Talking of queer water, I took part in a relay triathlon on the weekend. I did the swimming leg, 1500 metres up and down the Royal Albert Dock opposite City Airport in East London, another of my charity commitments. My crawl is a bit rusty and it was one of those times when you think why am I doing this? Tony couldn’t make it to cheer me on, but some of the kids did but to be honest my goggles had misted up and I had an earful of diesel so it made no difference. A friend just told me that his great-grandfather used to be a diver in the docks, in an old-fashioned dive suit with huge bell helmet and folk pumping on the dock side. He used to check the hulls of ships for problems. I had been hoping for such a fellow, or a Victorian waif perhaps, yelling – oi miss, I’ll do yer leg fer arf a crown – but no such luck, although this is clearly good news for the rights of children in Britain. If I'd had a suit I would have walked across the bottom of the dock, though I'm not sure there was one. And wouldn't those ancestors of ours have looked on in bafflement at the site of waves of hatted, suited swimmers voluntarily circling buoys in filthy water. Now I am a little achy and a tad sorry that I shall probably have to do the whole thing myself next year.
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