SIR, A few weeks before the Easter holidays, we heard that Mr and Mrs Huddleston were offering scuba diving lessons during Peebles High School’s Health Week. We collected all the forms and filled them in.

We attended two lunch time training sessions at the school, where we practised putting all the equipment together and found out how it worked. We also learnt hand signals for communication under water.

We were getting really excited about getting to swim and breathe underwater but then we heard that the Peebles Swimming Pool was closed and that we might not get to go diving.

We are so grateful that the staff of Peebles Hydro Hotel stepped in at the last minute and saved the day. We were allowed to use a section of the Hydro pool and at 8.30am on Thursday, May 21 the first group of eight of us arrived at the Hydro. The Hydro is such an amazing building, everything is so big and so bright and clean. Mr and Mrs Huddleston and Fiona Murray had everything set up for us. The staff at the hotel were so friendly and helpful.

We started snorkelling around the pool, to show we could use the fins to turn, and not swim with our hands. Then we put on the scuba gear in the shallows and tried bending our legs to get our first experience of breathing under water. Then we were taught how to recover our regulators, if it came out of our mouth, and how to adjust our buoyancy so that we could float half way between the bottom of the pool and the top. Four more groups came over the course of the day.

It was fantastic having the weightless feeling and being able to swim anywhere. We really loved every second of it and would love to try this activity again in the future.

We would not have been able to have the chance to do this if it wasn’t for Peebles Hydro Hotel, so please pass on a huge vote of thanks to all of them and especially to Ross, the pool attendant, for making us feel so welcome.

Our thanks go also to the members and guests at Peebles Hydro, who tolerated our intrusion into their day. We enjoyed talking with them about what we were doing and why Peebles High School offers us these opportunities during Health Week.

We are, etc.

Tobias Benton-Evans Andrew Graham Caelen Maciver Peebles High School