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UPPER TIERS: THE THREE TIMES I NEARLY DROWNED
🕑 Added 2025-06-02 09:47:31 +0000 UTC
Morning! Miserable fecker here. Not really. Feeling a bit better today.
Anyway… in the latest video, I mention t that I’ve nearly drowned three times, and then… fail to elaborate on that.
This is actually true – not just a joke! Thought I’d share with you those three times.
DROWNING #1
So, time number one… I was on holiday one year.
Not sure how old I was, but it might’ve been about six. It might’ve been the summer of 1977 in Dymchurch. I overheard someone telling my sister that Elvis had died. We were in the holiday camp shop, and there was a real ripple of shock that ran through the place.
Which might’ve been the same holiday when my family told me to go up on stage to enter the junior talent competition, and the host – Uncle Ricky Dinkle – thought I was a girl, because I had long curly hair, and I yelled at him “I’m not a girl – I’m a boy!!”.
And because all my front teeth had been knocked out by a swing, and because I can’t talk properly, when he asked me where I went to school I replied “Bay School”.
“Bay School?” said Uncle Ricky Dinkle.
“No! BAY School!” I screamed.
“That’s what I said – Bay School.”
“Not BAY School. BAY School!”
“He means Play School” shouted my family from the audience.
So now that I think about it, it must’ve been earlier than ’77, and I’m getting several different holidays mixed up. Easily done. We always went on caravan holidays in the UK. Never abroad. Rarely a hotel. Usually with my maternal grandparents.
Anyway… that year – unless it wasn’t that year – I threw my rubber ring into the deep end of the swimming pool, and tried to jump into it. I couldn’t swim. I missed the ring entirely.
I sank like a stone.
No idea how long I was under the water, but it felt like a lifetime. The lifeguard jumped in to save me. I remember clearly the noise of it, the sort of chaos of it. The bubbles. The sound of the water in my ears. And the fact he was wearing a cardigan! And had a moustache.
I remember those two things vividly. I found the fact he’d jumped in wearing a cardigan sort of excitingly transgressive, and didn't shut up about it.
That might’ve been the year I entered the fancy dress competition as Parsley The Lion, and the crepe paper costume stained my skin green.
Or it might’ve been the year I won dressed as a cow. The following week I entered as a milk bottle and came second. These costumes were my mother’s idea, because she’d somehow mistakenly got it into her head that the costumes all had to be milk-themed. I think the second week was won by Starsky and Hutch.
Not the real Starsky and Hutch. That would’ve been weird.
"But... but... they're not even wearing a costume!"
"Doesn't matter. That's Starsky and Hutch."
DROWNING #2
The second time I nearly drowned was some years later. I think I was 10 or 11. I can’t remember where the holiday was, but it might’ve been Devon. My friend Stuart had come on holiday with us.
We’d befriended a boy who we used to meet down at the pool. One day we were playing and the boy jumped up from behind me, grabbed my shoulders, and held me under the water.
And kept me under there. Again, it felt like ages. I struggled, fought against him, and he still didn’t let go.
Eventually he did release me, and I screamed at him. I remember the look on his face: he was shocked, incredibly apologetic – didn’t even realise he’d done anything wrong or stupid. The look of contrition on his face calmed me down pretty quickly; I actually ended up feeling bad for him. I thought he was going to cry.
Apropos nothing, that same holiday we entered the camp’s kids’ fancy dress competition. I decided we would be a pair of superheroes called Supertwit and Dum-Dum (genuinely the origin of Beanus’ friend “Num-Num”). The guy hosting the competition was very confused.
“So are these characters from a comic or cartoon or something?”
“No.”
“Oh. Oh right.”
I remember the competition being won by a young girl who went as a “Page 3 girl”. Thankfully she was covered up – albeit with pages from The Sun newspaper fashioned into a sort of bikini. Not sure I approved even then, judgemental prude that I am.
DROWNING #3
The final one is slightly stretching the definition of “nearly drowned”, but I found it scarier than all the others.
This time I was an adult. I’m still not a strong swimmer. I’m fine, I can stay afloat, but I’m not remotely confident in the water.
It was a big family holiday. Some of us had taken a ride on one of those inflatable banana boat things, being pulled behind a speedboat. The driver took a turn too sharply, and the banana boat tipped over – we all ended up in the water.
The two things I found scary were how far out we were and how deep the water was… and the fact that when I was kicking my way to the surface, my foot pushed down on my niece’s head, pushing her deeper under the water. I don’t know why that was so frightening.
I think it was the fact I was already a way under, and she was so much deeper down than I was. I also cut my lip open somehow when I came off the boat – which was then also almost impossible to climb back onto.
That's the one that has really stayed with me. Feeling so kind of small and powerless, and the sea feeling huge and powerful.
Anyway. Those are the times I nearly drowned.
Comments
Paul Rose (Mr Biffo)
Whaaaaat?!?
Paul Rose (Mr Biffo)
Oh-hoh! Were you a long-haired little chap too??
John Wilding
We always went on holiday in caravans. Every. Year. I had a friend at school who was constantly being strangled. He’s now a doctor. I was attacked by an international terrorist who had posed as a Russian exchange student. My Welsh-Kurdish friend beat him up. Mad school.
Chris Bell
Crikey, no wonder you had the recurring tsunami dream for so long. Those early experiences especially must have gone on somewhere and stayed put. Can relate to the embarrassment of Uncle Ricky Dinkle misgendering you - I had a similar thing on a family holiday once. We were on a canal boat holiday, and found a pub for dinner. After taking my dad and sister’s orders, the barman asked “and what would your other daughter like?” Similarly to your experience, I shouted “I’m a boy!”, to which he immediately and curtly replied “Well, you shouldn’t wear makeup then”. I wasn’t. I was only in my early teens and felt so humiliated that when we went back to our table, I made us leave. My dad was surprised I was so upset about it, but beans on toast back at the boat was a much more comfortable evening after that.
