Who remembers Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby? She was a character in Charles Kingsley’s children’s book The Water Babies. She is a kind fairy who teaches Tom, a chimney sweep who becomes a water baby, to treat others the way he wants to be treated.  It was my favourite book as a child

Both of my daughters were excellent swimmers. I taught them both how to swim.

When they were younger, I enrolled them both in a baby swimming club called Tadpoles. Although I was not a confident swimmer myself, I wanted to overcome my own fear of swimming. My apprehension stemmed from an incident in secondary school where some classmates pushed me into the school swimming pool when I was leaving to change schools, following my father’s posting with the Royal Air Force. They did not assist me, and I almost drowned, which significantly contributed to my fear of swimming.