This is a short biographical account of an incident from my childhood. It is true and one day I may include it in my biography.
‘ I told the story o’er an o’er and bragged of my escape,’.. is a line from a well-known Banjo Patterson poem...’ The Man from Ironbark.’
THE NEW SWIMMING POOL
"Come on, who's coming?"
‘Who's coming? There's somewhere to go?’
"I'm coming! Where we goin' Dad?"
"For a drive to find a place on the river for the new swimming pool."
Dad was the president of the school committee for our little one-teacher country school and the men, (there were no women on the school committee,) had decided, with the teacher’s help, that the older kids from the school could go swimming on Friday afternoons, if we could find a suitable spot in the Burnett River. We had to find somewhere suitable for a girls' changing room as well, and another place, (very private place of course,) for the boys to undress and put on their swimmers.
Mum and my brother came too. Who could resist a river on a burning hot day? I was impatient on the half-hour drive.
"Up there behind those bottle-brush trees will be okay for the girls," Dad announced.
I objected. "But Da-ad, we'll have to walk over these hot sand hills and away up that hill!" It must have been a whole five minutes away!
"Well, you don't want the boys to see you, do you?"
I was silenced. The boys would head off in another direction to their 'dressing rooms.' The thought of a dip in the cool river every Friday afternoon would be worth a few bunny-hops over the burning hot sand hills.
The designated swimming area was a natural waterhole with a shallow gravelly crossing where the girls could cross on their way to their 'bathing sheds.' The deeper water was clean and clear to the sandy bottom.
After the required official areas had been decided upon, it was time for trials to be run.
"Last one in the water's a silly goat!" My father was always a bigger kid than the rest of us.
I ran around to the far bank of the river where there was a log in the water but against the riverbank that you could stand on and dive from. I guess the river was about as wide as your house, but it seemed 100 miles wide to me that day.
Well, not at first, it didn't.
I stood there poised on the log; I teetered ready to dive; and just at the point where I was committed, I saw it: a golden-coloured water snake was lying just under the water’s surface in the shelter of the log! Using the very last contact of my toes with the log, I pushed out as far as I could.
When I hit the water I struck out in my self-taught thrashing style of 'over-arm' swimming, working like the very devil to make the opposite bank before I was swallowed whole!
Dad and my older brother soon disposed of the snake. None of us felt guilty; all snakes were bad; the only good snakes were dead snakes. Back at school, 'I told the story o’er and o’er and bragged of my escape!
--0--
It was hot where we lived, a dry, burning heat. 110°F in the shade was not unusual. I loved swimming -- there was nothing more invigorating; and I knew I could swim. It was easy. The teacher, Mr Allen, said anyone who could swim 50 yards breaststroke, 50 yards over-arm, and could dive down and get a painted stone off the bottom of the river, could get their junior certificate. I think we had to tread water for 10 seconds as well. I bet I did it first. Most of the kids got their junior certificates. I don't think the teacher could swim any better than we could. There were no swimming lessons -- I guess there was no one who knew enough about swimming to teach it anyway.
One week I couldn't go swimming on Friday afternoon because I'd become 'a young lady now' and it was an unfortunate time of the month for me. I was mortified; how embarrassing! Mum said not to worry about it because she'd ring the teacher's wife and explain. Anyway, no one ever said anything to me about it. That's how we did things in the 50s.
Years later I drove back out to that swimming hole. I took my husband and kids to see where I used to swim as a child. But they weren't impressed. The waterhole was no more; not like it was anyway. The gravelly bottom was now mud and the little shallow bit where we used to cross on our way to the 'dressing rooms' had dried up. I think golden water snakes would have been the least of our problems. I took the family to my old school as well. They weren't impressed with that either. Temperatures weren't measured in Fahrenheit any longer, and the day was hot, very hot. In fact it was about 37°C and I nearly died; I couldn't believe how hot it was! How did I ever survive in these rotten temperatures?
Ah well, life goes on for us city slickers.
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