SWIMTERVIEW

After taking up adult swimming lessons Michael Chapman and Toks Ahmed were inspired to start a swimming business. Ella Foote finds out more…

Soul Cap partner Team GB Olympic hopeful Alice Dearing

In 2017, after taking up adult swimming lessons at the London Aquatics Centre, Michael Chapman and Toks Ahmed were inspired to start a swimming cap business for people with thick, curly, and voluminous hair. Three years later their business, Soul Cap, has shipped more than 30,000 swimming hats to customers all over the world and continues to grow.

“When it came to swimming in my family, it was something we just didn’t do,” says Michael. “My mum never learned to swim, growing up in Jamaica she had this one experience of swimming where they throw you in the sea and you just swim, except she didn’t and so it put her off swimming entirely. When I heard this story, it gave me nightmares. Her experience of swimming filtered into my experience and despite having some lessons I found it difficult, so it just reinforced what my mum had said and decided swimming wasn’t for me.” Like Michael, Toks also had some swimming lessons, but wasn’t that good. His mother also didn’t swim so it wasn’t encouraged. “Both my sisters could swim, they did swimming lessons as well, I think they just picked it up better than I did,” says Toks. “I also remember how people would say to me that Black people couldn’t swim, they are too dense and are better suited for running and jumping sports. Because I didn’t take to it naturally, because of what people said, I just dismissed it and didn’t really try.”