Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we're heading into summer again and I was just wondering how many of us are either so super-confident or else so super-lacking-in-objectivity-about-our-own-appearance that we still feel okay about parading around in public wearing trunks, bikinis and so forth.

I'm guessing that because everyone's so incredibly fat in the USA, there's no stigma to waddling around in swimwear with your gut scraping against the tops of your feet, but elsewhere there's still a lot of pointing and sniggering at the physically imperfect swimmer and sunbather.

Do you continue to sunbathe publicly and to frequent your local swimming baths, brazenly displaying your beergut, stretchmarks, moobs, cellulite, bingo wings and monstrously flabby arse like you were still an unselfconscious seven-year-old? Or do you only ever undress indoors, inside a cupboard where no-one else can see you?

A middle-aged couple I know in Sutton Coldfield attend the regular all-nude swimming sessions at Bramcote up in (I think) Notts, but fortunately for the general public I shan't be tempted to participate myself. Got to draw a line somewhere, eh?

So then, what kind of physical shape are we all in? Do you hang out on Muscle Beach, striking poses and bouncing cricket balls off your abs? Or are your days of scantily-clad public appearances a long way behind you now, what with not wanting to frighten the horses?

Answer --- YES !

I may, no longer, have a 28" waist (Yes I did, in the Army --- honestly !) -- However I still wear a swimsuit, or trunks, on the beach, and, if in an appropriate place, I go "Skinny dipping".


The problem is, that at 83, it takes so long to dry out all the wrinkles !!

I don't like sunbathing, but I still appear in public in a swimsuit when I want to swim. I've never noticed anyone pointing and sniggering (but of course, I am very short-sighted).

Seriously, I'm less self-conscious now than when I was at school, even though I am a lot fatter.

Nowt wrong with a swimming cozzie !

Come to that, nowt wrong with skinny dipping.

I am reliably informed that now the warmer days are here, the Mole Valley and District Over 80's Nude Leap Frog Display Team are back in training !

J.R. wrote:I am reliably informed that now the warmer days are here, the Mole Valley and District Over 80's Nude Leap Frog Display Team are back in training !

They sent you a subscription reminder, did they?

Spoonbill wrote:

J.R. wrote:I am reliably informed that now the warmer days are here, the Mole Valley and District Over 80's Nude Leap Frog Display Team are back in training !

They sent you a subscription reminder, did they?

As their Secretary and Press Officer, I hardly need a reminder !

At least a swimsuit covers up part of my body..If you want to swim, what else can you do, especially on the beach here at Southend. Still at least during the week there are few ultra-skinny bodies around, just us OAPs and some regulars make me feel almost slim!

Angela Pratt 56-63 wrote:At least a swimsuit covers up part of my body..If you want to swim, what else can you do, especially on the beach here at Southend. Still at least during the week there are few ultra-skinny bodies around, just us OAPs and some regulars make me feel almost slim!

I don't have any problem being in a swimmimg costume and even on a med beach with all those wanna-bees fillum stars. I got fit after I left CH and put on a stone to get to about lower third of ideal weight; that stayed there until 3 years ago when I blame the steroids for a stone increase. Seing as my wife is the queen of the Dukans (well, she has a lot of followers worldwide) I have already lost some and in a few weeks I should be back to CH weight (and quite a bit fitter!) Ergo, I won't be mistaken for an American (nor one of those many Brits who ape American heftiness)!

NO

Are you saying you go naked instead?

You saucy mare.

I bet you go down a storm at the Chiltern Pools, eh?

Not only do I wear my swimsuit in public - open air pool opened last week and already been 3 times - I also sauna naked in the attached facilities... against the rules not to.

Also open changing rooms (not mixed! but no cubicles) so it all hangs out in the showers & dressing rooms, too.

I am not a small woman but unless i swim regularly I never will be!

To be honest, no-one cares!

Spoonbill wrote:Are you saying you go naked instead?

You saucy mare.

I bet you go down a storm at the Chiltern Pools, eh?

More like a tidal wave!

Most certainly! If it's warm....

I'm in considerably better shape at 58 than ever I was as the Hertford Fat Girl at 18 years old. I have humiliating memories of receiving glancings and mutterings in the street, reproving reminders if attempting to eat a cake in public, derisory comments in dress shops, and of course, looking huge and dreadful in the Hertford uniform - still, hey, Thames Mud and Barges for pudding today!

Of course, for me, it's great to wear a swimsuit or bikini - preferably when lightly tanned!

Mind you, there have been a few moments. I've only got to catch a whiff of Hawaiian Tropic Factor 8 to be transported back to our honeymoon in Corfu in 1981. Arriving at the topless beach - heavenly golden sand and gently lapping turquoise sea - I happily tore off my bikini top. My modest and fair-skinned husband - who burns badly if he goes too near a light bulb I was to discover - looked at me in horror. "You can't do that!" he hissed, despite the fact that every other female was uninhibitedly sunning her bosom. The only solution was to smother him in Hawaiian Tropic under a sun parasol, and shade his poor scandalised eyes with my removed bikini top. Sorted!

Well, I admit to a few merry moments. Cavorting with the children in the Lazy River at the Maidstone Leisure Centre, my new (cotton; beware!) bikini briefs filled with water and collapsed downwards as I stood up in the knee-deep bit to supervise an infant swimming attempt. A group of local lads saluted this bikini malfunction with ecstatic whoops and whistles. And then there was that nude sunbathing moment in the Pyrenees when I was interrupted on my mountainside rock by a posse of French nature ramblers. Thank goodness for Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Country and his A Walk Through The Woods hastily positioned over the relevant areas. Thank you, Mr Bryson! And then, the next day, how could I resist the place in the mountains where Nature had formed a natural round snow-water-fed little pool? Of course I tore off my clothes and splashed, shrieking, in the icy bubbles.

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to visit an Old School Friend in Austria, and was enraptured by our visit to a blissful thermal spa. The wonderful warm silky water! I remember especially the Tropical Rain Forest steam room, which was enhanced by the calls of exotic birds. Then there were the various incidential pools, surrounded by candles, which heaved and rippled with hidden currents in the manner of the Pool of Bethesda! Verily, an angel was coming down to trouble the waters. There were nude areas and swimsuit areas, but really, nobody seemed to exhibit any form of embarassment; large and wobbling persons, bronzed Euro-beauties, everybody was just loving this wonderful place. Oh, how lovely to swim out under the stars at night in the steaming warm pool where braziers flamed around the edge in the darkness! A unique mystic experience for me!

I have to come to the conclusion that nowadays, bearing in mind that the general British Public appears in a vastly varying state of undress, no matter what their size, nobody is going to care about me in a swimsuit.

It's nearly summer!

Angela Woodford wrote: And then there was that nude sunbathing moment in the Pyrenees when I was interrupted on my mountainside rock by a posse of French nature ramblers. Thank goodness for Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Country and his A Walk Through The Woods hastily positioned over the relevant areas. Thank you, Mr Bryson!

Tsk. Just because we were wearing berets, you assume we were all French...? Shame you only had the paperback versions!

Nude sunbathing, even topless, is a big no-no here. I've got quite prudish about exposed flesh myself, away from the beach. I remember seeing a very large and wobbly European chap in Tesco one day wearing nothing but a pair of Speedos. I was horrified. I was astonished he couldn't feel the negative vibes winging their way towards him. When Bee and I first got together she once told me to put my t-shirt on while driving in case we were stopped by the police.

Thai people usually swim with t-shirts and long shorts - more for sun protection than modesty, I think. Bee is now able to wear a bik... well, let's not go down that path!

Did I mention I have a new pc?

Angela I was very empathic in 1981, I went to Ios and when I came back the people at work wanted to see my white bits. I removed my wedding ring (and my late MIL's which I also wear) and showed them the white bits. They wanted to see the rest. One raised eyebrow a la Roger Moore silenced them.

The travel agent next door to my office has wafts of Hawaiian Tropic coming out of the door. AAAAAHHHHHHHHH. Can you imagine using SPF 8 nowadays. I have difficulty finding SPF 15.

The last time I went swimming was probably ten years ago.