When I saw signs saying "Public Footpath", "Public Swimming Pool" I thought that "Public" was the name of a private club that you had to join to use these facilities. I remember asking my parents if we were members.

Barrel O'Lard

I took my seven year old brother swimming - and thought I was being very funny by asking him if he knew what the 'no petting' sign meant. Quite cooly he said "yes, it means no shagging" Although he couldn't understand why I then started choking!

Bad Baby Sitter

when i was 6 or 7, my sister's and i were swimming at our great aunt's house. (she's the same age as my mom, so we went to her house quite often and i trusted everything she ever said) well, she told us one day to be aware of the "trail" that you get when you're older. the "trail" was when you were on your period and you weren't wearing a pad. so at the young age of 12, when i first got my period, i told my mom that i didn't want to go swimming one afternoon b/c i was afraid of the "trail". i had to explain to my rather confused mother what that was and who i had learned it from, and she gave both my aunt and me a really hard time about it!

I never left a trail...

I believed that the Kreepy Crawlie used to clean our pool, would follow me around the pool and eat me.

Mother-of-2

Our family used to watch Dr Who every Saturday and the episode about the Green Death (the one which looked like slime and would crawl over you and make you glow in the dark and then kill you) affected me for many years.

It took me years (not kidding) before I could swim over a grate on the bottom of the swimming pool without having a panic attack bc that was where the green death came from.

Ironically, I became a collegiate swimmer so I guess I got over my grate phobia at some point.

Liz

My dad told me that if I went into the pool just after eating that I would get Polio. We knew a old man that had Polio and he lost his legs ... needless to say I still wait 30 minutes after eating to go into the water.

Brian

i used to believe that sharks could somehow get into our swimming pool as babies through the 'pipes'. i believed that they could somehow lurk undetected in our pull until fully grown, when they would surge out of the shadows and attack me. (this was a result of seeing jaws as a very young kid).

erik

I used to think that a pool room was this big room full of swimming pools but I never could figure out why all the people were swimming in the dark.

Anon

My son came home from school and announced that I must go out and buy him some verrucas from the chemist in order for him to go swimming with the school. He insisted the whole class were getting them. I explained to him about the little plastic socks people sometimes needed to wear to the pool..............

Lisa

When I used to go to our local swimming pool I always looked at the poster by a man called Will Patrons with some good drawings of people at the pool. It was in fact asking people not to do a number of things while there. Will patrons kindly refrain from running etc!

Lisa

When I was very young, maybe 4, my parents were discussing sending my sister and me to swimming lessons while we were driving home from Grandma's house one day. At that moment, I looked out the window and saw the tennis court at a local park. I immediately assumed the tennis court was a swimming pool. For years I wondered how they kept the water in, with only chain link fencing.

Still a poor swimmer

iused to believe that when i farted in a pool it would suck up water and cum out my ears!wat a muppet

fat man don don don don fatman

An older cousin told me that if you peed in the pool, the pee would solidify, drag you down and drown you. From that day on, I just kacked in the pool instead...

Anon