Dear Simon,

My confession happened a few years ago at a local hotel, part of a well known chain of hotels with a very nice leisure club attached to it.

For a few years before the particular incident my friend Mark and I used to visit our local leisure centre every Monday night for an hour’s gym work. Unfortunately the leisure centre was located on the banks of a river and was always prone to flooding and after one very wet winter the centre was so seriously damaged the council decided to rebuild it.

This was going to take at least a year so users of the centre were offered preferential rates at this nearby hotel to use their gym and swimming pool whilst the building work was going on. Therefore Mark and I continued our Monday night routine but using the hotel gym instead, an hour each week, a quick shower and then home because Mark always had to get back promptly as his wife worked nights.

One Monday however, after our gym work had finished and I
was having my shower, Mark came in and asked whether I was going for a swim afterwards as his wife wasn't working that particular evening. Having never used the hotel pool before I agreed and said I would be in shortly. Having arrived at the poolside I noticed Mark standing at the far end but not yet in the water.

I therefore walked right around the edge of the pool, past the collection of floats and waterwings, past the lengthy ‘no petting’ signage which I stopped to peruse, past the base of the lifeguard’s lookout chair, past the large stopwatch and poolside thermometer, gradually aquainting myself with these unfamiliar surroundings. When I finally reached him, he greeted me only with the words 'Sean - you haven't got any trunks on'. The change to our normal routine had obviously taken me by surprise and I had walked straight from the shower into the pool area with no thought to change. By this time there was sniggering echoing all around the pool, which unfortunately alerted to the lifeguard to my appearance, and, like a schoolboy being caught splashing girls or dive-bombing, I was subjected to the full audible wrath of his official whistle and ordered to go and cover up, or face removal or even a ban from the centre. I then had to casually walk back around the pool completely starkers to the changing rooms, ignoring the looks of the people using the pool, covering what needed to be covered up by my hands only to sheepishly reappear fully trunked a few moments later. It was truly Simon, a walk of shame.

I therefore beg the forgiveness of the many people using the pool that night who were subjected to the horrific sight of me in all my glory. I would like to ask Mark to assume some responsibility on the basis that he let me walk the entire length of the pool (which was of Olympic size as I recall) before informing me of my wardrobe malfunction.

Sean