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Writer's pictureanonymous woman

Took my girls, then aged 8 and 10, swimming in Hereford Pool; the changing rooms had been changed to unisex. While looking for a cubicle big enough for all three of us to change in I accidentally made eye contact with an old (white haired) man. I found the way he looked at us creepy and hurried the children into a cubicle. The changing cubicles had gaps (top and bottom) so I was anxious about camera phone voyeurism whilst we got changed. There is a poolside spectator area where the children asked their dad to sit so he could see how much their swimming had improved. At one point I waved to my husband to make sure he was watching. I found myself making eye contact with the same man who had unnerved me in the changing room - he was standing next to my husband staring at us. Maybe he was only looking at us because I had attracted his attention by waving? When we left the pool we went use the unisex communal shower. We kept our swimming costumes on, like everyone else. The same old man appeared again at the edge of the shower. I felt like he was staring at us. He didn't talk to any of the other people using the shower. He wasn't holding anything (towels, shampoo, etc) so I don't think he was there to assist anyone showering. His presence felt voyeuristic. I felt stripped of privacy and dignity, and worried about voyeurism, whilst using the unisex changing facilities, to the extent that we haven't swum at Hereford Pool since. We swim at Tenbury Wells Pool instead now, where there are 4 changing rooms: male, female, disabled (wheelchair accessible) and family (unisex).


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