Down the docks
Getting hot and cold in South Bermondsey
Blowing Hot and Cold is a slow memoir, told through weekly posts, about saunas, cold water, and how these things come together to boost my own mental health. It’s meant to be a year-long journey, but we’ll get up to Christmas and see what happens after that.
From midsummer nights in Finland to horsebox saunas on English beaches, from community gardens to embassy basements, each piece explores what happens when heat and cold strip life back to its essentials.
This is part eleven, about time spent at the excellent South Bermondsey sauna in South London
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Much like finding succour in Canada Water, I had low expectations of what I was getting myself into when I alighted at South Bermondsey station. Four minutes from London Bridge, it may as well have been the moon compared with the steel and glass gentrification I’d just come from. St Paul’s was just visible between two tower blocks. One one side of the tracks loomed a waste incinerator plant, dust carts chugging up its man made slopes to deliver their payload. On the other stood The Den, home of Millwall FC. I followed a footpath along the railway line, the sound of great tits slicing through the chill air, the red and black tail of a fox just visible in the tangle of undergrowth and litter. In front of me, a group of three women peered into their phones and looked in both directions. Their tote bags stuffed with towels and flip flops were a giveaway as to their destination.
“Sauna?” I asked. “I think it’s this way.”
We wandered around the football ground, where The Dockers Stand gave a nod to what this club and this area were once famous for, crossed a main road and emerged into a 1960s council estate with a community garden, set next to vast industrial units. A new tower was going up, the clang of hammer on steel echoing along the street. And outside a gate covered in black netting, with no clue as to what was hidden behind, stood a group of 11 people. It was 2pm on a Monday and there were a dozen of us here. From first impressions, we were a motley bunch - middle aged people like me taking the day off. Students milling about. A mix of races. Some, it seemed, from the area itself. Others not.
Sometimes in these situations I find myself trying too hard to make friends
This was South Bermondsey sauna, where Alfie worked. Alfie was in Latvia doing his sauna master training. I had been hoping to see him, but the companionable sound of strangers provided plenty of comfort as I made my way into a strange kind of paradise. Squeezed into the site were three saunas, one an enormous, double sided triple tier affair, a series of ice baths and plunges and neatly arrayed single changing spaces, all expertly handcrafted. A living wall crept up the side of the warehouse next door. Look around and there was no sense of being in one of London’s most urban areas, let alone the city itself.
Sometimes in these situations I find myself trying too hard to make friends, being too chatty, perhaps interjecting into conversations when I am not welcome. At least that was the narrative I had in my head as I changed and ducked into the cold shower to wash off. After speaking with Katja and Carita I had travelled up with the idea that I would be able to share all, when really all I needed to do was take the pressure off. I reminded myself of this as I settled onto the top bench of the biggest sauna and felt the dry heat scold my skin.
I closed my eyes against the absolutely searing heat, as close to Lonna as I had come here in the UK, letting conversations flow around me. This was the kind of simple companionship I liked whenever I worked in cafes, albeit in temperatures that felt perilously close to boiling point. In fact, it soon got so much that I staggered out and slid into the 4ºC ice bath, where I lingered for as long as my body could stand it. Before long, I had picked a corner of the designated ‘quiet sauna’ and sat staring at my toes, my feet sore from the plastic matting on the concrete floor outside.
The quiet was soon broken by the same group of women I had met on the walk from the station. In whispers at first, they talked about how to handle the pain of the cold plunge, and moved to chat about a recent holiday to Tromso, when one of the group had tried the city’s floating saunas and braved the ocean too. Soon, the noise cranked up and I found myself discussing Scandinavian sauna culture with this group, as well as a young couple sitting next to me. The quiet had been broken and we were exchanging tips on the best places for a spot of hot and cold therapy - I offered up Bella’s paradise in Stanmer Park and spoke of Carita’s ‘sauna house’ from where she had called me earlier in the month. They, in turn, talked effusively of baths along the Norwegian coast.
As the heat rose we each took it in turns to plunge, timing each others’ efforts for comic effect. Back in the sauna, I ladled on some more water and watched the loyly rise and rinse away the chill that had grasped my legs and arms. The chat ebbed and flowed, much of it inane, much of it about how this place was perhaps the most unexpected and brilliant getaway in all of London.
The hour was coming to a close. But as I took one last dip and spent a final few minutes warming through, I took time to reflect on how this conversation had evolved, just as easily as it would have done in a pub, but without the lubricant of alcohol and the inevitable descent that that can bring. I could only speak for myself, but I felt lifted up by chatting with strangers about something I loved and never knowing their names. The anonymity of it appealed greatly.
As I left, one woman from the quiet sauna, easily half my age, thanked me for the ‘dope’ recommendations. It took me a moment to understand this was a complement and I felt every one of my four plus decades. But what joy to be welcomed and spoken with in such a kind way.
Back in the estate, life went on. A street cleaner chatted with a woman leaning from her car window. The community garden displayed plans for upcoming workshops. Kids rode around on bikes. At that point it seemed totally obvious why you would embed a community sauna here rather than in an affluent corner of Zone 3. The impact was greater, as was the need. Bermondsey seemed to me to be offering sauna in the sense that Katja and Carita saw it. A place for everyone, no matter who they were, to come together and feel better.
This is a slow memoir, told week by week, about sauna, cold water, and the messy business of mental health.
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We've got one in Suffolk on a private bit of river - you can jump straight in. There are swans and kingfishers and last time my friends were there THEY SAW AN OTTER.
Absolutely loved this post! And yes - saunas in areas that need it, with people who will enjoy it! Posh people can stick to their soulless expensive gyms ;)