughout most of this experience she had been clinging on with just one hand, while the other attempted to cling onto her dignity and the bikini bottoms which every crashing wave attempted to wrench from her bum. C insisted on pulling her pants back up before climbing on board and being whisked to the safety of land. Once C was safe it was my turn. I was instructed to clamber aboard on my belly. Once I was on, I heard something from another man that I hope never to hear again: "Spread your legs mate, I'm coming in from behind!" With my guardian angel kneeling behind me we veritably flew back to shore. "No more swimming for you today mate!" He instructed as he went off to move the safety flags.....

C and I clambered back to our friend Kate. Our friend Kate who had missed the whole thing. An old guy who had been sat next to her suddenly remarked:"Jeez, if I'd a known they wuz with you, I'd a given you a heads up" (to be read in an Australian accent).

Everyone we met thereafter seemed to have good advice how to survive a rip tide. I wish they had given it to us before we had entered the water. The advice goes a) don't attempt to swim your way out - you will just tire and drown or attract shark and be eaten; b) put one arm in the air to signal that you require assistance; c) float. Apparently rip tides pull you out but then, as if in a big arc, will simply deposit you further down the coast. As long as the sharks don't get you, you'll be fine as long as you float.

We chilled for the rest of the day and then, in the evening, went to a bar in another Sydney suburb to meet up with some of K's work colleagues. One Aussie native was adamant that she knew C from somewhere. We then attempted to determine how this could possibly be. We ruled out London and other parts of the UK and everything else until the girl suddenly exclaimed: "I know! You were the girl rescued from Tamarama Bay this avvo......" C's fifteen minutes of fame.

I hope we don't come that close to having to say goodbye to each other for a very, very long time, C and I.

The Times They Are A-Changin Part 1

I’ve been having a contemplative Sunday morning. The wood-smoke scent of last night’s real fire gently pervades the lounge. The dishwasher quietly murmurs in the kitchen beyond. Maslow is noisily preening himself in a sunspot on the sofa beside me. The Archers Omnibus is entertaining itself in the background, playing through the Freeview digital-TV. Across the other side of the world and in a different time zone (I think it is tomorrow there already….) rain is disrupting a would-be, and most unexpected, possible, if not probable victory over Australia, the great nemesis. It is the second leg of the Tri-nations One Day International cricket final. Go Monty!

Yesterday’s newspaper (the Saturday Times), multiple magazines, and other supplements are gently gathering dust on the coffee table. I admit I do tend to lose interest a little bit after I have completed the Killer Su Doku and the Times 2 Crossword, but there is something quite satisfying about the weekly visit to the recycling bins at Waitrose. If you ignore the fact that so many trees were felled to make the stuff in the first place, and, so much CO2 was spewed into the atmosphere while transporting the stuff around the globe, it makes me feel as if I am doing my little bit for the planet and the next generation. And, so I do. Ignore the fact that is.

The news is much, much more accessible these days. This might explain why there is also a growing pile of CDs tottering on the coffee table. CDs which, not unlike my free copy of the Harvard Business Review, are likely to remain unopened, never to see a PC disk drive, or CD player, or the light of day. Give-away CDs from papers or received unsolicited through the mail: “Paul McKenna’s Deep Relaxation: Programme Your Mind to Feel Good”, “Charlotte’s Web: Help is Coming from Above” – an audio CD, “Full Circle: Alaska and Russia – The Michael Palin Collection”, “Coast: Exmouth to Bristol”, “Teach Yourself Mandarin Chinese Conversation”, (I joke not !!), and, “Make a Contribution to a Cleaner World” – an educative missive from our supplier of home heating oil, trying to justify why they are five pence per litre more expensive than their nearest rivals…….There’s probably a degree in social studies in the making right there on our coffee table. In fact I am sure there is. Especially if you add in the other reading materials which are to be found there. “The Dangerous Book for Boys”, “Mr Jones’ Rules”, “The Rough Guide to Thailand”, the Laura Ashley catalagoue, and the “Radio Times”.

These days you can learn everything you ever wanted or needed to know about the world without even leaving your bedroom, visiting a museum, stepping into a library, trekking across the Sahara, or undertaking a balloon safari in deepest, darkest Africa. We have News 24, broadband and Wikipedia. Amazon.co.uk delivers. Wine Direct delivers. Tesco Direct delivers. The local Indian delivers. I am seriously considering becoming a recluse. But a recluse who is well-fed, well-informed and worldly-wise.

The recent snowfall that paralysed much of the Midlands, Wales and the London Tube (Southern Jessies!), closing all of the schools, reminded me of an incident from my own childhood. It made me think about how technology has changed. How our experience of the world has been altered, and, how the online, virtual nature of communication tools today have coloured our response to incidents such as a snow storm.

When I was about 11 or 12, at Grammar School, it snowed one day. This was proper snow, mind you. Not like the stuff you get these days - the wrong kind of snow. This was heavy snow. A blizzard. Drifting snow. Dickensian winter snow. It had started in the morning after lessons had already started. We watched it eagerly through Victorian windows, pleased to see that it was settling and anticipating breaktime and the snowball fights that would inevitably follow. Frozen balls of ice would be sculpted and thrown. Knitted mittens and gloves would soon be sodden. Little hands would freeze, and turn blue, to be thawed in excruciating, delightful agony on the old iron radiators, accompanied by the smell of burning flesh and scolding woollens. By first break there was a good couple of inches. By lunchtime there must have been a foot or so. It was a veritable blizzard. The gritters had failed. Snow-ploughs were nowhere to be seen. The roads were becoming blocked, even in the city centre. And, then all public transport (it sounds very grand doesn’t it – I mean the buses) was brought to a halt or returned to the depot on safety grounds. And so, at lunchtime, school was declared closed. School was closed, and all the little tykes like me were abandoned, thrown out into the streets to fend for ourselves and find our own ways home. Without a shovel, spade, or snow-shoe between us.

Home seemed a long way away that day. I t was six and a half miles long. Six and a half miles around the Outer Circle. And, as there were no buses. Six and a half miles, on foot, in about a foot of snow, in the middle of a blizzard. So off I set. I set off with no idea how long a walk such as this would take. I was alone. I was small. I was very cold. I had no way of letting mom and dad know of my plight. Even if I had had the two pence for a call home (which I didn’t) the phone boxes around Handsworth were generally vandalised and rendered inoperative. Even if I had found a phone box which was working, we didn’t have a phone at home… But I did know a neighbours number, just for emergencies. But, even if I had been able to phone, I knew it would have gone unanswered. Everyone I knew would be at work. Out. These were the days before voicemail and answer-machines. I was small, cold, and alone, and without the means to tell my mom. She would be worried. I was frightened. I cried.

I walked all the way home. My feet were frozen. My tears were frozen. Everything I was wearing was soaking. It took me hours. But, I made it. And, I soon found myself slowly thawing in front of the bar heater, with a cup of hot milk simmering in the pan. Heaven.

How different the events of this week seemed to be by contrast. First of all, the met office seemed to have got its act together. In my childhood, the weather forecast, if you were lucky, would tell you how the weather had been today, rather than what it was going to be like tomorrow. Nowadays, you can get a pretty good idea how it is going to be over the next five days, anywhere in the world, or, just for your post code (or zip code). And so, this week, the schools in Birmingham knew what the weather was going to do. They were able to predict the chaos that would ensue. And, so, they were able to take the decision to close the schools even before the weather broke. What is more, they were able to communicate that decision, so that parents would be able to keep their kids at home, and plan for their care. Bulletins were sent out 24/7 via radio, TV, and the web. No doubt headmasters and headmistresses and their staff across the region were able to contact parents by phone at home, by mobile, leaving voicemails or text messages where necessary. No doubt, news of the decision was also sent out by email and received on many a parental desktop, laptop, palm held, or blackberry.

Even if a rogue child had slipped through the net (how apt) and made their way to school only to find it closed, it would not have been a problem. There are not many 11 or 12 year olds these days who are not fully equipped with mobile phones. No doubt they would have been able to contact their parents, and entertained themselves with IPOD, MP3 or GameBoy, until mom or dad or the nanny arrived in their air-conditioned 4WD to usher them home………to the central heating, a microwaved latte, and, a multi-media heaven of their own.


By the way, we won the cricket! Good on you lads. Oh, and the snow only lasted 24 hours.