One of my pupils never learned to swim as a child because she grew up in a war zone. Now in middle age, she needs to learn because health issues make other forms of exercise difficult. She told me that her abiding memory of childhood is of running from the shelling and even now she has nightmares almost every night. She said to me

‘Now we are talking about sending people to the moon as tourists! Surely we can find some other way than violence to resolve our conflicts here on Earth.’

Her swimming is coming on well. She is concentrating on the breathing which is always the most difficult thing to learn.