Great Harwood Baths in Lancashire

I've got more than a few memories of these swimming baths. It was in the pool here that I first learned to swim. I would have been 11 years old, in the summer of 1967. I taught myself a strange, uncouth variation on front crawl, so I could stay in the deep end with my (swimming) friends and not be banished to the shallows by the lifeguard. We would spend hour after hour in the water, then go upstairs to the cafe overlooking the pool to drink dandelion and burdock, or Tizer, and eat packets of Rishy crisps.

I would have liked to have a swim here for old times sake, and to see the pool again after forty years, but I didn't have the time and had to be content with a photo.

Ramsbottom Baths

I'm spending a couple of wintry weeks in England visiting family. It's been quite cold and wet, but we've only had one day of ice and snow so far. I'm hoping to do quite a bit of moorland walking while I'm here, but I've also set aside time for a swim or two.

My first swim of the English winter was at the heated London Fields Lido in the open air. My next swim was indoors at Ramsbottom Baths, near Bury in Greater Manchester. 

I've got a wee bit of history with this pool. I used to come here way back at the end of the 1970s, and used to swim length after length of very lazy breaststroke. Actually, it's a bit cheeky to describe it as breaststroke - I don't think I ever dipped my head below the water when breathing. Length after length wasn't much of a stretch either as they are only 25 metres.

Today I found it quite odd to swim such short lengths in a chlorine pool (as opposed to a small rock pool). I had done about 20 when they roped off half the pool for aqua aerobics. After that I swam 10 metre breadths to the sounds of "My Boy Lollipop" and "Is This The Way To Amarillo?"

Great Harwood Baths

The very place I learned to swim. Though I'd been to Wigan Baths before I came here (and to Accrington Baths long before that), I was a non-swimmer down in the shallow end clutching a kick-board. Great Harwood Baths opened in April 1967, and in July 1967 I spent much of the school holidays teaching myself to swim. My (swimming) friends were all down at the deep end, dunking and dive-bombing each other when the pool attendant's back was turned. Eleven year old me was left feeling sorry for himself in 3 feet of water. I had to swim. I managed to stay afloat and made slow forward progress using my own version of the dog-paddle. Struggling, spluttering and wheezing my way up to the 6 feet end, I was promptly sent back by the attendant. I had to modify this stroke to make it look more like front crawl. This was accomplished by flinging arms out of the water and making large splashes. Apparently, this was an acceptable stroke because I was allowed in the deep end with my friends.

Back at Wigan Baths, however, the school swimming class instructor was having none of my unconventional approaches to swimming, and I was put back into the non-swimmer group to learn breaststroke.

Great Harwood Baths

Photo © Copyright Mike and Kirsty Grundy and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Wigan Baths

About a year ago now, Wigan Baths closed down in preparation for the demolishing of the old pool and the building of a new swimming and leisure centre. I read about it about six months ago when I was searching for photos to post on this blog. We spent many a Saturday afternoon at the baths when we were kids, both before and after we could swim. School swimming lessons were also at the pool.

I didn't actually learn to swim at Wigan Baths (I taught myself at Great Harwood Baths - a splashing, struggling doggy-paddle, at first), but I spent a lot of time swimming here as an eleven and twelve year old. So I was a bit sad to hear they'd drained the pool and demolished the baths.

We used to throw a penny into the sixteen foot six end of the baths, then try to dive down to the bottom to get it. I can't remember any of us actually making it to the bottom. I do remember feeling the pressure as I swam down.

We all used to go up on the diving tower and steel ourselves to jump (never dive) from the second stage. The top stage was always roped off.

Wigan will be getting a new baths in a couple of years. Strange to think that these baths would've been new and modern when I first went to them.

Photos posted by Brian at http://www.wiganworld.co.uk/newgallery/gallery4.php?opt=baths

First Freshwater Swimming

Recording my first experiences with saltwater swimming got me thinking about my first experiences with freshwater swimming. These days I take it for granted that I can swim in beautiful creeks and waterholes when I'm bushwalking in the National Parks around Sydney, but opportunities were more limited when I was growing up in England. Or, at least, I thought they were until I started following the activities of the many Wild Swimming groups in the UK.

Pennington Flash, Leigh

Copyright by Margaret Clough. Licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)

When I was in my early teens and living in Lancashire, a group of us used to go swimming in Pennington Flash during the summer. Flashes are lakes formed by the flooding of areas of coal-mining subsidence. These days, Pennington Flash is a pleasant country park, but when we swam here it was still a wasteland of slag spoil heaps and dumped rubbish. I doubt that the water quality was very good. Still, we survived.

This was my introduction to freshwater swimming. I can't remember swimming in fresh water again until I was in my twenties and living in Ambleside, Cumbria.

River Rothay at Waterhead, Ambleside

Copyright Gary Turner. Licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ )

When I was living and working in a hotel in the Lake District at Ambleside, I used to swim at the mouth of the river where it flows into Lake Windermere. I'd walk down from the hotel across Borrans Field and swim in the river near the ruins of the Roman fort. Although the water was quite cold (it was Spring), the days were usually sunny and the river was clear and beautiful.

Hampstead Mixed Pond

Copyright by David Hawgood. Licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)

A couple of years later, I was living in London. It was a particularly hot summer, and the ponds on Hampstead Heath were absolutely wonderful to swim in.

First Saltwater Swimming

After looking at my photos of Coogee Beach, and thinking of all the years I've gone for a swim here and at other beaches in Sydney, I began to think about the beaches I first swam at as a child and a teenager in the UK before I came to Australia.

Monkstone Beach, Pembrokeshire, Wales

For a couple of years in the mid 1960s, I used to go on holiday to a campsite on a farm between Tenby and Saundersfoot in South Wales. There used to be a steep path down the cliffs to the beach. We spent most of our holidays on this beach, and that's where I first swam in the sea.

Carbis Bay beach, St Ives, Cornwall

When I was a teenager, I hitchhiked down to Cornwall, and, eventually, found myself in St Ives. I came back down here every summer for the next 7 years. I have swum at quite a few beaches in Cornwall and the Scillies, but my "own" Carbis Bay was my favourite. It was just a short stroll down the hill from the hotel where I worked and lived. Perfect for afternoon dips and for some wonderful midnight swims.

St Ives

Blackpool Beaches (Lancashire)

Then there's good old Blackpool. I'm not sure that I actually swam here, but, as a toddler, I certainly paddled here frequently in the summer. Definitely my first encounters with saltwater.

All photos from Wikimedia Commons

Rhyl Beaches (Wales)

I also spent quite a few summer days as a small child paddling at dear old Rhyl. I even remember having a midnight swim here as a teenager.

Photo by Bob Abell. Copyrighted but licensed under Creative Commons for reuse (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ )