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swimming free pass

F

Frantic

Guest
Do you remember the free pass that you got for swimming two lengths? I was so proud when I got mine 'cause I was a hopeless swimmer and it took me ages to get it. Which is silly really as I eventually became a 1st class diver in the British Sub-Aqua Club (still, I suppose you don't have to swim very good to sink eh). When I got my free pass, I almost LIVED at Victoria Rd baths, I remember they had a 'NO RUNNING' sign on the wall, but at that age I must have ignored it 'cause I got a TERRIBLE case of athletes foot from Victoria Rd Baths. :lol:
 
PUNCHLINE !!........................WHAT punchline! I'll have you know my friend that this was a true story, not some whimsical jest! :eek: I scratched the bottoms of my feet for years. Maybe that's why my arms are so long now :lol:
I don't know if you ever went to Victoria Rd Baths, but thinking back on it now, I remember how many people who used to queue up for a bath or Turkish bath, but I do remember feeling quite elitist at the time in that we didn't have to queue up for a bath because we had our very own tin bath that used to get dragged into the kitchen every Friday night. (just writing that line reminded me of a TV programme called 'Bathnight with Braden').
I do remember that if I went swimming after school on a Fiday, I could see absolutely NO sense in having a bath as well. But Mother would not have a bar of it. Strange people Mothers. It's no wonder that Australians think that Poms don't wash, with stories like this. I live in a house now with two showers and three toilets and Ozzies think that everyone else does as well. So after a shower, I spray my underarms with "Eu-de-Saltley Gasworks" so as not to disallusion them. (I got it from the duty free at B'ham airport ). :wink:
 
Ding dong!

Talk about misreading a situation! 8) you ARE obviously money people!
Fancy having your own tin bath...opulence beyond my wildest dreams.
We had to wait for a heavy downpour then splash around in a puddle,
I actually thought I was a duck until I was eleven.
And Turkish baths? well I never..(literally, I never) but I did have a friend who knew a lad who had an Aunt whose second cousin once had a nibble of some Turkish delight.
And my Aussie friend Glenn does reckon Poms are a bit stinky (he should try sharing a bed with 3 brothers) he reckons we are an unclean bunch whose preferred way of smelling better is a thing called a Pommy shower...(raise your arm, get out the deoderant and phizzzz)
 
:D Hi, you two can't let you have all the fun splashing around in the water :wink: .
The first time I went to Nechells’ swimming baths, I almost drown! It was 1958 and although I was 10 years old, as I have stated before I was very small for my age and at that time I could not swim. I had previously attended Kent St, Kingstanding and Woodcock St baths with no problems. We were with the Nechells’ Community Centre group (on free passes) 8) , my Brother and Sister were there and being ‘Me’ I wanted to show them that even though I could not swim I was not scared of the water ( I could lie down full length in our tin bath at home and hold my breath under the water). Run, jump and into the water at the shallow end, ‘The Shallow End’ what shallow end :eek: :?: The water was that deep when standing it still came over the top of my head, at the other baths I had been to, the water had only came up to my neck in ‘The Sallow End’. I was never going there again, wrong :!:
When I started Boomsbury Girls at the end of 1959 I was dismayed to learn that it was at Nechells’ baths that we would be having our weekly swimming lessons, the first week I was petrified of not only having once again to get in that water, but of showing myself up in front of my classmates :oops: .
Has luck would have it I had grown an inch, or two in the mean time and the water now just came up to my chin 8) . I became quite a good swimmer in the end and have some certificates for swimming (and I'll take no funnies from you two, d'ya hear) :twisted: . :lol: :lol:
 
Young Pom..

Hey Pom! I've seen your photograph, you'd drown in a tuft of damp grass you're that little!
And...did you know they are rebuilding Nechells Swimming baths? the workmen are there now even as I type this..er..well NOT right now, its half four on a saturday afternoon..
 
:D Kandyman, yes I do know about Nechells Baths reopening 8) . Eric Hill told me :) and I sent him a piece containing some of the content of my post for the research he is doing about the history of baths 8) . :)
 
Swimming baths! We had to swim in Smethwick cut to fetch out the coal that fell off the horse drawn barges. When your eventual tally reached a full ton your parents (if you were lucky) would buy you a pair of trunks to dive in; depriving the audience of a good laugh at your expense. :shock:

How dare those colonials suggest that we Poms don't bath often enough.
I spent most of my school holidays waterlogged. I'd come out of the cut like the dipstick from an engine badly in need of an oil change and decoke, then it'd be into the tin bath to soak it off. Next day I'd go through the same again. :cry:
 
Nechells Swimming Baths

Although I came from Erdington, all my Dads family came from Aston and Nechells.I had an Aunty Annie Robins who lived on Nechells Park Road. My cousin Billy Robins had a lot to do with the swimming club in Nechells and was in the Polo team I think. He was a lot older than me and used to bully me something rotten. He was always shouting and it used to echo all the way round the swimming baths. He chucked me in to teach me to swim which worked I might add. I remember walking up Holborne Hill. I reckon I knew every crack in the pavement, I was such a little runt in them days!!!!!!!!!!!! Happy days ay.

Kind regards
Lynda
 
NICE ONE GANG I JUST LOVE THE BANTER BETWEEN YOU ALL ,YOU HAD ME IN BITS READING THE REPLY,SYOU SENT EACH OTHER, HA/ HA/ THIS TIME IN THE MORNING , ANY WAY GANG I GOT MY PASS AT WOODCOCK ST, WHEN I ATTENDED ICKNIELD ST, SCHOOL THE POSH ONE,A/ I DIDN,T GET ATHLETE FOOT, IF YOU SAID MOMUMENT RD, LADY WOOD YOU WOULD HAVE GOT CUT FEET , COS HALF THE TILES WAS MISSING , AND TO ADD TO YOUR MISERY, THE SCREAMING HAB , DABS, AND REGARDS VICTORIA RD MY BIG SISTER , WAS VERY POPULAR THERE BECOS NEARLY EVERY TWO WEEKS , REGULAR, THEY WOULD HAVE TO FISH HER OUT, COS SHE ALWAYS WENT TO THE BOTTOM AND DROWNED THEY WOULD DRAG HER OUT SO THEY BANNED HER, ASTONIAN ;;;;
 
we use to go to Sparkhill swimming baths on the Stratford Road, I believe its still there. As I recall you only had to swim one length to get the free pass. My brother sister and I use to go every Saturday then visit Hall Green Library on the way home. I went to Lakey Lane Primary School every week we went swimming, I hated the rushing to get dried and dressed to return to school on time Inever ever felt as though I'd done a good job. I'm surprised we never got pneumonia as my Nan was always preaching we'd catch our death o cold.
 
Wot a small world, Doll, old chap. I was in the Villa Tavern, first time in my life, last Saturday 28 October. Nice building, nice barmaid and the customers weren't bad either, but I couldn't say that for the beer. And of course I notices the wonderful public baths opposite. Birmingham still has some lovely buildings and that is one of them.
Peter
 
Billy Robbins Nechells Baths

Lynda ,Billy Robbins was a friend of my Dads and he also taught me to swim by chucking me in at the deep end.I also started at Bloomsbury Girls in 1962 and we would walk up Nechells Park Road all in line and try and pinch an apple from the fruit shop just down from Bullivants .I lived just round the corner from Nechells baths ,and spent a lot of time in there ,I,d go home with all the skin on my feet and hands wrinkled. I still have my certificates for 1 width,1 length and 2 lengths one signed by Billy.The last time I was home Eric took me to show me the baths ,they had not been finished then.On previous visits home I wondered why the council had left them to go rack and ruin it was sad to see them so neglected when they gave us so much enjoyment in our youth.does anyone remember when the chlorine leaked and they evacuated us from the baths .?
 
Dollyferret Villa Tavern is the pub in your picture one of myold watering holes:p Mossy
 
When getting the Xmas Dec's out for another year I found these in the loft. My FREE PASS'S from the 1950's
 
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