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Association represents every swimmer
• I AM a great admirer of Peter Tatchell. (Drop the gay hang-up about nudism: let’s live and let live, June 25)
I admire his support for the cause of individual liberty; his fight for the civil rights of gay people against unfair treatment and persecution.
I particularly admire the way he puts himself in harm’s way for that cause, fearlessly enduring physical assault by the likes of Mugabe’s bodyguard and the Moscow police. I have no hesitation in designating him as a hero of our times.
I am not, as he wrongly concludes, campaigning against naked sunbathing or gay men.
I am pleading the cause of swimmers and swimming at the Highgate Pond against an outrageous – I hope he does not mind my borrowing the word – demand which unreasonably, unfairly and disproportionately requires that swimming after more than 100 years at Highgate, becomes an activity significantly subordinate to nude sunbathing, for which, Michael Peacock (Nudists go stark raving mad over their lack of space at Men’s Pond, June 4) audaciously demands exclusive use of more than three quarters of the available changing area; a proposal unreasonably described as “modest”.
Nor was my letter (Swimming is healthier than baking in the sun, June 11) a value judgment on sexual orientation or sexual activity but manifestly an argument about economics and proportion.
Substitute the words “Morris dancers” for the word “gay” in my analysis and you see the clear sexual neutrality of my argument.
For example, if the exclusive nude sunbathing area of the Highgate Pond was instead exclusively used by Morris dancers and it was promoted in the national and international Morris dancing media as a Morris dancing meeting place, bringing more Morris dancers than the capacity for them, you would have the same economic outcome; an oversupply of Morris dancers in relation to the space available.
If those Morris dancers then unreasonably, unfairly and inappropriately, disproportionately demanded that swimmers, runners, floor gymnasts and aging shuttlecock players be displaced, we would come to the same outrageous outcome.
“Morris dancer” is mentioned six times not in prejudice – there obviously is none – but because it is necessary to the analysis of an economic problem.
The swimming ponds of Hampstead Heath are indeed a slice and cross-section of London life as Mr Tatchell reminds us.
The United Swimmers Association reflects that diversity by representing every swimmer regardless of creed, colour, religion, occupation and sexual identity – if anyone ever notices?
Indeed, one of its three founders was incidentally and immaterially gay. The problem is that Mr Peacock’s exclusive club does not reflect that diversity.
In my experience, no swimmer is ever uncivil towards or intolerant of another simply because he happens to be gay; nor should they be. Such conduct would be impolite, indefensible and something I would condemn utterly.
I am delighted to assure Mr Tatchell that a cross-section of people still do mix amicably every day as they change in the swimmers’ compound; just as they have always done and just as they do rubbing shoulders on the streets of London.
Only Mr Peacock’s unreasonable proposals are a threat to that.
The implication that swimmers who happen to be gay are not welcomed by other swimmers, is contrary to all truth and observation.
The swimming compound is and has been for more than 100 years, by purpose and design, predominantly to serve healthy exercise and swimming, not nude sunbathing.
The demand to have an “all over” sun tan (as opposed to a 90 per cent or so, togs on, version) strikes me as a wanton misallocation of a scarce resource – the swimming pond – and truly superficial in contrast to the healthy benefits of a swim for 20 or 30 minutes a day with the birds and fish, in the clear waters of Highgate Pond.
That is genuine naturism.
Robert Sutherland Smith
Chairman United Swimmers Association of Hampstead Heath
Space is inadequate
• I HAD regularly used the Men’s Pond for some time before the intrusive barrier that is the source of contention was installed and had never seen anything that justified the measure taken.
Since then either side of the divide has continued to be used for both swimming and sunbathing, though one side is much the smaller and the fencing takes up a lot valuable space in an area that was already inadequate for users’ needs.
Much of the area adjoining the enclosure is at present just overgrown scrubland.
It remains the reality that the present area being too small to satisfy the demands being made upon it is the real problem, something that seems to be getting lost sight of in the present contention, and were the barrier to be removed, and grassing to replace the bare concrete, and the whole facility expanded, this would, I think, more satisfactorily address the needs of all users.
John McPartlin
Address supplied
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