Swimming pools & swimmers

Does anyone have any details who has the contract to demolish? NormK, perhaps

Hi philip in coventry ! Must have been 1965 or 66 ?

This image courtesy of Mike Godwin is apparently laying the foundation for Cov Baths. Hoping Dutchman or someone as knowledgable will pinpoint the exact spot - Cope Street in the background possibly? 1961 btw.

Not quite Neil. Cope Street is behind the cameraman. The view is towards what is now Fairfax Street with the smaller of two chimneys belonging to the old public baths in the centre and the Victor engine works far right on the other side of Pool Meadow.

Does anyone remember learning to swim at Gosford Pool ? I was at Stoke Juniors in Briton Road up to 1960. We went on the bus. I remember that sometimes it was freezing cold but we still went! Our swimming teacher was Miss Cawley. Still get the shivers thinking about it.

Wimero, hi, really shouldn't answer this, but the Stoke girls' swimming and netball mid-fifties used to go regular to Gosford, she was some girl, jet black hair, blue eyes, great figure, tanned, had all the guys hot and bothered, not a shiver anywhere. Was that your teacher?

Hiya Kaga Simpson. No she wasn't my teacher. I was in Mr Chesters class. But she certainly was a looker. I think that's why us lads used to put up with the freezing cold. She also took a school party to Dymchurch in Kent. There was another teacher as well but his/her name escapes me. Were you a pupil?

Wimero, hi, no, in the fifties I was in my twenties, spent a lot of time down the Gosford, met this teacher from Stoke school, believe it was the main school, I think she was the netball, swimming teacher, mid-twenties. great fun girl, extremely fit girl, think she would be a hard task-master to her pupils.

Went down Livingstone Road today. Nothing left but a few floor & wall tiles to show there were swimming baths there.

That was a fast demolition. VERY fast. Sad as well

Having read that the councillor concerned didn't read the report on the main pool before condemning it, it makes you wonder about Livingston Road baths closure.

At least the Livingstone Road pool has been replaced by the new pool at the AT7 centre. Coventry Sports Trust until recently organised public swimming at five sites but have quietly dropped three of these, Ernesford Grange, Foxford and Tile Hill Wood. Ernesford Grange school is being demolished and rebuilt with little prospect of a replacement pool. Swimming sessions at Tile Hill are now run by Radford Community Sports, an organisation which has neither email address or phone number. Plans to rebuild this school also do not include a new pool. In addition the pool at Coundon Court developed a major fault has is no longer in use. As I've mentioned before a Council report from 2006 indicated that there was a shortage of three pools at that date. It seems that this deficit is worsening rather than improving.

There is a pool at the Xcel Leisure Centre on Mitchell Avenue.