A letter from a reader

At 67, I had not been in the sea in eleven years

I have never written anything like this before, and I want to say at the start that I am not a writer and I am not in the habit of telling other women what to wear, least of all what to swim in.

But three different women asked me about my costume at the lido on Sunday, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

Here is the confession. For eleven years I did not go in the sea. Or the pool, or the lido, or the lake at Tatton on the hot bank holiday. I sat on the towel and minded the bags and the sandwiches while my grandchildren swam, and I told everybody I preferred it that way. I did not prefer it that way.

Swimwear came in two sorts. The kind that shows the world everything, and the kind you wrap a sarong round and fight all the way to the water.

So I chose a third option, which was not going in. Nobody decides that. It happens one summer at a time, and then it has been eleven of them.

Then my sister walked into the sea in one

We were at Formby in June, the whole family, and my sister Jean stood up off her towel in a black costume with a little flared skirt over it, walked down the sand like a woman in a sundress, and went in. No sarong. No tugging. No towel clutched round her middle. She just went in, and she came out, and she sat back down, and at no point did she look like she was hiding.

It is called the Emille, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I looked it up that night in the caravan and ordered it before I could talk myself out of it, fully expecting to send it back.

I did not send it back.

What happened at the lido

I wore it to the lido on Sunday and walked from the changing rooms to the water with nothing wrapped round me, for the first time in a decade.

Three different women asked me where it was from before I had even got in. And my friend Sue, who has watched me mind the bags for years, said I looked like a woman on holiday rather than a woman on guard duty.

Then I got in. The skirt floats a little and then settles, it stays put, the straps do not budge, and when I came out I did not do the thing where you reach for the towel before you have both feet on dry land. I walked to my chair like a person.

Three things I have learned since

One. The cover-up is built in. The little skirt is part of the costume, so there is no sarong to fight and no towel to clutch. It covers the tops of the legs, it moves like a dress on the way to the water, and it behaves like a costume in it.

Two. Nothing digs and nothing slips. Wide, flat straps that stay where they are put, and a shaped bodice with a little drawstring at the front, so you feel held together rather than poured in. I did not adjust a single thing all afternoon.

Three. It comes in seven colours and honest sizes. Black, a royal blue, turquoise, pink, red, yellow and purple, from an 8/10 to an 18/20. I went black. My sister has the blue and is threatening the yellow.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me suspicious.

The Emille is £34.95. It was £70.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because a costume with a skirt built in usually costs what a costume and a cover-up cost together.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and they run a summer sale to move the season’s stock.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. One woman had written, “First costume in years I have not felt I had to hide in. Went in the sea with my grandson and forgot I was wearing it.” That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sitting on the towels with a flask of tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have been the one minding the bags, it is not because you do not like swimming. It is because nobody sold you a costume you could walk to the water in. This is that costume, and it costs less than the sarong and the cover-up you have been fighting.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the middle sizes go first. And once the summer stock is gone it is gone until next year.

I went in the sea. Twice. My grandchildren have not stopped talking about it.

Maggie