At the age of 23 I couldn't swim at all, had never been able to even do a stroke, and on a Tuesday of one week I decided that, the coming weekend, I would go to the local swimming baths and make myself swim - kids could do it so why shouldn't I? I didn't say anything to anyone and I had never considered it before that but just a couple of days later someone I worked with asked if I wanted to go swimming with him and his girlfriend that very weekend and, as I say, I had never mentioned it to him or given the merest suggestion that I was intending to do it. It was coincidence, pure and simple.