To be a dare devil at Dancing Ledge ...

I wish now that I had been born a dare devil - I lament the fact that I was a shy and timid boy - I avoided scaling the tallest trees - I hung back from diving into rivers - I clung to the walls at discos - I recoiled from leaping dogs -

But since then, since those days of my mum's notes to the PE teacher, I have, little by little, discovered the pleasures of being fool hardy -

I have galloped across wide, thistle choked, fields, whacking the horse - I have abseiled down the side of a disused railway viaduct in the Peak District - I have plucked pointed mushrooms from damp pastures, and gulped them down - I have danced, rapt, to Algerian Rai - I have embraced tawny girls - I have gone wild swimming, my legs tangled with kelp -

But I have yet to swim in the tide pool at Dancing Ledge - a mad headmaster had this basin dynamited out of the rock - you scramble down a small cliff, to stand upon a shelf of Purbeck limestone - there, in front of you, is the pool - even in mid summer, its water is icy - behind you is the vast wreck of the old quarry -

The sea current here is deadly - swimmers have been sucked down under the swell, drawn into the underwater caves - you swim, therefore, if you do so, within the pool -

Anne has dangled her long legs in the glassy water - but we lacked the courage to jump in, to swim furiously from one end of the pool to the other -

Then, recently, with Penny, we saw three bold women approach the pool - one stayed above the cliff, with a questing, anxious, dog, while two climbed down to the shelf of rock -

After only a few brief moments, we heard loud splashes and rapturous screams - the two dare devils were skinny dipping in the pool, fearless and laughing -

I vowed then, that this must be the next thing to do - to swim here, to be just as brave -