In the changing room later, I experience a different kind of warmth: the nakedness of a dozen women, all unashamed. These aren’t the posing bodies you find on the beach, dieted beyond all joy to be bikini-ready, and tanned as an act of disguise. These are northern bodies, slack-bottomed and dimpling, with unruly pubic hair and the scars of hysterectomies, chattering companionably in a language I don’t understand. They are a glimpse of life yet to come: a message of survival, passed on through the generations.
