Hundreds of people will brave the elements to take part in the New Year’s Dook at Broughty Ferry, an event that’s been run by Ye Amphibious Ancients Bathing Association since 1889. The club features in a new book about outdoor bathing. Jack McKeown found out more about the story of swimming.
Scotland is not exactly the best country for swimming outdoors. Even in the summertime water temperatures hardly get to what you could call a friendly level. And yet hundreds of people come together one morning in midwinter to delve into the brisk waters of the Tay, and thousands more gather to watch them.
The Broughty Ferry New Year’s Dook has been going for over a century, and last year, when temperatures were at rock bottom and four feet of snow was just beginning to melt, the dook attracted 280 brave souls.
Joyce McIntosh is president of Ye Amphibious Ancients Bathing Association known by one and all as the Phibbies which runs the New Year’s Dook.
”We had 280 in the water last year, and another 3,000 or 4,000 watching so many that the police got concerned about crowd control,” she says.
”Apart from during the Second World War, the New Year’s Dook has gone ahead every year since 1889. And it has never been cancelled because of bad weather.
”People started dooking on a daily basis when the Phibbies were established in 1884,” she continues. ”But never on a Sunday because that was the Sabbath. In 1889 the New Year’s Dook began.”
The Dook features in a new book, The Story of Swimming, which charts the history, decline, and recent renaissance of outdoor swimming. Its author, passionate outdoor swimmer Susie Parr, made a pilgrimage to Broughty Ferry to take part in one of the Phibbies’ training swims.
Susie’s own mother, Winifred Paterson, came from Broughty Ferry and was a member of the Phibbies.
”I came to Broughty Ferry to see where my mother learned to swim. She was thrown into the cold Tay water from the harbour and literally had to sink or swim,” Susie explains. ”As I looked down into the harbour water, a young seal raised its head to look at me, then dived and disappeared.
”The water felt shockingly cold and I could see my arms turning bright pink as I set off using my slow and stately breast stroke, trying not to think about the jellyfish I’d seen as I was climbing down the iron rungs of the ladder.
”I managed one passage across the harbour and the return journey before emerging gasping and shivering to be told I’d completed just one sixteenth of a mile.”
Susie, who is based in Bristol, was inspired to write the book by a lifelong passion for outdoor swimming.
”I’ve always loved swimming in rivers, lakes and the sea,” she says. ”It used to be something everyone did but you see it less and less often these days. Even on hot summer days, quite often I’m the only one in. You used to see whole families in the sea, but at best these days it’s children in little wetsuits with their parents standing watching.”
As Susie researched the history of outdoor swimming, she made some surprising discoveries.
”I’d always assumed it dated from the Victorian era at the earliest but in fact we’ve been outdoor swimming in Britain since pre-Roman times.”
Although Broughty Ferry’s a little far away, Susie will be participating in her own New Year’s Dook closer to home.
”We’ll be spending New Year at Tenby, in Pembrokeshire, which is beautiful,” she says. ”I’ll be swimming in the sea on New Year’s Day, even if no one else is!”
This year’s Broughty Ferry Dook will take place at 10am on Sunday quite early for a day where people traditionally enjoy a lie-in then move to the sofa to further sleep off the festive season’s excesses.
”I know it’s a little early,” Joyce admits. ”But high tide is 8.08 so by midday there won’t be enough water left in the harbour for people to swim.”
The New Year’s Dook raises a phenomenal amount of money for charity. ”It raises money for us the Phibbies are a registered charity but people can raise money for a charity of their choice as well,” Joyce says.
For the first time this year, the Phibbies are asking dookers to tell them how much money they’ve raised and which charity it’s going to so they can track exactly how much money the event raises.
”We don’t have exact figures for other years but usually it’s well in excess of £20,000,” Joyce says. ”One year we had 20 Boy Scouts along, raising money for the new Broughty Ferry clubhouse. They raised more than £500 each.
”Gillies in Broughty Ferry have been incredibly generous and sponsored us for the next three years.”
It’s an event for young and old.
”I think the youngest dookers we’ve had are around five. And on the other end of the scale, our former life president George McLaren, who’s sadly deceased now, was still doing it up until the age of 78.”
Joyce (66) will be getting wet herself on Sunday. ”We’ve got a wee section for sponsors and VIPs to watch the dook. I’ll be in there looking after them for a while so I’ll probably swim at the end. Normally, I’m one of the first ones in the water, but don’t you worry I’ll be doing my dook.
”I’ve done it for 31 years in a row since I joined the Phibbies in 1981, and in 1989 the ice was so thick in the harbour that we had to break it with pick-axes before everyone could get in.”
She’s cheerfully honest about her own abilities as a swimmer, saying: ”I wouldn’t expect anyone to be too impressed by my technique, and I’m certainly not going to break any records, but I’ll get in and splash around.”
The president of Ye Amphibious Ancients Bathing Association’s own preferred method of exercise takes place on land.
”I’ve done six marathons and I’m signed up for the London Marathon in 2012,” she explains. ”Amphibious also means on land, remember!”
The New Year’s Dook takes place at Broughty Harbour on Sunday at 10am. Entry costs £10 and forms can be downloaded from www.yeaaba.co.uk/the-dook.