By Raffique Shah
July 25, 2026
I am a man who has always identified as what we in the armed forces would describe as Land-Forces. This is not because I was a soldier, but more so because of my deep respect for the sea and all water courses.
As a child growing up I lost cousins and close friends to the seas. So, when my children were younger, we would frequent Maracas and Mayaro and the standing rules were: no bathing in water above knee-height, and no bathing without adult supervision. I could not swim until age 18 when I entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Swimming was a required skill for entry into the Academy, and if you didn’t pass the basic tests, you simply did not graduate. I was a most willing student of bold Major Baggerly who took me and a few others under his wings and every Saturday ritually, after the 10 a.m. parade, we would head for the Academy’s swimming pool where we spent about two hours learning to swim. This was a challenge not only for me and the Major, but for all boys who couldn’t swim because those who could made fun of us. From then on, I never feared the water, but I held a healthy respect for it.
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