Pictures and the Picturegoer (Jan-Dec 1924)

36 Pictures and Pict\jreOuer AUGUST 1924 & REGINALD DENNY Reginald Denny is a very thorough young fellow who never does things by halves. These pictures will show you how Reg taught a fair friend to swim. His victim is now the proud owner of a medal won in a recent fancy-diving contest. " Put the backs of your hands together — so." t's an extraordinary thing, the number of people who are content to go through life without ever learning to swim. They go to the coast dimmer after summer, and they don't go near the water. Or, if they do, they confine their activities to splashing around in the shallows, haunted by the dreadful fear of " getting out of their depths." To me the only way of spending a seaside holiday is to practically live in the water, and if you can't get away from town, there are always swimming baths. A good cool river isn't a had substitute for the sea either, so there is no excuse for anyone. My own first acquaintance with the healthiest exercise in the world was made at the tender age of six. I went with some young companions to a river, that Mowed near my childhood home in lop: Preparing to dive. Right: The OverArm Stroke. Richmond, Lancashire. I'd never been swimming in my life, and I was scared stiff, but boys have no pity on each other and I was ruthlessly pushed in. Deing one of those guys born to the other thing I just naturally couldn't drown and 1 managed to scramble ashore somehow. After that I made up my mind that 1 was going to learn to swim. 1 tackled my father on the subject directly 1 got home. And the next day 1 had my hist lesson. 1 haw been thankful many linns since then that I became a swimmer — not only for the pleasure it gives me, hut because it has been really useful to me in my work. In several of The Leather Pusher series there are water scenes, and in one I have to rescue a fair lady from drowning. I have called this article " A Swimming Lesson," although I'm afraid it isn't going to live up to its title. It's a difficult task to teach anyone to swim on paper and the most I can do is to give you a few tips, culled from my own experience. First of all, don't stand shivering on the brink for half an hour before you decide to take the plunge. There is nothing more calculated to wear down the courage of a beginner. Don't insist on trying to learn in about two inches of water, because you will only succeed in rasping your knees and your instructor's temper. A nd — this is a very important point to remember — don't imagine that whoever is teaching you to swim has brought you out with the express purpose of drowning you. No man likes to be half choked every time his pupil swallows a mouthful of water. Having read, marked and inwardly digested these preliminary hints. I should advise you to pay a visit to your local frog-pond and study the inhabitants thereof. I can see some of my fair readers turning up their little noses and smiling with incredulous amazement at the suggestion, but I can assure you I'm perfectly serious. There's no finer exponent of swimming than the frog. Watch one at work, and then watch a human swimmer, and you 11 see that their movements are exactly the same — only that the frog, in nine cases out of ten is many times more graceful ! Look carefully at the pictures on these pages and you will see one in Below: A moment's " breather." ■ 1