Downstream by Caitlin Davies

swimming in the Thames because ‘it was seen as something not to do, and you had the alternative of a clean warm indoor pool. And one day I saw a steamer emptying its chemical toilet into the Thames and after that, never again!’ Yet although river swimming fell out of fashion among the general public in Reading, clubs continued to hold races on the Thames, with organised competitions right through to the 1970s.
    In the mid-1950s Tim Clark, who belonged to the Reading and Caversham Boys’ Club, took part in an inter-club mile swim. The boys were ‘taken up to what we call Fishery Islands, where you still see people swimming today,’ explains Gillian, ‘and then told to swim to Caversham Bridge. He was about fifteen. He was just told, “off you go”. There was no big turnout of safety boats, just a “get in and swim”. A mile is quite a long way if you’re in the middle of the river and panic, but it was no big deal; it was what you did then.’
    Today what swimming club would take teenagers into the Thames, let alone tell them to swim a mile without a major risk assessment, as well as public liability insurance, wetsuit requirements and accompanying kayaks and boats? On the other hand, Tim’s 1950s race must have been regarded as enough of an occasion for him to be presented with a silver medallion, which he still has today, and to have his photograph in the local paper.
    Organised river racing in Reading continued into the 1970s, with the local police holding a one-mile race in July, ‘long after most people had deserted the river for the heated pools,’ says Gillian, ‘as they would have had to know how to jump in and rescue someone in trouble’.
    John Humphries, a member of the Outdoor Swimming Society, remembers ‘hundreds of people used to swim in the Thames at Reading in the 1970s during the annual music festival’. But others stopped swimming because of increasing numbers of swans, believed to carry avian TB, as well as the risk of larger boats, and illegal sewage discharge.
    However, local people still used the various lidos into the early 1970s. At Scours Lane, situated in a sandy bay where the river was relatively narrow and cordoned off with pieces of wood chained together, there was a diving board, a safe area for children, changing rooms, lawns for sunbathing and picnicking, and Alf’s Café for drinks and sandwiches. It closed around 1974, as did Freebody’s and Cawston’s, meeting the same sorry fate of many of the country’s lidos.
    Some twenty years earlier the King’s Meadow men’s pool had also closed, having been filled in and turned into a builders’ yard. In the mid-1970s this in turn was demolished and replaced with housing. When in 1974 the women’s pool was closed in order for new filtration units to be installed, it was never reopened. It was then leased to a sub-aqua diving club but after the lease expired it fell into disrepair. Yet in recent years campaigners have fought a determined battle to save the women’s pool, said to be the oldest surviving outdoor municipal pool of its kind from the early Edwardian era. In 2003 there were plans to turn the site into a hotel, but then the ironwork supporting its partial roof gained Grade II listed status. Campaigners successfully blocked further development plans, clearing rubbish from the pool and holding open days. At the end of 2013 it seemed that Clifton Lido Ltd from Bristol would get the go-ahead to restore the site, with a year-round open-air pool, spa, restaurant and bar. But critics were concerned that the admission price would be too high, and urged the council to bid for Lottery funding, along with the King’s Meadow Campaign, to keep the baths under public ownership. ‘I will always feel sad that Reading Borough Council were so mercenary and heartless over it being a future community and youth engagement project,’ says