There

There's been a lot of change under the arches on Brighton seafront in recent
decades. New arrivals under the prom include a nightclub, art galleries,
licensed cafés, a clairvoyant, a penny arcade, and a sign inviting visitors
to 'step this way' to see what the butler saw. But at 7am on a grizzly
morning when autumn is turning to winter, all are shuttered up and dark. The
only light piercing the dawn gloom comes from the premises of a tenant who's
been here well over a hundred years, in the lee of the Palace Pier.

And not only does light stream from the door; so also does a procession of
extravagantly under-dressed individuals in an assortment of goggles,
flippers and luminous caps, boots and mittens, shuffling towards the sea
like a group of naked penguins on a secret summer holiday. If the butler had
been up and about to see what he saw, he probably wouldn't have believed his
eyes.

One of the group has the electric walk of someone in pain; another is
heavily pregnant and radiating good health; one is sumo-sized and
storm-resistant; yet another is birdlike and hesitant. Only the last figure,
locking the changing room door behind him, looks seriously athletic. The
dawn shift of Brighton's Buccaneers is on the move.

Sea bathing may be a traditional family activity in the summer months, but
early-morning swimming all year round is the province of the eccentric. For
dwindling numbers of doughty individuals up and down the land it is a
spiritual, metaphysical experience, and their eyes light up when they talk
about the feeling of intense well-being it produces. It is certainly not a
sport.

In this particular group, the pain-sufferer is 65-year-old David Sawyer,
retired university lecturer and the Buccaneers' philosopher and fisherman.
Passionate about the mind- and body-enhancing benefits of swimming 'in the
mastery of the forces of nature', he also has severe osteo-arthritis, for
which cold-water bathing works as an effective anaesthetic. He will spend 45
minutes bobbing around beyond the end of the pier with his fishing rod.

The man-mountain is 50-year-old Andrew Remedios, who works in substance
misuse services and is the group's organiser. He's the one who generally
decides whether conditions are too rough for swimming, in which case the
swimmers generally opt for a 'groyne shower'; holding onto one of the
beach's wooden breakwaters while the surf breaks over them. His very size
and power makes him a reassuring presence.

The birdlike figure is 65-year-old Henry Law, retired town planner, who has
swum in this sea practically every day since 1987, and who scathingly
describes pool swimming as 'mind-numbingly boring.' Not all seas meet with
his approval, however; he dismisses the Baltic as 'too pongy' and the
Mediterranean as 'devoid of tides'. The good thing about Brighton, he
suggests, is that the shingle beach 'doesn't come home with you and end up
in your bed'.

The pregnant lady is 39-year-old Sue Baird, florist and relative newcomer to
the group. She's got five weeks of her term to go, and intends to keep going
as long as she can. She used to be a summer swimmer, leaving the hard-core
stuff to her husband Nick. 'But now I get a real buzz, an endorphin rush,
and I'm sure there are real health benefits.' She indicates the older
members. 'Just look at them.'

These are sentiments echoed by the athletic-looking 38-year-old Simon Cooke,
who has the shoulders of a serious swimmer, and who has completed a Channel
crossing as part of a relay team. Cooke is a film director for Film Four,
commuting to London daily, and he says that sea-bathing has changed his
life. 'When I get on that train every morning it looks like someone has just
walked through it with a sleep drug, but I feel as bright as a spark.'

Of course these five are not the only ones. Others have already been and
gone, some are still to come - around 15 on a good day, a couple of them in
their 80s - but all endorse the view that their morning madness is
physically and spiritually uplifting, acts as a natural anti-depressant, and
can even heighten perception. After all, it was only a decade ago that
Margate had the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, based on the curative properties
of coldwater immersion.

And then, they add, there are the aesthetics; the sun-rise hitting the tops
of the buildings, the differing shapes and shadows of the girders under the
pier, the cauliflower clouds over the Sussex Downs. And the sea, they say,
is never the same from one day to the next - which is far more than you can
say about any swimming pool.

Meanwhile the average onlooker looks on aghast as the swimmers extricate
themselves laboriously from the surf (this is the most dangerous bit, when
the run-back can make it difficult to get out). Bizzarely, they sometimes
find themselves roundly abused by passers-by, who occasionally call out the
emergency services thinking they are witnessing attempted suicide. Remedios
recalls a conversation with an incredulous man who spotted him from the
pier. "What on earth are you doing?" he asked. Remedios said something about
swimming. "Why?" asked the man. Remedios turned on his back and gazed up at
him. "Well, have you tried walking in this stuff?"

Cooke also recalls his morning session being disturbed by a shouted "what
the hell do you think you're doing?" from a policeman carrying a machine gun
riding in the bows of a high-speed inflatable. It was the week of the party
conferences, he explains. "I felt like replying that I was planning to swim
along the shore, stride up the beach and into the conference centre,
dripping wet, pull dynamite out of my trunks and blow it all up.
Ridiculous."

All this early morning activity down at the beach is the latest
manifestation in a long tradition. The Buccaneers are the sea-bathing branch
of the Brighton Swimming Club, which started back in 1860, and is reckoned
to be the second oldest in the country. Local tradesmen started to gather
on Albion Beach back in 1858 to swim in the early hours before heading for
work. Membership grew so fast that two railway carriages had to be imported
as changing rooms, and a steward was employed to roll out coconut matting to
protect the swimmers' feet from the shingle. By 1872 it had found a more
permanent home in one of the arches under the prom.

The current changing room could easily belong to a previous century. Clammy
and austere - although it does have hot showers - its near vicinity is used
as a toilet by rough sleepers. There's not much visible connection between
this and the fashionable world of 'thalassotherapy' promoted by the health
spas, but fundamentally both are based on the same ancient principles. But
while one costs an arm and a leg, the other is effectively free (once you've
paid your Arch membership fee of £75).

Mind you, after you've been bounced around in the waves, rolled around in
the surf, and scrunched your way up the shingle in a biting wind, the
sanctuary of Arch 250E seems like heaven - for this first-timer, at least.
For a few short minutes there's the camaraderie of people who know each
other well, interrupted by the return of Old Father Sawyer, with his catch
of half a dozen mackerel.

Sometimes, at weekends, the group goes off for breakfast together, but this
is a Tuesday, and everyone disperses to begin their workaday lives. For me,
disgorged back into Brighton's Lanes, I feel as if I've lived half my day
already, but I'm more than ready for the rest of it.