Swimming seems to be a big thing now days, there are a plethora of books about people finding solace in the waves or ponds around our country, but if you go back far enough you would find that swimming was only a male preserve and rich men only too a lot of the time. Women didn’t even get the choice, being found in the water could lead to fines or even arrest. It took until the 1930s before women were granted equal access to the wet stuff.

In this Waterbiography, Landreth explores the ways that women have pushed to be allowed to swim in the same places as men and how access was reluctantly given. She highlights those women who have taken them on at their own records across the channel and other endurance events, fought against overt discrimination just for the right to swim. In amongst these social battles are some amazing women who would not take no for an answer, some pretty dire swimming costumes and Landreth’s own personal journey swimming in lidos.

It is a really enjoyable book, and well worth reading. Landreth has a seriously dry sense of humour as well as has some fairly forthright feminist views. However, given some of the petty reasons that women were denied that right to swim, you can see why. ( )

"....the view from under the water is magic. Perception changes; I began to swim in the lido ’s blue, not on it, and it felt like being put right inside a photo. Ahead of you are tiny legs hanging like tights on a washing line, kicking in a wind. The batik patterns of light on the floor break and blur as you pull through them. Other people ’s shadows are the hull of a boat, the body of a sea mammal. Stopping for a moment and dipping half down so your eyeline is flat along the surface of the water, you get the perspective shot they use in films like Piranha, which is perhaps not the best example to invoke. But it ’s an evocative shot, flicking your eyes down to the blue silence that lies beneath you and then up and along the surface. The water does things that feel counterintuitive. The surface bows, the colour is more concentrated at the top, a planetary horizon."

Landreth mixes the personal - her own swimming biography, as a woman who came to swimming after her children were born, evangelism for women's right to swim without body shaming or other limitations, and histories of women's campaigns to get equal access to the water. I knew a little of her material (the bathing boxes seem to be something of a historical cliche) but had no idea seaside towns tried to segregate swimmers, or the links between the suffrage (voting) movement and swimming. Despite the sometimes serious themes - sexism, campaigning and motherhood, humour throughout, so not a dry read at all.

I really enjoyed this book. Recommended if you like swimming, Jacky Fleming, or memoirs exploring feminism and/or women's history

This was a Netgalley preview copy- out 4 May ( )