'I reckon shark warnings would only encourage Cullercoats cold water dippers into the sea'

Sharks, ice, bacteria... nothing will keep the cold water bathers from their daily dip. Image produced by AI image generator Dall-E

While I was pegging out the washing, I heard the next door neighbour turn the air blue with a stream of four-letter words that would have Chubby Brown blushing.

It sounded like he’d caught his wife in bed with his best mate and then stepped on a piece of Lego. That kind of pain.

From the visceral scream of expletives, it was clear something truly terrible had just happened and so, like the good conscientious neighbour I am, I rushed back upstairs stifling my giggles to report back to my current life-partner.

Halfway up the stairs, I had a perfect vantage point over the backyard wall to view the horror that had befallen my potty-mouthed neighbour. Turns out he's only gone and got himself an ice-bath.

‘Oh yes,’ my partner explained. ‘He swears by it, apparently.’

I know, I just heard him.

‘His wife bought him it. The cold water helps him recover after running,’ she said. ‘Eases his aching limbs. Good for stress and anxiety too.’

So those pitiful screams are the sounds of blissful recovery? Reckon I’ll give it a miss.

The irony is we live two minutes from a free ice bath…the North Sea. Millions of gallons of ice-cold water – free, and always freezing. Even in summer.

To be fair, the bitterly cold stretch of sea water is no oasis of calm. In fact, it’s Dry-Robe central. Come rain or shine, there’s a daily migration of hardy dippers, marching into the brassic briny to watch the sun rise - and everything else shrink!

Every day they come. In the snow, during storms, nothing puts them off.

The council did put up a digital ‘water quality’ sign on the ramp leading down to the beach. A good idea since the stretch of water outside our house is one of the worst in the country for water pollution. If it’s particularly bad, the digital sign will tell you, usually after heavy rainfall, if the contamination levels are critical and bathing is not advised. I’ve yet to see it put anyone off.

Maybe they should try shark warnings. Just to see if anyone flinches.

I guess it’s addictive. Like smoking. ‘The water may be teeming with E.coli bacteria but hey, it’s the only pleasure I’ve got left in life.’

We took a stroll along the beach this Easter in our woolly hats, padded coats and scarves. (Yes, it was a ‘mild’ day.) We passed the Panama Swimming Club HQ (established in the 1930s) along the way. Not long ago, this hardy crew of daily dippers were Whitley Bay oddities. The sort of people you’d spot taking a winter plunge and think: ‘Are they okay?’

Now they’re just part of the crowd. The only real difference? These days, we know exactly how polluted the water is. Still, it’s meant to be good for your mental health… if you survive the bacteria.