Confessions of the Ageing Swimmers

What would you do if you heard someone confess to the most heinous moral crime but there was nothing you could do about it?

18 year old Leo, a Generation Z-er has been on the receiving end of too much sturm und drang in his life time so far: the Covid-19 pandemic left its mark on his confidence, the behaviour of recent governments has left him despairing of any political change, ever, anywhere and the Climate Crisis has rattled his belief in the future of the planet. Things aren't looking too bright for Leo, apart from the opportunity to become a trainee lifeguard at his local swimming pool (Motto: "Building a Better You. A Better Family. A Better Britain". Employed on a six-month, national minimum wage contract, Leo doesn't have much time to make a long term impression and struggles with the demands made by his employer for the first five months and is constantly fending off the desire to sleep, eat, party, do the right thing with the right people and then sleep again. The classic round peg in a square hole, the demands of the World of Work aren't quite what Leo imagined they would be and he struggles to fit to the demands his employer makes of him and the other young people in their care.

His potential future employment at the Leisure Centre is looking precarious in his last month until a sudden, shocking happening in one of the pool's changing cubicles gives him a glimpse of a potential future for himself: not just as a lifeguard, but as the saviour of the souls of sinners. Inspired by events and overheard conversations in some of Nottingham's finest swimming pools as well as some of oldest Biblical myths, Swimmers aims to give you an entertaining insight into just why there are more swimming pools than churches these days.

Part Two of Swimmers is composed of a seven-part poem called Christmas Shopping, suitable we thought given that the end of Swimmers takes place the night before Christmas. It's a four stanza poem with six ancillary characters (all animals of some description) who play a minor if not negligible role in the main 'Christmas Shopping' poem. It's my take on a Christmas Nativity scene, albeit through the lens of improbable attendees at a secular Christmas Eve happening. The poem can be envisaged as a seven part polyptych which may eventually be transformed into a large stained glass window. Paul Warren, our illustrator-in-residence, and myself are already talking through those options and may be able to shed some light on their outcomes, some time in 2025.

Inspired by events and overheard conversations in some of Nottingham's finest swimming pools as well as some of oldest Biblical myths, Swimmers aims to give you an entertaining insight into just why there are more swimming pools than churches these days.