I can't really remember when I learnt to swim.I assume it must have happened at some point as I'm now just about able to splash and splutter my way across the pool without completely drowning.

I have vague memories of hurtling down the water slides at my local leisure centre with my dad – and less enthusiastic recollections of trying to collect a brick from the bottom of the school pool, wearing pyjamas, while the psychotic games teacher and weird kid with three nipples looked on.

But the actual moment when "I got it" is lost to the mists of time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Duncan Goodhew.

I've got a beautiful mane of hair for a start.

I'm one of those swimmers who strains to keep their head out of the water while I'm performing the breaststroke like a convulsing beetle.

All you end up with at the end of the day is a mouthful of water and a strained neck.

That's why I wanted something different for my own children.

Not for them the abject humiliation for being overtaken by a five-year-old in water wings doing widths.

At first I tried to teach my eldest Poppy to swim by myself which, to be fair, is the equivalent of Douglas Bader trying to coach 100m sprinters.

If it's not exactly the blind leading the blind, then it's akin to a cyclops trying to teach depth perception.

To begin, I did what I assume swimming teachers would do.

In between frequent dashes back to the changing room, soundtracked to urgent cries of "I want a wee", I'd get her to hold on to the side of the pool and splash her legs about furiously.

Then I'd hold her aloft in the water while she made half-hearted attempts at the doggy paddle.

Maybe it's the family genes, but Rebecca Adlington she ain't.

Maybe I should have accepted the Midgley clan is a committed bunch of land lubbers who should never venture near water.

Invariably, our swimming sessions deteriorated into splashing each other in the shallow end.

Not to be so easily beaten, we enrolled our aquaphobe five-year-old into a Saturday morning swimming class, run by people with "swimming coach" written on the back of their T-shirts and everything.

This involves me driving Poppy to the pool every Saturday – we're usually late – scrambling to get her into her swimming costume, cap and goggles and then sitting on the sidelines bored for an hour while the coach tries to convince her of the merits of being a mermaid. To be honest, I don't think he is making much more progress than I did.

Every time his back is turned I'm sure she stops paddling and reverts to plodding across the pool on foot. The only way I can convince her to get in the pool is by promising a chocolate bar from the vending machine at the end.

Still, she won't win.

By hook or by crook, my daughter will be a proficient swimmer one day.

Whether she likes it or not.