Memoir Blast — Swimming Pools: My Childhood

(£1 a day swim Soup and a packet of crisp) 

Swimming pools and growing up swimming were literally part of every kid’s life in the 80s. We were given a pound, sent off to a swimming pool, and left to spend the day there. Most of my childhood memories are of being sent to a pool for fun — interdependence , freedom , cup‑of‑soup for 25p, and a whole day in water for £1.

My brothers were all younger — Me the oldest responsible one — which meant a false sense of safety. We were way too young to be left without an adult. Mum sat up above the pool in the theatre‑style spectator seats, not in the water with us. Three of us, sometimes four, depending on the youngest — he was seven years younger, so he wasn’t in the swimming equation until much later.

Central Pool — Reading (Earliest Memory)

My first memories of swimming pools were at Central Pool, going as a family. Mum didn’t swim, so she never came in. My parents were divorced by the time I was eight — so this would’ve been around 1985–1987. I’m not sure what age we were just thrown in, but we were left to swim alone.

I remember D throwing me around — I swam or I didn’t swim, but obviously I swam.

The floor was bubbly ceramic non‑slip tiles. We ran. whistles blown or shouts for running.

The whole place was ceramic/ stone and chlorine. It stung your eyes, until the next day. Too many hours spent in water.

There was a central point where you handed in your clothes. You got this metal basket — heavy — with a coat‑hanger top for your clothes and a wire basket underneath for your shoes. They hung it up and gave you a rubber band with a number. We would chew these, probably lacking something in our diet.

The smell of chlorine was so strong it burned your eyes.

The showers felt affluent — running water falling from above. It felt like something only posh houses had. We shared baths in the 80s, one after the other, so a shower felt unreal.

I remember the cup‑of‑soup machine: creamy brown cups, a disc of powder at the bottom. The soup probably had absolutely no health benefit (tasted raw once — disgusting), but once you added water it warmed you. The smell I loved. Soup and chlorine combo. Shrivelled, chlorine‑clean children. Swimming made the soup part of the ritual.

Incident One — Central Pool

My second brother was fighting with other kids (or it could have been me — I don’t remember who, just the action) at the side of the pool. Someone pushed him — or he slipped — it happened fast. He hit his chin on the edge and split it from one side to the other. Blood everywhere, blooming into the water. Chlorine and blood make a smell you never forget.

I lied about being sixteen so casualty would treat him. They wouldn’t. I had to call Mum (Maurice era). I remember being more afraid of men than the injury.

Arthur Hill Pool — Victorian Baths

Arthur Hill was a Victorian bath — you could feel it. Cream and green tiles, echo, ghosts, the sensory overload of old architecture.

We lived in that place. Paid our money, stayed as long as the day allowed, swam until our fingers pruned.

Incident Two — Arthur Hill

My younger brother (second down) misjudged a jump. He tried to duck me under the water — because that’s what we always did, laying on top of each other, half drowning each other for fun. His top teeth went straight through his own chin on my head.

I took him to hospital and lied about my age again.

Despite the injuries, these were some of my best childhood memories — the smell, the sound, the taste of chlorine, the feeling of being bleached, eyes red, skin squeaky. We were free in water.

Bulmershe Pool — Woodley

Teenage years. Endless swims, endless dares, endless scrapes. Holidays. And this was also our school pool.

My youngest brother fell in fully clothed — school uniform and all.

The Kennet Canal — Reading  (Teenager)

This is where the switch flips.

My brother and his friend — small boys — were marked by bigger boys. Three of them. They took their bikes and threw them into the Kennet. Maybe they shoved the boys first. The order doesn’t matter; the danger does.

I went volcanic. That’s the neurodiverse truth nobody talks about — the instant switch from calm to fury when fairness is violated. He could have drowned. I could have killed someone. I went from nice to not‑nice in a breath.

They got prosecuted, I remember. But I saw the school friend — the bully — years later. I can still clearly remember my rage.

Irony: this was also the same part of the canal my mum’s garage forecourt robber rowed across. Memories are funny things.

Footnote

There’s one more reference I’ll add properly another day: Me and my brother — the 11‑months‑down one — breaking into what’s now the Thames Lido. Back then it was a boarded‑up Victorian beauty, abandoned, sealed, forbidden. Double dare, and of course we did. Inevitable really, when your parent is on call, your mum’s off with a boyfriend, and you’re in charge. Always left to our own devices. Three kids slipping through gaps in the world, finding our own danger and later in life four kids.