Book Review: Waterlog 🌊 by Rodger Deakin

 Today I'm writing this a little worse for wear whilst recovering from Covid. It's the first time in a few days I haven't been sleeping and as I finished this wonderful book a few days ago, I really wanted to try and muster my thoughts on it whilst it's still fresh in my mind. 

- a few hours after I wrote these lines I slept for quite a few hours and struggled to concentrate properly so continued this post later - 

In recent months I've really been drawn to nature writing. My love of nature writing really started back in 2021 when on a trip to the Scottish Highlands with Jack, I picked up Lucy Jones's 'Losing Eden' about the importance of nature and protecting it. Whilst good nature writing can make you feel overwhelmed at the climate crisis it can also make you feel overwhelming gratitude at the wonderful planet we have been born into and everything that nature provides. There isn't such thing as humans AND nature, we ARE nature and as is becoming increasingly more understood, one cannot exist without the other in order for the eco-system to work. 

I was scanning a second hand website in search of more books on the topic of wild swimming- something that I definitely cannot do at the moment but something that fascinates me- when I found this wonderful read. 

Ever since I was little my Mum has told me I am a water baby. I was born two and a half months early and so because of this I'm a cancerian (a water sign), my sun, moon and rising signs are all cancer too. When I was in the womb I'd managed to swim around and tie a knot in my umbilical cord. When I was three my Mum had to go for an eye test and looked around to see me lying on my front in the shop pretending to swim on the blue carpet. She says everytime she had a bath when I was a toddler she had to keep it a secret, as I would be heard running up the stairs, barging in and quickly trying to get in the bath with her every time. 

So it's pretty safe to say.. I like water.

My childhood memories are of spending every minute I could in swimming pools on holiday, I went to weekly swimming lessons with my Dad every weekend for years and I can't explain the freedom swimming makes me feel. It's a feeling unlike any other. Where your limbs become weightless and you are breathing in time with the movement of your arms and the flow of the water. 

This is what first attracted me to 'Waterlog'. The idea that Rodger Deakin was inspired by a story called 'The Swimmer' in which the protagonist attempts to swim through as much of the UK as possible. In 1996 Rodger embarks on a journey to do just this, all the while cataloguing his adventures in diary form. The book is just over two years worth of swims, mainly written for his son and I think also out of curiosity of how much of the UK is accessible by water and how much could be accessed through swimming. It is written in a time where climate change is already changing the landscape of open water swimming, where pollutants and increasing health and safety rules mean that swimming in local streams, ponds and lidos does not form part of a community rite of passage as it once did. Deakin portrays this with sensitivity and thought, often speaking to older residents in these communities on how learning to swim shaped them and their lives. He also looks at the dwindling funding given to Lidos and local pools and at the community groups challenging this, often touching on the physical and psychological benefits of swimming. 

Anyone who reads this book will find it hard to be as equally enthralled by Deakin himself. He explains how he lives in a moated farm house in Suffolk, where after a long day swimming in the sea or streams he is found swimming more lengths. He was a founder member of 'Friends Of The Earth' and is known for his environmental and filmmaking achievements. I didn't realise that Waterlog is considered a classic in the nature writing world but I can see why. I'm so glad I stumbled on this wonderful book. 🌊 

Molly 17/09/2023