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

Remembering Cornish Beaches

After uploading a post about some of my first experiences of swimming in the sea, I began to think about some of the beaches in Cornwall, England, that I enjoyed in my teens and early-twenties. I managed to find some photos online that I was able to use under the Creative Commons licence. Here are a few of my favourite Cornish beaches.

Fistral Beach, Newquay

Copyright: Darrenlambert. Licensed for reuse under Creative Commons licence.

When I was nineteen, I was working six days a week at a cafe in Newquay during the summer. In the afternoon, after work, friends and I used to go swimming at the town beaches, but on my day off I'd often walk over to Fistral Beach. It's the first beach where I saw people surfing.

In the background you can see Towan Head where I sometimes walked and watched the waves crashing against the rocks below. I was amazed to see that there was a swimming pool filled by seawater - I'd never seen anything like this before. It was privately owned, so I couldn't try it out. Ten years later I moved to Sydney and found public sea pools everywhere. Now, thirty - five years after first seeing this pool, I'm still swimming in similar pools every weekend.

Towan Head sea pool

Originally posted on Twitpic by mmechevrolet.

Crantock Beach
Copyright: Danny Robinson. Licensed for reuse under Creative Commons licence.

While we were working in Newquay, we camped on the banks of the River Gannel. At low tide you could walk across a little footbridge over the river to Crantock. At high tide a man in a rowboat would ferry you across. We'd often go across to Crantock Beach for a swim. Some afternoons after work, we'd swim in the Gannel if the tide was in.

River Gannel at low tide
Copyright: Tony Atkin. Licensed for reuse under Creative Commons licence.

Marazion Beach
Copyright: Ian Britton. Licensed for reuse under Creative Commons licence.

I lived and worked in St Ives for seven summer seasons. Here too I had to work six days a week. Sometimes, on my day off, I'd travel by bus and foot over to Marazion. I loved swimming here. Somehow it always seemed warmer than the chilly Carbis Bay water. I also liked going over to St Michaels Mount to laze around and sunbathe (long before I heard about skin cancer).

Torre Abbey Sands, Torquay, Devon

Copyright: Paul Anderson. Licensed for reuse under Creative Commons licence.

Not actually in Cornwall, of course, but the first beach I swam at while slowly hitchhiking down to St Ives when I was sixteen. Friends and I used to sleep in Abbey Park behind the beach. We'd sometimes swim from the beach, but often we'd go skinny-dipping from the rocks off Corbyn Head.

Lelant Beach (Porthkidney Sands)

Copyright: Ross Burton. Licensed for reuse under Creative Commons licence.

A short walk along the cliff path from Carbis Bay. At high tide you had to swim from the end of the cliff path over to the dunes.

Perranporth Beach
Copyright: Tony Atkin. Licensed for reuse under Creative Commons licence.

After I left Newquay, I spent a bit of time hanging around Perranporth and St Agnes. More good memories involving beaches and swimming.

Sennen Cove

I only came here once, but I loved it. It was a really hot, sunny, cloudless day in that remarkable (for England) summer of 1976.

Winter Swimming in the UK

I went swimming at Wylie's Baths today. The seawater temperature was 16.5 degrees celsius, and the air temperature was around 12 degrees. Hearty stuff, I thought, until I remembered going for a winter walk around Hyde Park's Serpentine when I was in London in January. The weather was bitterly cold - sections of the lake were frozen. As we walked past the Serpentine Lido, I thought about how cold winter swimming in the UK would be.

Yes, apparently, they really do break the ice to go for a swim.

And it's a very cold shower afterwards.

Have a look at some of the photos of the Sepentine Swimming Club. They have an annual Christmas Day Race when the water temperature is below 4 degrees celsius.

Website: http://www.serpentineswimmingclub.com/

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/ )

London Fields Lido In January

While I was on holiday in England, I went to London Fields Lido a couple of times. It's open air but is heated all year round. The week I spent in London in mid-January was bitterly cold, but I was determined to have a swim here. I'd forgotten to bring a swimcap with me, and they had run out of them at the kiosk, so I was a bit worried about getting cold ears. The water was really warm though and I never once felt cold in the water. The dash from the pool to the changing sheds was a different story.

I did several lengths of breaststroke, but also spent ages swimming on my back looking up at the grey, drizzly winter skies and the bare trees. I absolutely loved this pool.

There are still several lidos (open air pools) in the London area. Only two (I think: here and Hampton) are heated during the winter. I'm keen to return in summer one year, and, as a friend suggested, swim my way across London via the lidos and swimming ponds. I'd really like to swim in the ponds on Hampstead Heath again. It's been 25 years since I last had a swim there.

There is an excellent website all about lidos in London and other lidos, pools and sea baths in the UK. It's hosted by Oliver Merrington, and there is a link at the top right of this page.