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Hi Anne: I tried twice to reply to your PMessage sent today and I am not sure if anything "went through". I will reply here.
Hi Anne: Yes no problem with the Woodcock Street bath post being on your site. I actually used two swimming baths in Birmingham very frequently when I was growing up. I lived close to Witton Lakes Park growing up off Marsh Hill, Erdington, a lovely area with the Brookvale Park close by as well. That one, as you know, contained the openair lido which was popular in the l930's.
I learned to swim at Kingstanding Baths. This would have been in the late l940's. This was a very up to date centre in it's day. I don't believe it is a swimming baths now. Back then though it had a huge swimming poool with two levels of diving boards. One of them was very high, not sure of the actual metre measurements. They also had a small children's pool away from the main pool and that was where I learned to swim no lessons at that point just a wonderful moment when suddenly I was swimming. Remember that so well. I'm not sure if there were many pools in Brum that had a small pool as well as a large one. I am sure you have seen the Wikipedia site on Birmingham Baths at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Baths_Committee There is a little information on Erdington Baths.
Erdington Baths in Mason Road was where I also spent a lot of time in the early years and when I attended Fentham Girls School in the l950's for lessons. They held what they called "Sessions" and you had to queue
up when it was very hot as a lot of kids wanted to swim. I think the
sessions lasted an hour. We always used to go to the Snack Bar for
either hot Oxo in a mug or a mug of Hot Cocoa for a couple of pennies. It
was always welcome since the water wasn't that warm and we weren't very big and felt the cold. These days Erdington Baths still has some Victorian Turkish Bath facilities
https://www.victorianturkishbath.org/0NOWOPEN/NowOpenSF.htm
We were always curious about the Turkish Baths. My Mother used to go
from time time and that would have been in the l950's and even later
as she used to go with the Town's Women Guild of which she was a member
in Erdington for several years.
I also have super memories of the Lido at Cliftonville where we had two family holidays. Just seeing a huge open air pool like that after the closed in ones was amazing. My parents used to sit and watch my brothers and I
(me trying to swim at that stage and putting my one leg on the bottom
and shouting for them to watch me "swimming". Lovely memories.
With most of the Lidos in Britain now history all is not lost. We have a lido type pool here in Vancouver. It is quite large and is fed by treated sea water one of the few in the world. There is also another one in Stanley Park but it is more an outdoor pool(smaller).
https://images.google.ca/images?q=K...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi