S02E06: Wild Swimming

[struggling to stay above water] "Oh god! Somebody help me please! My foot is caught in something! Please! Please, a man! A man or a big strong lady! I'm gonna die! Oh, fucking fuck! Don't want to die!"

 

[voiceover] This was me two days ago, having got into difficulty in the River Ouse. The bit you're hearing actually takes place towards the end of today's podcast. I'm playing it here because, due to Netflix, we now know that people don't like it if you start at the beginning. They like it if you play an exciting bit from the end, then go back to the beginning afterwards. 

"Oh my God! Oh my God! Stay calm! Stay calm!" 

 

What you can hear is the sound of me close to death. Do I survive? Well, the fact that you're hearing my voiceover now suggests I do. But remember that the film Sunset Boulevard starts with the voiceover from a man who died in a swimming pool, sorry if you've not seen it. But it means if you're worried I might be dead, good. You should be. Because I might be.

[opening theme music]

Hello, and welcome to another episode of From the Oasthouse, or should that be from the Ouse House? Because today, I am speaking to you from the banks of the River Ouse in Suffolk. Very soon, you'll hear me in the shallows, a-splishing and a-sploshing!

I love onomatopoeia! I've always adored words that sound like what they mean. Bang. Crash. Piss. Wobble. Cough. Bark. Cacophony. Crescendo!

Why splashing? Well, because today we're going wild swimming. I don't mean wild in the sense of Ainsley Harriot swimming, like an out-of-control propeller. No, wild swimming is the new term for a pastime that used to be called 'swimming outside'. Or swimming. Swimming. I just happened across an article about it and my interest was piqued. 

Yeah. I was looking online for the man who normally repairs my freezer, it keeps developing a thick beard of frost so it ends up resembling Captain Birdseye or Santa, or just a very icy Christ. Certainly the beard bit of them anyway. I needed to call in the experts, and I ended up googling Iceman which took me not to a local fridge-repair specialist who trades under the same name but to a website of a man called 'Vim' Hof, or Wim Hof. I think it's 'Vim'.

A Dutch motivational speaker who's so tough he can swim in water miles colder than anyone else, and it's not so much that he's so hard it doesn't bother him, it's more subtle than that because Hof actually believes it has benefits!

Just across through here. Getting closer now. But, like many I've always felt unsure about immersing myself in water, rivers hold negative connotations. Ophelia in Shakespeare's hit play Hamlet drowns herself in a river after getting herself in a tizz because her boyfriend killed her dad. I kid you not!

Virginia Woolf took her own life in the same way in the River Ouse, a different River Ouse, and she lived in a huge house in Sussex which just shows you that for some people mental health is nothing to do with how good your house is! Poor Ginny. Less dramatically, Nicky Campbell got ticks in the folds of his groin and a giant leech on his back after being thrown in a river by his family. And a Baptist who works for me was baptised in a river, and likes to go on about it. And for these reasons, river swimming is something I've gone out of my way to avoid. 

But I've decided to give it a go. Why? Because, cards on the table, I've been in a bit of a funk recently. Yes. Whereas my senses normally fizz, tingle, ping and pop - I love onomatopoeia! - lately they have been as lifeless and dead as a slept-on arm. I'm pretty attuned to any slumps in mood, generally the barometer is my morning routine. If I'm feeling good I will jog down the stairs like a game-show host, enter the kitchen, then do a quick scurry to the fridge, lock my feet and sliiiiide, almost surfing the polished granite tiles. On a good day I can slide for up to two metres. 

I know I'm in a bad mood because if there are no clean mugs, I'll have no motivation to wash one. I'll drink my coffee from a gravy boat or four egg cups. Believe me when you're drinking coffee from a tall vase you know things in life ain't hunky-dory. 

Not sure what caused it. It's not like the good news has been in short supply. On Monday a waiter forgot to charge me for an expensive pâté starter. On Tuesday I reunited a pair of cool trainers that had been separated for a year. On Wednesday a woman in a shop said I had a nice sweater and I thanked her and said I'd squirrel her compliment away in a draw marked 'Unsolicited Kindness' and she mock-shoved me and said, "Oh shush, I'm sure you get it all the time!" [laughs] I love it when two cashmered sixty-somethings engage in gentle joshing. 

And on Thursday I found out a celebrity I disliked missed out on a work opportunity she'd already been gloating about, all good, good news and yet, I don't know, they barely registered so I thought best thing to do is get out and do something to reboot the emotional operating system. A real control, alt, delete, 'shake the Etch-a-Sketch' hard reset. 

[light jazz café music]

Alan Facts. Facts about Alan.

People ask, "Have you ever dated a dental hygienist?". Yes, I have dated two dental hygienists and I'd recommend it to others. Kissing any woman is enjoyable, but add to that a mouth crammed with bone-white molars and incisors with the freshest of fresh breath and it's a match made in heaven! Throw in a no-nonsense manner and a freshly laundered uniform and you've got yourself a best-in-class kiss!

Alan facts. Facts about Alan. 

[shivering] Okay, here I am. Some people lower themselves in, I jump in, it's ace! [leap and splash] Oh god! Oh, my god that's cold! Ohhh, sweet Christ that's cool! That's some cool, cool water. Oh! My teeth are chattering like Wally Banter, my willies got absolutely tiny! If I was a Tolkien character I'd change my name from Cockshaw Baggins to Winkle Walnut!

Ohhhh brrrrr! Well, it's ten minutes and I can safely say I'm now fully into the swing of things. Breaststroking gently along the middle lane of the river. Oh, and yes the sun is beating down, a duck over there... beg your pardon it's a swan. I'll just avoid eye contact until I've glided past. There we go.
Never try to stare at a swan. Gavin Esler told me that, some incident when he was younger got involved in a Mexican standoff with a big swan. Him and his dad ended up having to take the swan's life.

And I know that weighed heavy upon his shoulders. I mean his conscience, I'm not suggesting he carried it back home for dinner. Can you eat swans? 

[voiceover] But little did I know I was ten minutes away from disaster. In six hundred seconds I, Alan Partridge, would be battling to save my very own life. An idyllic afternoon in a British river would end in terror. Imagine Wind in the Willows turning into Das Boot and you're most of the way to imagining the plight I'd be facing in, as I say, ten minutes or nine and a half now. 

But, yes, wild swimming is having something of a moment of late. Very popular among Guardian readers who don't want to use the swimming bath because they think they'll get verrucas but are happy to risk Weil's disease. Not my tribe of course, but the watery-veins of Lady Britannia are for all of us to enjoy, not just sanctimonious Guardian readers. Not that you'd be troubled by socialist wild swimmers in these waters.

East Anglia is to the right of the country, and I don't just mean on a map! In all seriousness, if you said the phrase 'person of colour' in Norfolk they'd think you were talking about a smurf! [laughs]

[woman on the riverbank] "Morning! Just to say a lot of people don't realise that this is actually private land". 

Yeah, I'm surprised by that!

"That it's private?". 

No, that people don't realise! I thought that was common knowledge! 

"So you knew it was private land?".

Very much so, and can I say you keep it beautifully. 

"It's just that you normally expect people to ask permission before they use the land".

I didn't realise I was using the land. 

"The riverbanks constitute our land as does the riverbed. It's a little thing known as...".

Riparian rights, but sorry, go on.

"...Under riparian rights, they fall under our ownership". 

But not the water itself as defined by the Water Resources Act 1991. 

"What's that you've got?". 

It's a short summary of my outdoor swimming rights which I've laminated and popped in a lanyard in case I was challenged and I could read this out loud to you. The Act defines watercourses as all rivers, streams, ditches, drains... 

"Well...".

...Not quite finished! Drains, cuts, culverts, dykes, sluices, sewers and passages through which water flows. Yeah now I've finished.

"Well if you've entered the water on our property you must have used the riverbed". 

You're absolutely right, but I didn't. Nor have I used the riverbed, I'm just using the water which you don't own. It's a little thing known as swimming. 

"We own the fishing rights to the water". 

Yeah, well I'm pretty sure I'm not fishing either but if I accidentally pick up a tench I'll send it your way, so I'm afraid you're wrong with a capital R! The fact that wrong is not spelt with an R serves merely to underline just how wrong you are, and also to add a bit of levity because I can see that you're a little bit annoyed to have made a mistake.

"Well I'm not annoyed, so...".

It's fine not to know! All I'd say is if you're going to challenge someone maybe dig a little deeper. I'm sure there's things you know that I don't, although if I wanted to challenge you I imagine I'd do my homework first! 

"Right. Well, just be as quick as you can". 

Yeah, or as slow as I want! Enjoy your day, don't feel bad about the wrongness! 

Ooh, that was good!

 

[voiceover] But it wasn't good, for I was drifting further and further into some of the most lethal waterways in the country. Tangled river weeds, flies, twigs, thick mud and water boatmen - beetles that can swim - and miscellaneous detritus made safe passage all but impossible. Also fish.

Gone quite a long way now. I think I have anyway. Hard to tell when you're in a river. Just trying to think about knowing where the car is. Strangest thing is not being cold. Why? Because I am wearing a triathlon-grade swimming outfit made from 4mm thick Yamamoto smoothskin neoprene, with a low-drag hypothermic design and adjustable Velcro chin strap.

I must say, it makes me laugh when people think neoprene is the same as rubber, completely overlooking neoprene's interlaced molecular structure. But I usually just let it go. Other outdoor swimmers like to use goose fat to keep warm but I recently owned a dog that would, no exaggeration, have eaten me had I smothered myself in that. Although my new dog takes no interest in me I just wouldn't feel comfortable in poultry fat. 

Of course the romantic poets were big into wild swimming, not that they would have used that term because it was invented by The Guardian. No, in their day it was known as hydromania and they were, I suppose, hydromaniacs. They were certainly maniacs in many ways. Coleridge was a scaghead, wasn't he? 

Might try something different. Flop onto my back, baby! Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Ah, this is the stuff, wild floating! Once again just letting the current be my driver, my skipper, for I am man-become-boat!

Right, this is weird. My foot's just got snagged on something, I'm sorry about this. There's nothing to be alarmed about. [struggling] My left ankle has somehow got itself caught up in a reed or something, or some such. I'm having to skull with one leg to keep myself afloat.

[struggling more now] For crying out loud! Fucks' sake! The weird thing is the more I struggle, the more I seem to get tangled. This is actually quite scary! I'm saying it with a laugh because it helps to ward off panic. I am panicking a bit. 

[voiceover] Survivalists agree that far from being the act of a coward, panicking is an effective and rapid way to assess danger and consider options but only if done correctly. There are two ways of panicking, one where you panic yourself to death, the other way you panic yourself escape! I prayed I was doing the latter. 

Alas, I began to succumb to the waters and then...

[Alan's voice bubbling something incomprehensible as his mouth fails to stay above the surface]

 

I was pulled under by the weeds. When I was underwater, I was strangely at peace with myself. Time seemed to slow down. [ethereal background music fades up]

I saw my first steps as a toddler, my baptism, my first day at school, my confirmation where I took the saint's name, Fabian. I saw the face of my Geordie friend Michael who also drowned in water. I saw myself on a red-letter day in 2004 racing a JCB Digger, the best day of my life.

I saw many other images gliding from left to right like the 'In Memoriam' bit at the BAFTAs. The first girl I kissed, the last girl I kissed, shaking hands with Nigel Mansell, shaking hands with Nigel Havers, paddle-boarding with Lorraine - something I'd never done but at one time had wanted to do - passing my 11+, eating devilled eggs with Claire Rayner. There seemed to be no rhyme nor reason to the images that were coming thick and fast.

Was it limbo or purgatory? Limbo has always bothered me, it never, ever ends. Whereas purgatory seems much more bearable, more of an uncomfortable waiting room, like an Easy-Jet departure lounge. You know you're getting out, but while you're there, it's bloody awful.

You'd be thinking, "If I'd done a few more good deeds, it would have left me with the spiritual equivalent of speedy boarding!". I became aware of moving towards a very bright light, as if travelling along some sort of tunnel, but then realised I wasn't being taken to heaven. I was being shown the new Crossrail project because I'd won some sort of competition.

I felt strangely at peace, as a man who worked for TFL gave me a high-vis jacket and a hard hat, put a hand on my shoulder, and calmly said, "Come with me". As I followed, he explained how the Crossrail Network, now renamed the Elizabeth Line, used eight tunnel-boring machines to carve out the 42 kilometres of new tunnels under the capital, the heaviest of these weighing one thousand tonnes each, while a massive 932 miles of cabling has been laid to connect the railway's signalling communication systems with 250,000 holes drilled to house it all. I felt serene. 

By the end of the tour, I felt a lightness as one woman, presumably also from TFL, her face soft and angelic, glided towards me, held my face in her hands and said, "Alan, everything is okay! You can now get from Shenfield to Liverpool Street in 23 minutes!", and we both just cried. I felt myself floating above myself and looking down, and it was then I realised I'd shaken myself free from the reeds and was bobbing about on the surface.

Well, it's an hour or so later, and... after hauling myself free from the river, I lay on the riverbank and fell asleep. And now, dry as a bone and fully refreshed, I'm trudging back to the car. Not swimming, but walking. Mankind's preferred means of travel since we dragged ourselves free of the primordial swamp all those years ago. Oh, god... 

[woman from earlier] "Hello. I thought you'd used the riverbank!".

Yeah, I nearly drowned. I got caught up in the weeds. 

"You should really ask permission in advance".

Yeah, I thought I was going to die, but I managed to pull free. 

"It's just a bit of common courtesy, that's all". 

I think it was the thought of my kids that gave me the will to survive.

"All right, well, enjoy your day!". 

Yeah, I will, because I've got a new perspective on what's important. Bye! 

Before my near-death experience, a day was just a day. Now my attitude is totally different, now I treasure every second. Every morning when I get out of bed, I feel like I want to be in front of a camera, shaking hands with a man in a suit, holding a giant cheque. Why do I feel like that? Because every day I feel like I've won the jackpot! 

When you stare death in the face, it doesn't scare you anymore. The thing you fear the most becomes no more terrifying than a student in a Hallowe'en costume. Yes, you cross the road when you see them coming because they're just irritating, but not because you fear them! It's just something you'd rather avoid. And for that, I thank the River Ouse.

Benjamin Franklin once said, "In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes". Maybe, but the only one I now worry about is taxes. For Gary Barlow, it's the other way round.

Probably won't mention the limbo/purgatory stuff to my assistant, Lynn. She'd never stop going on about it. I once showed her what I thought looked like the face of Christ in a crumpet, and she just fell to her knees saying, "He has come! He has come!". God knows what she would have made of the freezer frost that looked like the beard of Christ, and I wasn't going to find out. When I heard her pull up on the drive, I just grabbed a toffee hammer and smashed his chin off.

Then I said, "Do you fancy a fish finger sandwich?", because, I don't know if you remember, he also looked a bit like Captain Birdseye. So I made two big fish finger baps with salad and salad cream, twisted lemon, some pickled gherkins. Very nice! Lynn said, "What are these vinegary cucumber slices?" I said, "They're just pickled gherkins!". She said, "That's fancy!", I said, "No, it's not, Lynn! They're not new, people use them a lot. Just because the contents of your fridge are very, very out of date!". Goodbye! 

[pause]

...to you, not Lynn.

[closing theme music]