The signs on the gate at the entrance to the path and along the
edge of the reservoir were clear. “No swimming,” they warned,
white letters on a red background.
On a chill mid-April day in northwest England, with low, gray
clouds and rain in the forecast, the signs hardly seemed
necessary. But then people began arriving, by the dozens and then
the hundreds. Some walked only from nearby Hayfield, while others
came by train or bus or foot from many hours away. In a long,
trailing line, they tramped up the hill beside the dam and around
the shore of the reservoir, slipping in mud and jumping over
puddles.
Down on the shore, giggling and shrieking people picked their way
across slippery rocks. Then, with a great deal of cheering and
splashing, they took to the water en masse, fanning out in all
directions. Some carried a large banner that read, “The Right to
Swim.”
More rounds of cheers went up as new waves of swimmers splashed
into the water. An older woman wearing a pink floral swimsuit
paused on the shore to turn to the crowd still on land. “Don’t be
beaten down!” she shouted, raising a fist above her
flower-bedecked bathing cap. “Rebel!” Then she, too, flopped into
the lake.
The group of rebellious swimmers were trespassing for a cause:
the uncontested right to walk, camp, cycle, swim, canoe and
perform any other form of nonmotorized exploration throughout the
country, also known as the “right to roam.”
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