I have only
been down a flume twice in my life. In 1992, shortly after Lorna and I were
engaged, we were both at the Spring Harvest event at Butlin’s Wonderwest World
in Ayr. One afternoon, we went to the
Leisure Waters facility at the site. I was at the stage of feeling that to
marry Lorna would mean doing (or at least trying to do) everything she did. And so, as she flung
herself joyously down the steepest flume, I resolved to do the same, and after lingering
hesitantly at the top of the flume whose gradient seemed most gradual, I
courageously let myself go. It was terrifying – the rapid descent with no means
of restraining your body, the knowledge that at the bottom the projectile of
your body would be fired into a deep pool of water. I survived, but resolved
never again to put myself through the flume experience.
A few years
later we were on holiday at St Andrews when Rebecca was a toddler. At the
leisure pool close to the beach, there was the very shortest of flumes. Rebecca
was reluctant to commit herself to it, and I reckoned that I could face such a
brief descent with equanimity and so Rebecca and I went down together. It was
not a wise decision. I learned that to me even the shortest of flumes brings
terror, and also that young children are quick to recognize when you’re afraid.
(Mind you, as I was probably holding myself rigid, and her too, this is hardly
surprising.) That episode probably put Rebecca off flumes for life!
But at least
I tried, and I think there are metaphors in there for my approach to fathering,
and to life.
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