Sunny Days, Dark Shadows
Excerpts from Chapter 4, excluding footnotes.
We may now appreciate how a nation of skinny-dippers came to cover up, encouraged by the middle classes during the Industrial Revolution. We better understand why rules and regulations are such a part of the British psyche, but this still does not fully explain our current obsession with prudery. To understand this, we must consider another development: the science of sunbathing. Again you may wonder at the connection between sunshine and the swimmer, but by reading the next two chapters you will discover how an eagerness to get into the sun, ultimately put the swimmer into the shade.
Early Days
Trouble in Eden
British Culture
Sunshine Healing
Trouble in Eden
British Culture
Sunshine Healing
We have Florence Nightingale to thank for improving the health of our nation. She observed that when wounded soldiers were treated in the open air they recovered more speedily than those treated inside hospital buildings. Also, Doctor Adrian Palm in the late 19th century, proved that exposure to the sun's rays caused a definite improvement in the condition of children suffering with rickets. A few years after this, Nobel Laureate Finsen began his work in Copenhagen, experimenting with the treatment of tuberculosis by means of artificial light exposure.
Over in the Alps, stationed at an altitude of 1,450 metres, Doctor Rollier opened his Swiss clinic at Leysin (1903). Being truly sheltered from the wind, it proved to be the ideal location for the sun cure due to the clear nature of the skies. Rollier's treatment was that of measured exposure to the early morning sun, which worked on the skin and through deep penetration to the tissues below. This progressive treatment improved the terrible condition of his patients and in many cases he affected a complete cure. The patients he admitted were suffering from surgical tuberculosis and many had open sores and were emaciated and lethargic. He did not believe in over-exposing the skin to the sun at the height of the day, but rather found that the greatest benefit could be derived from moderate regular exposure in the cooler hours. He followed the example set by the animal kingdom, finding that they all seek the shade during the mid-day sun. In his own words:'Cold is an enemy of the semi-starved, it is the stimulating friend of the well-fed.'Many of his patients enjoyed skating and skiing in the sun wearing only cotton drawers. It was found that lighter coloured clothing permitted the sun's healthful rays to permeate through to the skin, whereas darker colours prevented the treatment of rickets and tuberculosis from succeeding. Rollier encouraged his patients, once their skin had turned brown, to spend as much time out in the sun as possible. He arranged for schools in the sun where children, from four to twelve years of age wearing only their loincloth, linen hat and shoes, enjoyed the benefits of the sun cure, whilst receiving an education. The treatment was slow but extremely effective. The general health of these patients was remarkable. Visitors often commented on the lack of coughs and colds among children who were so exposed. Rollier did, however, warn of the dangers of overexposure to the sun, pointing to the leathery skin of sailors as an example of the outcome.
Doctors around the world started to adopt Rollier's methods, but here in England, hospitals often managed to misapply the cure and do more harm than good. Some hospitals allowed children out of doors, but quickly put them into the shade as soon as the sun shone. Others exposed the pale white skin of ailing patients to the full force of the sun without discretion, thereby adding the agony of sunburn and sunstroke to their suffering. They failed to heed Rollier's adage:'Fear the heat and love the light, keep your children cool and bright.' The idea soon emerged here in England that the sun was a dangerous tool. Because of this the British came to favour the 'air bath', wherein children were encouraged to play or sleep out of doors, but usually fully clothed. Needless to say, we did not experience the same success as those around the world who copied Rollier's methods without feeling the need to modify them. There is no doubt that the powerful bactericide that the sun provides, proved to be a real godsend to those fortunate enough to be exposed to it. Patients found that the sun stimulated the whole human metabolism, and improved their general health immeasurably.
During the Industrial Revolution, Britain's cities had been very dark places indeed. Houses were built so close together that the sun's rays rarely met the skin of those living in the neighbourhood. Added to this, the thick smoke that spewed out of the huge factory chimneys obliterated the sun from view. The Public Health Act of 1875 prohibited black smoke, but prosecutions were rare. Since the Act related solely to black smoke, the defendant had only to find someone willing to stand up in court and say that he saw a tinge of grey or brown in the smoke for the prosecution to collapse. The 'silver lining' of the coal strike of 1921 was the people's astonishment at seeing the beauty of their cities. Following this, efforts were made to clean up the atmosphere and great improvements in the nation's health soon followed. Even so, due to England's lack of sunshine, treatment could be spasmodic, yet hospitals found the solution with the introduction of sun lamps. More...
Full Exposure
Not in Front of the Children
The Birds and the Bees
"I distantly remember a beach, a grey sea, a chilly wind and my mother holding up a flapping towel so I could change into my new swimming trunks. I achieved it proudly and with praise, without a single soul being able to glimpse my willy or bottom. There was great relief as the towel was removed but my mum realized that I had them on back to front so I had to go through the whole prudish act again, but now with the additional ingredient of sand within!
At many points in the narrative of Chris Ayriss's new and illuminating book my memory was triggered of picnics by the paddling pool in our sunny park, being horribly sick in the over chlorinated and frightening swimming baths and communally skinny dipping in a rural river on a blissfully hot sunny day. Good memories and bad - I'm sure we all have them - undisturbed until now.
I was interested when I first heard of Chris's ten year labor of love to write a book on the history of swimming as it covered a bit of the same water as my last book about the River Soar. So I leapt in and thoroughly enjoyed reading the book in a matter of hours as Chris has an easy style that doesn't get in the way of the endless facts, stories and legends. And what facts they are! The Romans equated the skill of swimming with that of reading because they could conquer the world with the skill and how comparatively recently it was considered very unlucky to save someone from accidental drowning! Why the Victorians squeezed the grip on the behavior of naked boys enjoying the river waters and the contemporary obsession in removing anything that might get a local authority sued, like diving boards and paddling pools.
Bathing and swimming have gone in and out of fashion regularly since the Romans astonished the conquered Brits, with their heated bath complexes. These pleasure palaces of their empire eventually became dens of iniquity and vice over the long centuries and so baths became strictly controlled towards the end.
Nearly 2000 years later Chris was seeking photos and illustrations for his book and constantly came up against archives having been recently censored with photos of children swimming being removed and unavailable. With those he did secure for publishing, he angst over as the unaccountable shadow of paedophilia hangs over us all, but in the interests of clarity he published them and be damned.
Chris is a Leicester lad and so his model of how attitudes and local authorities changed throughout the country in their provision of swimming, was Leicester itself. And it is an edifying read about the antics of huge Daniel Lambert floating like a whale with men on his back in the River Soar, through a time when the British Empire ruled the world of swimming and Leicester provided a couple of great sporting heroes who set the pace, the first heated swimming pool since the Romans and on into the chlorinated and dreadful penny pinching of the council today where not a single outdoor paddling pool or lido can be experienced in the city.
Hung Out To Dry is a serious work of dogged research, personal experience and an insightful indictment of our times where to have water fun is now so regulated that it will cease to be fun at all! Read this book and wake up to what has happen to the English." Roger Hutchinson
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