“At first I would hold her in the water, until she felt comfortable,” says Gaston Bratcher, remembering what it was like to teach his two-year-old daughter, Willow, how to swim. “Soon she knew how to turn on her back, how to float, how to get out of the pool if she was feeling scared. You have wins and losses as a parent – and those first few moments watching her paddle on her own, it was honestly the best feeling.”
That swimming pool will always be a special place for Bratcher – even more so as it’s right in the basement of his family’s east London apartment.
