Swimming pools & swimmers

I learned to swim at Gosford Park Baths (outdoor). It was always cold and swimming was the one sport I hated. Then when I started work, I worked at a company right next door to then closed baths, although the structure was still in place. The company was called Verichrome Plating.

The boards in Courtaulds cooling towers had no arsenic in them. Carpenters occasionally had to replace rotting boards, the boards were treated with wood preservative only. Some of the cooled water went into the canal and this water had to be checked for purity. Wintertime when the canal was frozen over fish would congregate around the discharge pipe. Les

I learnt to swim at Livingstone Road, in about 1952-3. My teacher was Mr Moffat - he was wonderful. He also taught life saving on Saturday mornings. We had a group called The Moffat Tiddlers with a badge. I was soo proud of that badge. We went on outings. One that I remember was a Christmas Skating show in London. It was wonderful, but we had to travel home by train (steam train in those days), due to really thick fog. My mum made us travel in the guards van at the back of the train, in case it crashed into another train.

As a small child, I remember the small pool at Cov Baths, but it was more a paddle than anything else. So, really, it was Livingstone baths for me as well. We had to prove ourselves in the small pool first (deep in the middle at 4'6"), and if you could do a length of that, you were promoted to the large pool. You also got a star to sew onto your costume. I also recall getting veruccas at this pool a lot! Luckily, I could swim well, and when I went to Caludon, they had their own 25m pool. You had the chance to do your swimming proficiency badges, and if I remember rightly........ Bronze: 25 lengths followed by making an improvised buoyancy aid with pyjamas! Silver: 50 lengths followed by retrieving rubber bricks from the deep end (6'6") and the pyjama test again Gold : 50 lengths in under 30 minutes and demonstration on rescuing a distressed swimmer. I got Bronze and Silver, but when you get to 15, swimming classes were the last thing on your mind!

Here's the Silver badge. You wore this with pride on your blazer lapel.......until punk and New Wave badges were essential fashion accessories on school uniform!

And this was the first in the set of three badges. At my time at Caludon, I don't ever recall seeing more than 2 pupils with all 3 badges

I found a link and a great old photograph relating to the 'Turkish Baths' in Priory Street. Priory Street, 1920

Good find Foxcote The picture is actually of the east side of Priory Street rather than the west as stated in the text.

Reference "married ladies swimming" pictures. Is it possible that the pool they are diving into is what was the Priory Street baths? I saw an old photo of the derelict building and it looked to be a similar layout? I should add that until I saw that photo I didn't even know Priory Baths had ever existed.

I learnt to swim at Livingstone baths in the early 50's. We went from Stoke Secondary Modern School in Briton Rd which is no longer there. I remember after the swimming having a hot Bovril in the cafe inside the baths.

Yes, being made to swim in the Woodlands school pool - NOT my most enjoyable pastime!!

With you on that one Ron - flippin' freezing it was. Still, it was preferable to trailing around two laps of the school grounds, with Dave Moorcroft and Paul Eales both lapping you!

Now all this is not a brag!! I was taught to swim by Mrs Chetwynd of the Godiva Ladies, the reason being that my mother who was an instructor for the Coventry Swimming and Life Saving club (CSLC) thought that it was inappropriate to teach her son, she must have taught quite a lot of people in the time she did this. I went on to join Mr Chapman in his team and took part in any Galas at Priory Baths. I well remember the small pool off to one side where after a swim he allowed us to cavort, for a limited time only of course. Then after the swim, over the road to the cafe next to the Midland Red office for a Bovril with a sprinkling of pepper. Anybody else remember it all? Back in those days before the war you could receive from Coventry City Council a free pass to their baths. So Livingstone Rd figured highly on the agenda, mainly because it was new and secondly my mother never taught there so I was "safe" from her repeated shouts "work those legs" etc. Does anybody remember Aggie Smith, I wonder, or do you want to forget being hauled into the side on a rope!!!

Yes Dutchman, the bath was covered over with a planked staging and boxing bouts were held there. It must have been well put together because I never heard of this staging giving way with the weight of people there must have been on it