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Sutton Park

​Sutton Park 31st July 2015
 

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Keepers bathing pool, Sutton Park. Look at that diving platform - the pool must have been pretty deep. Viv.
 

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Keepers Pool may have been deep at one time, but by the late 60's when a few of us from Vesey went there in the Summer, it was very muddy, and only just 6 ft deep in the middle. I CAN vouch for it being cold though !
When I joined the Ambulance service, places like these were often the sites of diving accidents due to lessened depths. Many so-called 'Open Water' sites were also prone to yobs throwing things in throughout the 70's & 80's, so broken glass and supermarket trollies became hazards too.
 
Pity it changed. I presume the diving board and steps all disappeared then when it became shallow. Expect there must have once been changing cabins there too. Viv.
 
Viv

A few more photos of Keepers pool lido from it's earliest days when it looks like it was nothing more than a steel tank to just before it was closed down. Why it was closed I'm afraid remains a mystery to me as I'm sure it was well used up to the end. It has to be noted that it wasn't until Birmingham Council took over it's upkeep that it closed.
 

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Went to Vesey in the late 40s & 50s and we always had our swimming sports at Keepers, I think as well they sometimes went there for swimming lessons - cold and dark and deep. I think that in Bracebridge you could swim in the pool iself
 
On a sadder note there was an outbreak of polio in Sutton in the mid/late 1940s and two of my friends at BVGS contracted it, one fairly mildly and one seriously. Swimming at Keepers was rumoured at the time to have been the cause. I think that the lido was closed for a while as a result.

(What a scourge that was, in the days before innoculation wiped it out. Now almost forgotten. The fear of it was widespread and the prospect of landing up in an iron lung was the subject of childhood nightmares).

Chris
 
Yes Chris, someone I read about at the time had been swimming in Keepers Pool and later went down with polio and died. It cause a great scare at the time and I remember standing in a long queue at the Birmingham Health Department near the Museum waiting to have a polio jab. Swimming in the pool did stop after that.
oldmohawk
 
Very, very sad for those affected. Polio was still around when I was young and I'd forgotten about the iron lung. I remember kids with braces on their legs as a result of polio. They'd have been lucky to survive at that time then. No surprise the pool was closed down if it was the cause of polio.


Quite honestly the idea of swimming in a natural pool gave me the creeps when I was young (bit of a sissy), much preferred a purpose built swimming pool where I could see my feet. Was OK with paddling though, as long as my feet were on the ground. Viv.
 
It's possible it was closed for the Health and Safety reason that it would now be required to have a full time attendant to supervise/ life save if necessary?
 
Barr Beacon in the distance from sutton Park
 

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Great stuff, when my parents used to take me and my sister to the park i was always on the miniature railway.

i don't remember anything else about the place.
 
HI DAVEM
For one thing dave for sure i most certainy remember it and it was my aunty maud smart bless her cotton socks died many years back now
we lived at 5\ 92 lichfield road she was my dads sister and she took aload of us there that year even a couple of our play mates
we got the train from Aston station lichfield rd she took us all on that min train around the park and also there was some motor boats
with a steering wheel on i never went on thou the older ones did aunty and my oldest sister went on whilst we waited on the pathe
and we played up to go on that train ; it was fantasic as kids Astonian;;
 
Alan I am sure I knew your aunty Maud Smart!!. Sorry if I have gone off topic but had to answer Alan. Maud was my moms closest friend in Holte road later in life. She moved from Lichfield road to Holte road.
 
Near Little Bracebridge Pool today 10th Nov 2014, 14 in all
 

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​Good job being done
 

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