Upperthorpe Baths - do you have any memories you'd like to share?

[Jaquitim 10]

Used to go swimming with school there every week. I can remeber having our feet checked for verrucae before we could get in the pool!

[Klondike Kid 10]

Had swimming lessons there with Crookesmoor school late 50's.As some people have said the instructor was a Mr Price,who as I recall was very particular about people with verrucas.He inspected swimmers feet as they knelt on the diving steps situated at deep end of the pool.

Another time I went to the baths with a friend called Mick Moore who was a bit of a lad.

As we were not well off and both my mother and father were at work ( latch street kids were my brother and me) I scrounged together 9d (old pence)by returning old pop bottles for the deposit (early recycler) and it took ages. Anyway shortly after we had got in (about five miutes) with me holding on to my wet woollen trunks , Mick pushed me into the deep end and as I wasn't a very good swimmer at that time ( I still swim like a brick to this day) I kept going under until some one dragged me coughing and spluttering to the surface at which point I got changed with Mick pleading with me to stay.

Coughing and spluttering occured later when I was entered into the inter schools gala( by the aforementioned Mr Price ) when halfway up the first length I got a mouthfull of water, needless to say I finished last.

I only went to theslipperbaths once as we had our own private tin bath in front of the fire on Sunday.

[old tup 30]

I learned to swim at Upperthorpe in the 50s with my schoolmates from Hillfoot school;I remember Mr Price we called him captain ;you didnt mess with him or else.Before you were allowed in the water he would check your feet;woe betide if they were mucky which was the case with some of the towrags at our school.Out came a plimsole and a whack on your arse was administered.We used to go midweek swimming at night when Stalker Drill hired it.On the way home fish and chips plus a big balm cake in the old Kelvin;Tozzin Days.

Edited February 16, 2011 by old tup

[patto 10]

Cycled to Upperthorpe Baths (circa. 62/63) with a mate most days after school. His mom worked there and we used a side door to leave our bikes in the boiler room and got a free swim. Came out like 2 prunes and cycled all the way back home, (Magnet area), Southey Green.

[Bill Lee 10]

My first recollection was in 1946 my dad taking me 2 or 3 times a week to learn me to swim. My first recollection of the slipper baths was luxury after the tin bath in front of the fire with 2 brothers. I was about 8 (1948). The slipper baths were upstairs. You took your own towell and soap.and there was a wooden board on the floor I now assume was for hygene as it was washed consistently. I took a unofficial job which paid me 3p (old Pence)for 2days of 4 Hours work cleaning the baths after people.( I was 10 at that time) They were suppose to clean the baths themselves but people were very lazy. I used the slipper baths at least twice a week up to 1956 then we were relocated from Martin St.I used the connected library all the time and my mam used the washhouse in Danielle St. As of interest the area had other things going for it . The cinema (The Oxford) 200yards away at the junction of Addy St Crookesmoor Rd(Lane it was called but actually crookemoor road bottom) and Springvale rd. The snooker Hall next door . The old nurses home and tennis courts in Oxford St. I grew up there and enjoyed the baths . Note the Swimming baths had the showers not the slipper baths just a cold hose pipe used by me and probably others to clean the baths. At the time there was 6 Baths in use and I believe they might have increased it after 1956

[Zest 10]

Thanks to everyone who has contributed here, we are having a display of all the Memories of Upperthorpe comments which have both been made here and also those sent directly to me at Zest.

 

If anyone who has contributed here would be interested in coming along to see it, please feel free, the date is Saturday 26th March starting at 11am, we hope to leave the display up in the centre for all to see for a week or so after that date, so if you can't make it on the Saturday please pop in another time.

[Barkelberry 10]

I learnt to swim at upperthorpe baths. Our dad taught us although he could'nt swin a stroke! used to take us every week to the British steel swimming club I think on Monday nights. This was in the 50's. I can remember once being in a diving competion against Jill (or gill) Slaterly who was I believe a champion. I won a blue glass and silver (coloured) sugar bowl my mother was very proud of this! I remember our treat was iced gem biscuit out of the machine. For years when ever I saw iced gems I was transported back to the foyer of the baths always with wet hair on a cold night.

[Pat Johns 10]

Yes, I have many memories of using Upperthorpe Baths. Our family used to live in Regent Court flats on Bradfield Road until 1956. There was a river flowing at the back of the flats - the Rivelin or the Loxley, not sure. I believe that a boy drowned in this river. My 2 elder brothers could swim but I could not. So, despite money being very tight, mum and dad paid for me to have lessons. Was the swimming teacher's name Mr Sivier? I never learned. In the summer holidays, whilst mucking about at the baths with my brothers and sister, I just naturally got the knack of staying afloat and have never looked back since. We moved to Burngreave in 1956. I attended Firs Hill School. In the last year (1961 ?), the school awarded me a swimming pass so that I could go swimming for free at Upperthorpe any time that I liked. Mum and dad let me go there on my own after school. I had to walk all the way there and back. I could use one of the changing cubicles at the side of the bath all to myself and I felt very grown up, proud and privileged. I taught myself to dive in, swim front and back crawl and butterfly. Then, one day, the man who stamped and signed my passbook said in a very snearing manner, "What do you come here every day for and never pay?" I was mortified. Never went back. Never lost that sad feeling of being ashamed whenever I remembered it.

[andycott 10]

I was at St Josephs primary on Howard Hill and every Friday morning (1968 - 1970) we used to walk down Birkendale to Upperthorpe Baths for our swimming lesson. The teacher was a guy called Mr Britland (or Brickland). Learnt to swim there and also got some life saving certificates too. We had to swim in our pyjamas, pick up a rubber brick from the bottom of the pool in the deep end and then take off our pyjama bottoms, tie knots in the end of the legs, blow them up and use them as flotation aids. Not sure how effective that was!!! Also swam in a few galas there. Happy days. The walk back up the hill afterwards was always much harder than the walk down especially knowing we had a mental arithmetic test waiting for us. lol.

I also went to St Josephs in 1964-66 and every (friday morning, IthinK) in a noisy crocodlie, we hurried down the hill to the baths. The familiar chemical smell of chlorine greeted us at the door and it was then one mad ripping off of clothes, shivering and a careful toe at a time into the pool. I remember being towed along with a long pole, from shallow to deep and eventually being given a small polystyrene board on which to hang and kick frantically or frog-like across a breadth. All sunbeam's life saving techniques and brick collection fit in with my memories. I loved it. Later at De La salle, I went to Glossop Road every saturday, face-masked and flippered, I could do a length under water. So sad that Health and safety removed these aids from public baths, when they can give kids so much fun & enyoyment.

[hudson-phili 10]

I remember going to Upperthorpe Baths with my class from Crookesmoor School in 1955-56. The guy in charge stood us all on the side of the baths and went along pushing us all in. Needless to say I got a lung full of water almost drowned , struggled to the side and climbed out. Needless to say I still cannot swim. I can still see that guy in my mind and could strangle him for what he did to me.

[muscroft 11]

I also went to the swimming baths in the fifties.You could buy a big thick biscuit rather like a thick arrowroot for 2 pennies.(twopence).My mum did her washing next door at the wash house. My gran lived on the Kelvin flats in the late sixties.She had a bathroom and constant hot water.I think most of the old folks found it lonely.There was no standing on the doorstep and watching people go by.

[auspom 10]

What a character, if you didn't come out when your time was up he would hold piece of your clothing over the water making out that he would drop it in if you didn't come out (don't mean 'come out' as in you know what).

 

Herbert Hisset taught me to swim I was 5 in 1947. I used to go every week as I lived in Crookesmoor Road the part that is gone now. I also used o go every week with the sea cadets from 1954 -1959