London Swim Coach Harley Hicks On The Human Cost Of Pool Closures & Fears For Communities

Waltham Forest Gators: Picture Courtesy: Waltham Forest Gators

Harley Hicks wasn’t looking forward to telling the swimmers at Waltham Forest Gators that they wouldn’t be able to train after Wednesday when England goes into a four-week lockdown.

Hicks is head coach at the club in east London with a 250-strong membership ranging from four-year-olds on the learn-to-swim programme to 72-year-old Masters swimmers.

The 29-year-old has seen first-hand the effects of the first national lockdown with its impact on behaviour and mental and physical health as well as the financial ramifications.

So too is he well-versed in the life-changing nature of swimming having founded Swim London, a programme running out of the Aquatics Centre which targeted the boroughs surrounding the Olympic Park – some of the most deprived in Britain – with its emphasis on community and mentoring.

Photo Courtesy: Waltham Forest Gators

On Saturday prime minister Boris Johnson announced there would be a second lockdown in England starting in the early hours of Thursday 5 November lasting until Wednesday 2 December following a sharp rise in the number of coronavirus cases.

Schools, colleges and universities will remain open as will supermarkets, pharmacies and takeaways but all indoor leisure facilities will be closed, a move that has been questioned by Swim England CEO Jane Nickerson who wants the government to redefine them as essential services.

It fell on Hicks to deliver the news to the swimmers, a blow for all involved after they had managed to negotiate the rocky road back with all its limitations and restrictions following the first lockdown.

Speaking to Swimming World, he said:

“I’ll go there and they’ll probably be very upset because I’ve not seen the kids since the announcement.

“So it will be a big day: the last day before the last lockdown, some of them were almost crying.

“They weren’t quite sure what was going on but what they knew was that they wouldn’t be able to train until further notice.

“I think that hit them hard initially and then it probably hit them even harder with the amount of time it ended up being away from pool.”

Hours later he messaged, saying he had led his first session since the announcement and “they weren’t happy.”

Negotiating The Choppy Waters After Lockdown

Waltham Forest Gators have a fine tradition: Dan Fogg – fifth in the open water and eighth in the 1500 free at the 2012 Olympics in London – negotiated the east London waters.

So too Martin Harris – 1994 Commonwealth 100m backstroke champion and double 1993 European bronze medallist – and Jaime King, European and Commonwealth medley relay medallist.

Among the current squad are a trio who have competed at open water nationals with others on the regional pathways.

A lack of access to the water and being 14/15-years-old all conspires to make their journey a hazardous one.

Photo Courtesy: Waltham Forest Gators

Hicks said:

“I feel really sorry for them. Those guys at that level are also at the drop-out age: you either push on and do really well or you drop out.

“If this is extended even further than four weeks I can see three or four of our top squad either saying to me when they come back ‘ I’m going to knock swimming on the head’ or ‘I’m just going to swim for fitness and I’m not really interested in pursuing it at that high level any more’.

“The longer the pools are shut the more likely they are to maybe try other sports they can do in their back garden.

“If you’ve got a netball hoop in your back garden or if you’ve got a football in your back garden, then you can still be exposed to some sort of activity in a really small way but swimming is all or nothing because you are either in the pool or you’re not.”

Hicks witnessed the effects of the previous lockdown which were stark among the elite squad who went from training 10-15 hours per week, swimming 30-40km, to nothing almost overnight.

It hit some of them hard with parents seeing changes in attitudes and personas and struggling to get kids – who months before had loved swimming and socialising within the club – to return to training

Hicks laid emphasis on fun and having an enjoyment and love of being back in the water.

“I told every coach for the first month – I don’t care if there is any swimming progression or not, the kids need to have fun and they need to want to be back in the environment that we put them in even with the restrictions.

“Even when it comes to having fun, we were so limited with what we could do because they can’t touch each other, they can’t be near each other, we needed to make sure we were bringing them back into an environment they wanted to be in.

“I think that worked quite well.

“It has been really tough for the kids: we’re adults, we can deal with things, we’ve got more experience of hardships and getting through them. Whereas this is all brand new stuff to them.”

While returning to the water after lockdown number one spelled joy and relief to many, it also brought its own pressures.

Restrictions limited the number of swimmers per lane and consequently the numbers of coaches on poolside.

The Gators returned at half capacity and were unable to stage the thrice-yearly competitions they had previously provided another income stream.

Council funding had ended some years ago so now there is no safety net.

Instead, all the sessions had to pay for themselves with pools charging the same rate but for a greatly-reduced number of swimmers.

Photo Courtesy: Waltham Forest Gators

Chairman Darren Anderson introduced a pay as you go (PAYG) system across the four pools the club use but in some cases that added up to £13 per session per swimmer.

Given some youngsters do six-to-eight sessions per week, it was unsustainable and it also meant that some sessions were cancelled if numbers were low.

The competitive swimmers had pretty much returned in their entirety with the rest of the membership coming back over the last few weeks.

The learn-to-swim programme had been affected with pools running their own sessions but over the past fortnight alone 35 had returned to the Gators.

Hard work, sweat and no doubt some tears but now back to square one.

Hicks added:

“It’s not a profitable business to run a swimming club so all the restrictions that have been put in place almost wiped us out.

“We had weekly meetings to decide which squads can swim for the next week. If we haven’t had enough people to book on to a particular session we have to cancel it at the moment.

“Whereas before we had a secure model and no fear of shutting down or restrictions or of the pool closing.

“We were operating on monthly fees like all swimming clubs and if people don’t turn up on the odd week, it’s not a big deal because they have already paid for the month so the club can still roll, can still function.

“So we are charging pay as you go and if a session only has five kids in it or a number that isn’t sustainable then we have to cancel that session.

“Then it also has an effect on the coach who then doesn’t have work for that evening: it’s a complete knock-on effect.”

Hicks is self-employed and combines working as head coach with teaching one-to-one lessons at the Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge, London.

He took a 60% pay cut for October on the understanding that the money be recouped in the future.

With a 15-month-old son Kian to support, there is no security for Hicks at the moment.

While he doesn’t fear for his own future, he does question what will happen to the club with the consequent knock-on for everyone involved.

“To be honest, I normally have a way of having making things work for myself. I am not too worried about that, I’ll make something work.

“I think the club will always be there but at what capacity, how big it is and how many people it can help, I think will be quite limited.”

Community And Breaking Down Barriers With Swimming At Its Crux

Hicks was the driving force behind the Swim London programme which operated out of the pool that staged the 2012 Olympics.

The boroughs that flank the park – Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest – all have areas with high levels of deprivation, poverty and inequality.

Hicks had several goals: to ensure people who live in those areas felt they too had a sense of belonging in a community which had the Olympic Park in its midst, to challenge stereotypes and make swimming appeal to people of all ethnicities, ages and backgrounds and to reduce the number of adult non-swimmers.

Some had never learned to swim and others had a fear of the water including a woman who had never ventured near since her nephew had drowned.

She made it to poolside but was about to turn around and go home until Hicks encouraged her to walk into the knee-high water with him.

There was a great emphasis on mentoring whereby those who had learned to swim were in turn encouraged to help others who were starting out.

Photo Courtesy: Harley Hicks

Some went from being unable to swim to doing a mile in the Thames in the space of four months.

Other former non-swimmers took part in a relay at the Aquatics Centre on the final day of the 2016 European Championships 12 weeks after first taking the plunge while some secured teaching qualifications and returned to help the next wave.

The benefits were endless with people overcoming fears and challenges, growing in confidence, finding a sense of worth and belonging and becoming part of a community with swimming at its centre.

Hicks said:

“It was a really good community hub. It just happened to be that swimming was the thing that brought everyone together.

“The model of what we did brought people together, it brought people from different communities together, and it was really good.

“We had different sessions around different areas of London and even just looking into one area you’d have a 55-year-old man, a 60-year-old woman, a 25-year-old man and they’d all have different professions, they’d all have different cultural backgrounds and different stories as to why they can’t swim. They all managed to find common ground through swimming.

“They all ended up in group chats, some of them became good friends: I’m still in one of the group chats now, four or five years down the line. They still talk to each other, they still update each other so if someone’s had a baby or someone’s got married they flag it up in there.

“The swimming pool during that Swim London programme was a massive instigator for people to get together and build friendships and bonds and with that continue to do the physical activity.

“It gave them ownership of their own local facilities and ownership of their own local area. A place that to them was not for them was now all of a sudden one of their main hubs, one of the main parts of their week.

“It’s like if you go to another area and you might go into a locals’ pub and you get that weird feeling that I don’t belong in here.

“But all of a sudden now you do – everyone’s embracing you, everyone’s here for the same reason and everyone is being really friendly.

“They had these massive facilities – the Olympic pool that millions and millions of pounds had been spent on – but for a lot of people on that programme it wasn’t somewhere they ever thought of going into on their own because it was overwhelming.

“Whereas now they would go in on their own because they have gone through that whole process. And they’d probably bring people with them too who have the same kind of feeling.”

Photo Courtesy: Harley Hicks

Which really underlines the potential ramifications and human cost of closing the pools in England.

“All of this lockdown and restrictions is almost the complete utter opposite to anything we did during that time and anything anyone got from that is now being reversed.

“Swim London was all about that community experience – that was the crux of the whole thing.

“Anything I do I try to implement that into it so I have tried to make that a big thing with Gators. We did do a lot of things to keep that going during lockdown: we did a lot of Instagram Lives and Zoom calls, tried to get as many of them engaged as possible.

“But you can’t really fully replicate everybody being in the same place and having conversations, socialising, having fun. There’s only so much you can get from online interaction.

“Now when I look at the pools, even when I am coaching and I look at the public lanes, I think if we are not careful as a country a lot of work – not just swimming but socialising – it is all being reversed at the moment.”

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Andy Gallion

3 years ago

There is a tremendous emotional toll being paid by these athletes. They are training safely. Whey you take away these safety nets from athletes, you leave them far more vulnerable. Very sad.

Dirk G. Winkler

3 years ago

it’s a tragedy…. and for what? Lockdowns don’t work, this virus will be here we need to learn to live with it and take appropriate measures… not this !

Melissa Moss

3 years ago

Heartbreaking. If schools can continue so should swimming….there is scientific evidence that Chlorine kills the virus and with social distancing the benefits to mental and physical health far outweigh the risks….our Governor in NJ reopened pools and there has been no evidence of virus spreading however there is plenty of evidence of mental and physical health benefits including safety from restoration of swim lessons and lifeguard certification. Great article but just.so.disheartening….

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Liz Byrnes - Europe Correspondent

3 years ago

Reply to Melissa Moss

Thank you all for responding. This is going to have a terrible impact on people of all ages and Harley’s Swim London programme demonstrated how swimming can be life-changing in so many ways. Not only the physical activity but also the mental health benefits, growing in confidence and overcoming fears, human contact, friendships, meeting people you might ordinarily never come into contact with, self-esteem. The impact on the young elite swimmers who may not now how good they can be and where that can lead them. Honestly, the list is endless. If the lockdown is extended as many expect, I can only hope that physical activity is redefined by the government as an essential service. I also have a glimmer of hope: people like Harley – who was very young when he drove Swim London – won’t sit still but will act for all our futures.

Anna

3 years ago

After over 7 months out of the pool in Melbourne, Aus, our swimmers are just getting back to training this week and next. It has been so hard for them all and for the competitive swimmers to try and keep some fitness whilst locked down at home with schooling, uni and work all being done remotely the toll on their mental health, motivation and self confidence has been brutal. With age nationals still going ahead (at this point in April 2021) the chance of them achieving qualifying times is going to be so challenging with only a handful of meets in the new year. I fear the drop out rate is going to be high with the knowledge that the rest of Australia have been training nearly all year.

Good luck to you all in the Uk and I hope you can advocate strongly for the pools to re open quickly.