taking counsel and advice for ten minutes before I finally
went off for the first time, in a sudden fit of bravado: still talking, without
anybody having the chance to advise me, I stepped straight off the edge and
fell … arrrgh: my internal organs apparently losing their adhesion to my
lower abdomen. -
I
bobbed up quickly and swam frantically, over-energized, to the side and went
straight back up. Apart from occasional rests, I unremittingly tossed myself
off a high platform into the water for much of my adolescence. After about a
week I joined the others, running as hard as we could from the very back and
recklessly launching ourselves, sometimes in formation, out and down into the
pool.
Today,
the boards have gone. As I padded down the tiles and left my towel on the side,
in that self-consciously naked state before the water covers you with a
clothing of wet, it was the first thing I noticed. The second thing was that
the pool was almost empty. There were some mothers and children in a new
shallow pool at one end. That was different, too. It had been one long Olympic-sized
facility, and now it was divided into two. Five people were splashing in the
deep bit. There were several signs warning against any diving at all, and I
sheepishly lowered myself into the water like a Continental invalid and swam to
the other end.
Rebuilding
the gantries in my imagination, I then crept around the marks in the tiles
where the boards had been, then I swam my twenty lengths and got out. With the
familiar blurred chlorine vision and red popping eyeballs. I walked over to
the lifeguard, who seemed to be backing away —presumably from the nutcase who
had been staring intently at the floor, muttering to himself, twenty minutes
before.
He
couldn’t remember when the boards had all gone. ‘Even the flumes were taken out
about eight years ago.’ He pointed through the far window, where several
hundred feet of intestinal tubing were going green in the drizzle. I had seen
them, but not realized that they were no longer attached to any water splash.
‘There
was a café up there.’
‘I don’t
remember that.’
‘And
there were windows here.’ I was only saying this for the sake of completeness.
Shamefully, I was pulling old-hand rank.
‘No,
no, they’ve always been murals. I’ve seen the pictures.’ (Later, I saw the
pictures too, downstairs in the lobby He was quite right. They weren’t windows,
but they weren’t badly executed murals of palm trees and lagoons either. They were
plain, dignified slabs of tiles.) ‘But it’s quiet today,’ I said, sidling after
him.
‘Well,
it’s Friday afternoon, and there aren’t any schools in.
‘When I
used to come here we all wore different-coloured rubber arm bands and they’d
call your section out after an hour.’
‘Yes.’
He pointed up at a light and a phone arrangement. ‘It’s not been used for at
least five years. We get a hundred and fifty on a busy Saturday, but that’s
about it.’ He anticipated my next question, although he was still backing away
‘They get taught it at school, and the fitness centre has a better gym. They’ll
be closing this place soon.’
He didn’t
mean it rhetorically. They were closing the place. Harlow was moving on to a
new leisure facility. This impressive, clean and modern amenity was as dead as
Weston’s sea pool, High Beach or my junior school swimming baths.
The
lifeguard moved away to stand vacantly somewhere else.
But as
I got my towel and went back to the footbath, he suddenly reappeared, as if he
hadn’t wanted to leave it at that. ‘It will be one of those corrugated steel
warehouse things,’ he said. ‘They’ll never build a lovely pool hall like this
again, even though they put it up the wrong way round.’ He was momentarily
passionate. ‘Did you know it was supposed to have these windows facing down
over the valley and they put it up back to front?’
But
even back to front, it was a magnificent piece of
went off for the first time, in a sudden fit of bravado: still talking, without
anybody having the chance to advise me, I stepped straight off the edge and
fell … arrrgh: my internal organs apparently losing their adhesion to my
lower abdomen. -
I
bobbed up quickly and swam frantically, over-energized, to the side and went
straight back up. Apart from occasional rests, I unremittingly tossed myself
off a high platform into the water for much of my adolescence. After about a
week I joined the others, running as hard as we could from the very back and
recklessly launching ourselves, sometimes in formation, out and down into the
pool.
Today,
the boards have gone. As I padded down the tiles and left my towel on the side,
in that self-consciously naked state before the water covers you with a
clothing of wet, it was the first thing I noticed. The second thing was that
the pool was almost empty. There were some mothers and children in a new
shallow pool at one end. That was different, too. It had been one long Olympic-sized
facility, and now it was divided into two. Five people were splashing in the
deep bit. There were several signs warning against any diving at all, and I
sheepishly lowered myself into the water like a Continental invalid and swam to
the other end.
Rebuilding
the gantries in my imagination, I then crept around the marks in the tiles
where the boards had been, then I swam my twenty lengths and got out. With the
familiar blurred chlorine vision and red popping eyeballs. I walked over to
the lifeguard, who seemed to be backing away —presumably from the nutcase who
had been staring intently at the floor, muttering to himself, twenty minutes
before.
He
couldn’t remember when the boards had all gone. ‘Even the flumes were taken out
about eight years ago.’ He pointed through the far window, where several
hundred feet of intestinal tubing were going green in the drizzle. I had seen
them, but not realized that they were no longer attached to any water splash.
‘There
was a café up there.’
‘I don’t
remember that.’
‘And
there were windows here.’ I was only saying this for the sake of completeness.
Shamefully, I was pulling old-hand rank.
‘No,
no, they’ve always been murals. I’ve seen the pictures.’ (Later, I saw the
pictures too, downstairs in the lobby He was quite right. They weren’t windows,
but they weren’t badly executed murals of palm trees and lagoons either. They were
plain, dignified slabs of tiles.) ‘But it’s quiet today,’ I said, sidling after
him.
‘Well,
it’s Friday afternoon, and there aren’t any schools in.
‘When I
used to come here we all wore different-coloured rubber arm bands and they’d
call your section out after an hour.’
‘Yes.’
He pointed up at a light and a phone arrangement. ‘It’s not been used for at
least five years. We get a hundred and fifty on a busy Saturday, but that’s
about it.’ He anticipated my next question, although he was still backing away
‘They get taught it at school, and the fitness centre has a better gym. They’ll
be closing this place soon.’
He didn’t
mean it rhetorically. They were closing the place. Harlow was moving on to a
new leisure facility. This impressive, clean and modern amenity was as dead as
Weston’s sea pool, High Beach or my junior school swimming baths.
The
lifeguard moved away to stand vacantly somewhere else.
But as
I got my towel and went back to the footbath, he suddenly reappeared, as if he
hadn’t wanted to leave it at that. ‘It will be one of those corrugated steel
warehouse things,’ he said. ‘They’ll never build a lovely pool hall like this
again, even though they put it up the wrong way round.’ He was momentarily
passionate. ‘Did you know it was supposed to have these windows facing down
over the valley and they put it up back to front?’
But
even back to front, it was a magnificent piece of
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