City Swimmers

This affectionate portrait of a local dispute provokes the obvious question, why should so many people care? The simple issue is whether swimmers will be banned from a pond in one large urban park but for many protesters it represents much more – a struggle about the future of city life, the management of public resources and the limits of commercialisation.

The story starts among the trees and green slopes of Hampstead Heath. Here, not far from the centre of London , are three ponds where people swim - thousands in the summer and some hundreds through the winter. One is for women, one for men and one is for mixed bathing. All are much loved and especially valued because there are no other places like them in London .

In November 2004 a proposal to restrict or ban swimming in one or more of the ponds sparked an explosion of public anger. Protesters were pitted against the ancient and secretive Corporation of the City of London which took over the management of the Heath in 1989.

City Swimmers was made by filmmakers who are also swimmers. Centred on the women’s pond, it captures the pleasure of bathing with moorhens and ducks throughout the changing seasons. It provides a lively insiders’ account of the 2004/5 campaign against closures and shows how it was linked with concerns about London ’s open spaces and access to open water swimming nationally.

Margaret Dickinson

Margaret Dickinson is a film-maker and writer with a wide range experience in the film and tv industry in the UK and a long standing commitment to community media and experimental production.

She worked initially as a film editor and began regularly producing and directing in the mid 1980s. She has taught film and video in the UK, in Africa and India. From 1999 to 2001 she co-ordinated a project carried out by the Jandarshan/Images in Social Change network and co-funded by the EU under the EU-India Economic Cross Cultural Programme. She continues to co-ordinate the network on a voluntary basis and is one of the advisers to Jandarshan, Raipur, the media centre which grew out of the project.

Filmography (doc-file)