As the nights grow colder, so we begin the British parent’s long dark swimming lesson of the soul. The winter swimming class season: Dante’s Inferno, except the rings of hell are rubber, not fiery. Purgatory for me is a changing room with row after row of damp children’s legs, upon which I must wedge damp tights. For ever. Leaving the swimming class with dank hair, chased into the cold night by clouds of chlorinated steam that make your little one’s eyes glow red.
Why for ever? Because to move through the stages of almost every swimming class in Britain you have to perform the butterfly. Without that stroke, you cannot progress in the other three strokes that people actually use. The butterfly? The action of