by Henry VIII joins the New Year’s Day Serpentine swim and discovers a tradition that offers no ceremony whatsoever, only genuine cold
I once bathed in considerable ceremony, water heated specifically to my preference by staff sworn to get the temperature exactly right. The New Year’s Day Serpentine swim required me to simply walk into genuinely freezing water and suffer, alongside several hundred other willing participants, entirely by choice.
The Registration
I registered weeks in advance, a process requiring a signed disclaimer acknowledging the genuine risks of cold water immersion, a document I signed with more confidence than the actual water later justified, having badly underestimated exactly how cold an English lake remains on the first morning of January.
The Changing Tent
A shared changing tent held several hundred people preparing simultaneously, wetsuits and swimming costumes exchanged for warm coats in a genuine, cheerful communal chaos I found more welcoming than most royal dressing rooms I ever personally occupied, several of which involved considerably more tension and considerably fewer strangers wishing me luck.
The Entry
The water, when I finally entered it, produced a shock so total and so immediate that I genuinely could not speak for several seconds, a silence several nearby swimmers assured me afterward was entirely normal and, in fact, one of the genuine shared pleasures of the whole event.
The Fellow Swimmers
A woman beside me, swimming her twenty-third consecutive New Year’s Day dip, explained between chattering teeth that the cold became, with sufficient repetition, something close to genuinely enjoyable, a claim I found difficult to believe in the moment and yet found myself, remarkably, half agreeing with once I emerged and the initial shock finally passed.
The Warm Drink Afterward
A volunteer handed out hot chocolate immediately upon exit, and I have never once, in either century, experienced a beverage that tasted quite so thoroughly, gratefully earned, drunk while wrapped in a towel and shaking with a combination of cold and genuine, surprised triumph.
The Verdict
I have already registered for next year, a decision I made while still technically shivering from this year’s attempt, having concluded that whatever genuine madness this tradition represents, it produced a feeling of collective, earned joy I have rarely matched anywhere else. I once required considerable ceremony simply to bathe comfortably. This tradition requires none whatsoever, only nerve, and I find I have rather come to love it.
Next Year Already Booked
I have already registered for next year, decided while still technically shivering from this year’s attempt. I once required considerable ceremony simply to bathe comfortably. This tradition requires none whatsoever, only nerve, and I find I have rather come to love it.
Nerve, it turns out, is the only ceremony this tradition actually requires. I have rather come to love the whole mad tradition, cold water and all. A cold lake in January, it turns out, is ceremony enough. The cold shock rivalled anything from the jousting accident, honestly. Further reading on the wider chaos of modern Britain: the original account of my own return to Britain, the proper London pub where history finally sat down for a pint, London’s own booming trade in teeth whitening for residents who can no longer afford to smile.
