Downstream

time”. You can’t stop
children, can you? But when I
think of our mothers and how
they let us swim in the
Thames!’
I get my ID card and head
back to the Bodleian, crossing
the flagged courtyard as if
about to enter a castle,
heading for the lower reading
room reserve on the first
floor. There, at last, I get my
hands on Steedman’s Manual
of Swimming. After all this,