Swimming and Poetry Weekend Round-up

Photo courtesy of Terry Wha

Today in the Review section of the Guardian, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has commissioned another poetry special (like the ones about war and ageing) on the subject of sport. Her contribution to the article is her poem 'The Shirt', mentioned here yesterday. 

We don't normally get the Independent newspaper, but as my dad is here for the weekend and it's his regular Saturday read, we bought it too. Serendipitously, it has a feature - 'The 50 best swimming pools', which highlights an interesting selection.

Obviously it doesn't include Tynemouth pool, since it's now derelict, but the photos above show how fantastic it was in its heyday. The colour one was taken only 40 years ago. With the upsurge of interest in outdoor swimming, I'm sure there'd be lots of people who'd use it, in the unlikely event of it ever being dug out of retirement.

End of the Odyssey

So after a cappuccino and a delicious Italian chocolate ice cream next to the Moot Hall in Aldeburgh - doesn't it look like it's made of gingerbread? - we hitched up the wagon and hit the road again. 

We dropped in on a good friend who's turned into a farmer over the past five years. After a tour of his large small-holding, he wowed us with his talent (brought out through hard graft under the wise gaze of his farming neighbour) as he and his trusty sheepdog, Stan, rounded up his sheep in true 'One Man and his Dog' style. Farmer Giles (no, really!) we salute you!!

Then, on to Cambridge, for a swim at Jesus Green. Yes, we made it!!

The soaring temperatures had pulled the crowds in, but by the time we arrived at 6.30, for the final hour before closing, the throng was thinning out - just how I like it! First thing in the morning, last in the evening - definitely my favourite swimming times for a bit of calm and space to think.

Female changing rooms to the left, male to the right - small, dark brown wood-panelled individual cubicles. There aren't any lockers - it's the old-skool system: stow all your belongings in a supermarket-style basket and exchange at the counter for a numbered rubber band. Love it!

The water isn't artificially heated - at the end of this hot day, it was a refreshing but very comfortable 21C. The pool is 100 yards long, so ten lengths was the goal, and the yards flew by. Swimming outdoors, I enjoy seeing the leaves and petals swirling on the bottom, and the occasional stray crisp bag for a bit of atmosphere. The pool's chlorinated, but not heavily, (best not to think about the number of kids who've been in all day.....) so the water felt light and silky. The can't-get-enough scent from the mock orange bushes in the borders perfumed the summery evening air. Heaven!

A couple of photos to remind us to come back

 

a picture of the lazy evening Cam, whose straight, narrow lines were the inspiration behind the design of this pool

then back on the road to Manchester

Broomhill Outdoor Pool - Southeast Odyssey Part I

On Saturday morning we set off on our journey home from our sojourn in Ipswich. But not just any old trip from A to B, it turned into a 12-hour odyssey, a magical rove around a corner of England I've never visited before. First stop, Broomhill Outdoor Swimming Pool, tucked away in a suburban bywater, just off the Ipswich ring road.

Despite a campaign which resembles the fight for Victoria Baths in Manchester, but without a happy ending as yet, this open air pool was shut down in 2002. The lido now languishes on death row while its supporters battle on to have it reopened. I've known about it for some time, so yesterday offered the ideal chance to have a look. It lived up to all my expectations, given my fascination with derelict pools.

To my mind, in the sultry midday heat, the whitewashed walls lend it the atmosphere of a Spanish bullring, like the one at Mijas near Malaga.

The powers-that-be have surrounded it with a solid metal fence and the usual warning signs. Straining to see glimpses of it through the bars is like looking  for the Sleeping Beauty's castle through the thorny hedge.

There's a well-worn path round the perimeter, so it seems many people share my fascination. The air hung heavy inside the fortifications.

It would be A CRIME if this Olympic-sized pool was allowed to be demolished! 
Apart from being a relevant facility which motivates people to keep fit and active, it's also a historical treasure. The people who are campaigning to get Broomhill up and running again are well-organised and persistent but they appreciate support - both financial and moral - from everyone who's willing to join them in their efforts to save this threatened gem.

Break Away

We're up in the North East for a little Easter break, and here's the Spanish City in its heyday. Still an incredible landmark, and iconic childhood location but sadly no longer like this postcard from the archives. 

No surfers in the sea at Tynemouth today - strange that - but two swimmers were out there... brrrrr. Didn't bring the wetsuits - or the swimming togs - coulda, shoulda, woulda. No, not really.

Next time we're here I'll get in the sea (probably) and I'll have my 12 megapixel cameraphone ! so I'll be able to take some complicated  seaside shots.

  

The tide was low when we walked on Tynemouth beach and this is the view into the derelict swimming pool from the other end of the water inlet that I featured on my December 31 post.

Last Post (2009)

This afternoon we came back home to Manchester, but not until we'd had our last walk for the year/decade on Tynemouth beach. The tide was rolling in, the sea wild again. Today a solitary surfer had decided to try his luck but didn't look as if his heart was in it. 

We visited a favourite haunt - Tynemouth outdoor pool. 

Built in the 1920's, it fell into disuse/was condemned and filled with sand and rocks during the 90's. When the tide is high the waves crash around it in a spectacular fashion. There are thrills and spills dodging the waves as they threaten from over the railings.

Old swimming pools fascinate me, I love the architectural features -

- but the thought of encountering this inlet while swimming underwater both thrills and terrifies me! 

I've seen Youtube footage of people having fun in the pool during its heyday. It's a shame that it's been pensioned off

as I'm sure there are outdoor swimmers aplenty in the North East who'd happily make full use of this facility and build up their resistance to the cold by swimming here!

I've enjoyed taking photos with my phone recently, but the cost of sending them to my blog has started to tot up. I'm going to get a decent camera in 2010 and improve the picture quality and keep costs down.

I want to give the final word for this year to Seamus Heaney. This poem is one of my absolute favourites. I take permission from it to ignore the impulse to reach for the camera sometimes, and  just enjoy the moment!

Happy New Year!!

Postscript
And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

Seamus Heaney
from ‘The Spirit Level’.

Nantwich Brine Pool

After not swimming at Hathersage last weekend, I checked around to see if any other outdoor pools are still open. I discovered that Nantwich Brine Pool isn't due to hibernate till 4 October, so I resolved that by hook or by crook we'd sneak a swim there before it shuts. I earmarked today for the jaunt. I've not been before, but internet reports were full of praise. Its name both intrigues and repels me. It's too visceral - I associate brine with preparing onions for pickling, and I don't like to mix up that image with swimming, but find I can't stop myself.

The journey took over an hour as the satnav led us on a mystery tour through Cheshire countryside, instead of straight down the M6. As we pulled up in the car park, I had the familiar sinking feeling I always get when I reach an unknown swimming spot. A mixture of nervous anticipation and dread, probably a leftover from school swimming lessons at Rowntrees pool in York. More of that another day. It lingered on in the changing rooms, despite the cheery gang of girls who were dressing after their swimming lesson in the adjacent indoor pool.

Autumn has arrived and there's a chill in the air. The sky was overcast so I didn't hang about on the edge. The steps down were broad and tiled, the water silky and warm. I eased myself in with breaststroke and accustomed myself to the surroundings. The dread was still there, but counting lengths helped focus my mind and convert anxiety into enjoyment. I could smell smoke from coal fires faintly and I started to relax and revel in the pure pleasure of being outdoors and swimming - in October! The emptiness of the pool let me concentrate on my stroke, in time I broke through the gasping to an easy one - two - three bilateral freestyle which felt like it could go on forever. The water was mild and the saltiness pushed me higher than usual. I stopped after 54 x 30m lengths as Troy was waiting. When I got home I found this piece in Roger Deakin's book which perfectly sums up Nantwich today:

'When swimmers talk of fast or slow water, this is the sort of thing they mean. The absence of wavelets, or other bathers, means you can breathe and move in perfect rhythm, so the music takes over. Mind and body go off somewhere together in unselfconscious bliss, and the lengths seem to swim themselves. The blood sings, the water yields; you are in a state of grace, and every breath gets deeper and more satisfying. You hunker down and bury yourself in the water as though you have lived in it all your life, as though you were born to it, and thoughts come lightly and easily as you swing up and down in the blue.'

Bliss indeed.

Another significant pool

Up with the larks this morning and swam a mile plus 4x50m at the Aquatic Centre. It took a long time for my engine to get warmed up, 20 lengths before I established a rhythm. We finished around 8.15, by which time the crowds had died down, so maybe next Saturday we'll stay in bed slightly longer and enjoy a less frenzied pool when we get there.

This weekend many lidos are calling time till next season. Hathersage had its last swimming session today, and I toyed with the idea of driving over for a final dip there this afternoon before the plug gets pulled. Hathersage is one of my significant pools. I don't remember how or when we stumbled across it. Years ago it established itself on our family calendar as the place we've frequently celebrated our middle daughter's birthday in August. It's wrapped around by the green hills of the Peak District and when the weather's good it's idyllic, a perfect place for serious and fun swims, with a holiday atmosphere like pools on French campsites.

However, I love it best when the weather is dull and miserable. There are fewer punters - occasionally only us - and the water temperature is always warm. I like to think of it as an icelandic geothermal lagoon, particularly when it's misty in the teeming rain. Once, we had to evacuate mid-frolics because of a thunderstorm, and I've even seen a photograph of swimmers there in a snowstorm!

When I phoned the pool today to check the session times, the attendant said the weather was sunny and the place was busy. So on those two counts I decided regretfully to give it a miss till next Spring.

My significant encounters with water

The interior of Tracey Emin's tent was an embroidered catalogue of everyone she'd slept with between 1963 and 1995. People who ventured into this installation described the experience of meeting her bedfellows as curiously intimate.

I've been thinking about why I'm drawn to pools and open water, what's the fascination for me, what does it date back to? I reckon my earliest experience of an outdoor pool was at Butlin's - Filey or Skegness in the early 1960's. This was probably where it all started - love at first sight when I was three. Who could fail to tumble head over heels after an encounter with a wedding cake fountain like the one in this postcard?