“I simply couldnt learn to swim in shallow water!”
December 23, 2005Bernard Shaw On Swimming or Learning to Swim at the age of 90
Q: You spent a boyhood which was a singularly free and imaginative one. You taught yourself to swim in Killiney Bay?
A: Yes, I found that I simply couldnt learn to swim in shallow water, for my feet would insist upon touching the ground. So I went to what is called the White Rock, and jumped in where I could not reach the bottom–and thereby was forced to swim ashore.
An interview by James Whelan (1946), in Bernard Shaw, The Matter with Ireland, Rupert Hart-Davis, Soho Qure London, 1962, p.290
