I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed this book. I am not a swimmer; never have been. But Libby Page made me understand the lure and appeal of the pool. So much so that I am considering taking the plunge (when the weather warms!).

But enough about me! Basically The Lido is about the fight to save the local lido (outdoor swimming pool) from closure. This fight draws 86 year old Rosemary and 20 something Kate into an unlikely alliance, that develops into an unexpected friendship.

As the date of the threatened closure draws nearer, we learn in flashback about both the women’s lives. Rosemary has swum at the Brixton pool since she was a toddler. We learn about her husband George and how they first met at the age of sixteen. We learn about their life together: the joy of setting up their first home where ’they took great pleasure in mixing up their books: his Dickens cheek to cheek with her Bronte’, and their shared sadness, a ‘sadness that sat in the corners of the rooms and was dislodged every now and then with a surge of emotion billowing like dust’.

Kate’s low self-esteem and panic attacks have had a crippling effect on her life. Her ‘Panic’ is personified, ‘as she swims she is aware of it there watching, but she feels safe. You can’t get me here, she thinks". When she does have a panic attack while shopping, she slumps to the floor: ‘This is what it looks like to see a person crumple. You think that bones and skin are suitable scaffolding for a person, but when a person is crumpling you realise that we are not built of strong enough stuff. Being human can be like being a cobweb in a storm’.

Watching how their growing friendship helps these woman flourish is a total joy. You cannot help but cheer them on as they draw members of the local community into fighting for their beloved lido: you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

Page may be a young writer, but she has nailed how ageing, and its associated changes, feels. Rosemary ‘wishes that there were some kind of recognition for all [this] information she has amassed in her life. If she emptied her mind of all the stored numbers and names and streets then perhaps she could learn something useful, like a new language or how to knit.’ On another occasion she looks at her swimming costumes and is surprised by the size on the label. She was always slim. She feels like a slim young woman wearing a fat old lady’s clothes’.

Page has just released a sequel: The Lifeline which I can’t wait to read.

The Lido is a total joy: uplifting, charming and full of compassion. Highly recommended.