Soar Magazine April 5, 2011 "Outdoor swimming used to be one of the most popular leisure activities in Britain, but as more and more indoor pools have been built and concerns about health and safety have increased, it seems that the outdoor swimmer has been hung out to dry. ...the book covers the changes to British swimming habits over hundreds of years. 'Hung Out to Dry' is an extremely interesting and informative book, which is a useful reference tool and an entertaining read."

Leicestershire Historian No 46 (2010) "This book examines the social history of swimming, demonstrating the important role it has played in everyday British Culture. ...religious and moral attitudes regarding swimming, seaside swimming and swimwear, and the rise and fall of sunbathing. Chapter 6 uses Leicester as a case study to explain how 'the British' swimmer came to be 'hung out to dry'. ...most convincingly researched... there is a lot of fascinating and detailed material in this book" Lucy Faire

This England "It is now as rare to see children swimming in canals and rivers and lakes as it is to find salmon in the Thames - yet once the country's open waters teemed with young people splashing about, especially during the school holidays. The passing of those carefree days is much mourned by Chris Ayriss in Hung Out to Dry: Swimming and British Culture. He puts most of the blame on prudery, but the swamping health and safety culture and the obsession of authority to dictate and control also have a lot to do with it" Winter 2010 p73

"Very readable and a must for advocates of outdoor swimming.  The photos were also very interesting, particularly the crowded lidos, Henleaze and the polo game. It clearly took a lot of research and your enthusiasm for open air swimming and fun swimming/diving/jumping in particular came accross very strongly. I hope the book is a success for you." Bryn Dymott

"Love your book - Hung out to dry! Got it as a birthday present yesterday and I'm nearly through it already. Will be recommending to my many swimming friends." Ben Bennett 

"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