By Paul Chapman.
For those of you that have read my destination swim reports, you may recall me mentioning on occasions the old Whittlesey lido where I learned to swim when I was five years old. Sadly, it is no longer there, it was replaced around the late 80’s, early 90’s with what is now the Manor leisure centre’s 25m indoor pool.
For many years I unsuccessfully tried to get a photo of it. However a friend discovered some a year or so back on a social media website and I was lucky enough to get copies, which I would date at a guess to be from the mid 70’s.
In one of the photos, you can see the three tier diving platform down the deep end of the pool (which we used to call the eleven foot six). To the left of the platform (not visible) was an old wooden springboard. I can recall diving off all of them on countless occasions during my later primary school years, but they were removed shortly after.
To the right of the platform was the boiler room, we used to shelter in there during thunderstorms and I can clearly recall the old wooden benches that were all around the pool. It wasn’t unusual to see one or more floating about in there on busy summer days and I must confess, it was easy to climb over the concrete wall for a freebie.
The other photo is down the shallow end. I remember the old vending machine and the building to the right of it was where you stored your clothes in the metal baskets. These were later upgraded to orange plastic ones. My late secondary school PE teacher is one of the people standing poolside (far right on the shallow end photo). He was a no-nonsense Scotsman who was respected amongst his peers and by his pupils. You didn’t misbehave in his lessons.
The third photo is an unheated, saltwater lido in the south bay of Scarborough. I remember swimming there on holiday with a friend when I was about twelve years old. Sadly, it is now demolished but there are videos of it on YouTube in its heyday.
I remember climbing to the top of the 10m board with my friend and we were just about to jump off into the cloudy seawater when my dad shouted to come back down. The life guards weren’t a bit phased, most big lidos had one, as did Hampstead ponds and Plymouth Hoe. They are all gone now and you would not get within a million miles of the top of one without specialized supervision at the few indoor aquatic centres that have them in the UK.
Things seemed much better in those days. It felt much more laid-back. Times have certainly changed and I feel a lot of the enjoyment my generation used to experience is consigned to the history books along with these two superb facilities and many others like them.
Thankfully though, like the Peterborough lido, a lot of others survived and the fifty-six I have visited to date all have one thing in common, big, or small, they are all cherished and protected by their regulars and their wider communities.
While it is impossible for the ones in the photos and dozens like them, it is always great to see a surviving derelict lido being saved and restored for us and for future generations to enjoy. Let us hope the lido revival continues.
