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Mental wellbeing is so important and swimming pools play a crucial role

Swim England News

Lifelong swimmer and father of two Huw Ricketts explains why the coronavirus lockdown has highlighted the need for swimming – resulting in him joining Swim England’s fight for pools.

Huw has signed up as a Swim England Champion in a bid to help save pools up and down the country.

He says a main reason for joining the Swim England family was because of the physical and mental benefits swimming brings.

“Learning to swim saves lives,” he added.

“Not only in the traditional sense of preventing people from drowning, but also in the sense of giving people a place to exercise, meet like-minded people and have a link to positive activity.

“Mental wellbeing is so important and pools play a crucial role.

“The sense of achievement once you have done the act of swimming is so important to your confidence.”

The 41-year-old said that in addition to swimming all his life, his daughter Martha and son Joseph are both club swimmers.

Both have been swimming since they were babies and Huw and his wife Lucy admitted they were worried how their children would cope during lockdown.

Speaking about 13-year-old Martha, Huw said: “We were worried about how she would handle losing such a big part of her life.

“Her friendships from swimming, discipline of swimming each day, fitness and health.

“She actually coped very well, but only because we engaged with Swim England, British Swimming and professional swimmers on social media.

“Looking at what everyone was going through and what Swim England were doing to help kept us all going.

“Knowing that even at the elite end of the sport, swimmers were going through the same things as her, made it easier for her.”

Huw and his children have recently been able to get back to the water, a feeling he described as ‘amazing’ and something that he is hoping to help others achieve by supporting the fight to save pools.

He said: “Signing up and supporting this cause is so easy.

“It is important for all of us and I wanted to do my bit to try and support the sector.

“We are all time poor, but if we can give a relatively small amount of money we can do our part to help.”

To join the Swim England family and purchase a Supporter, Campaigner and Champion package, click here.

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