Learning to swim

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

I enrolled in the adult beginners' swimming class after years of finding reasons to remain beside the pool. There were six learners and two instructors. We began in water shallow enough to stand in, using floats supplied by the centre. The instructor asked what each of us found difficult before demonstrating anything. I admitted that I disliked putting my face under. She gave me a separate exercise and said I could take the first lesson without leaving the shallow end. This sounded so reasonable that I almost distrusted it.

The sessions took place every Wednesday evening in a heated indoor pool. We booked a course of eight and could borrow goggles if we had forgotten our own. Progress was recorded on a card, but nobody raced. One learner already moved confidently on his back while another spent most of the lesson practising breathing beside the wall. The instructors moved between us, adjusting the task rather than expecting six bodies to discover the same confidence at the same minute. When I swallowed water, I could stop and stand.

By the fourth week I could travel a short distance without holding the side. It was an unremarkable achievement to anyone watching from the café upstairs, but the setting mattered. The fixed timetable, warm water and known depth allowed me to concentrate on the movement itself. I still had to work and still felt nervous. The course had not removed those feelings; it had provided a place where I could practise without also having to judge weather, current or the patience of a companion waiting to go home.

Source B: an original letter in a nineteenth-century voice. This is a period-voice simulation, not an archival document.

Dear James, I have begun learning to swim, though you must not imagine a master presiding over a convenient bath. My cousin takes me to a bend in the river after our work is finished. He learned there himself and assures me that the bottom is firm near the bank. Before entering he tests the depth with a pole and decides whether the water is moving too swiftly. If it is, we remain on shore. On two evenings the rain made the attempt impossible, and on another he was required elsewhere.

There is no equipment beyond what we carry, and the water is cold enough to make every instruction seem longer than necessary. My cousin supports me while I practise moving my arms, then tells me to try alone between two points close to the bank. He is patient, but he remembers confidence more readily than fear. When he says that I should simply relax, I would be grateful if he could tell me by what means. We leave when the light begins to fail, whether I have improved or not.

I have made some progress and do not wish you to think me ungrateful. Without him I should have no teacher at all. Yet our lessons depend on several things agreeing: his time, my work, the weather and the river. A successful evening feels partly like an achievement and partly like a favour granted by circumstances. I should welcome a place where the conditions remained the same long enough for me to discover which difficulties belonged to my own limbs and which belonged to the water around them.

Use details from both sources to summarise what you understand about the differences in the conditions under which the writers learn to swim.