If any local council chiefs are reading this and fancy jumping aboard the Christmas advert train, might I be bold enough to suggest a last-minute entry: a pregnant mother, two teenage girls and a 70-something retiree, all giggling away in the communal showers at their local gym as the septuagenarian proudly reveals she’s just swum a kilometre. “This time last year I couldn’t even manage a length,” she tells her new-found shower squad, wonderfully unselfconscious about the fact that she’s the only one there not in a swimsuit (we might leave that part out for the ad’s sake).
This was the heart-warming scene I found myself in the centre of last week and I believe it perfectly encapsulates a magic I’ve been trying to describe to my friends for years. Let’s call it the feel-good factor: you can’t see it, you don’t have to pay for it (actually, it’s better when you don’t) and much to my friends’ amusement and bemusement, I’ve been actively seeking it out in every London postcode I’ve lived in for the best part of a decade.
