Lochee Baths is where I learned to swim. This was back in the late 60's when my primary class used to visit there once a week for lessons.The entrance was up a wee side street called St Marys Lane, just off Lochee High Street.
The interior layout was very compact, in fact there was actually hardly any room to move around the edge of the pool.
When we went there it was only the girls who got to use the perimeter cubicles, us boys got chucked in the communal changing room around the back.
I remember we all started off using arch shaped polystyrene floats before any attempts at proper swimming commenced, but it didn't take long before the whole class could swim.
The upside to the trip was, because we attended Balerno school in Douglas, it meant a lengthy bus journey, so we kind of viewed the 3 hour day out as a bit of a skive from class, what with the all-round excursion using up a full morning.
The downside to it was, our class was booked during the winter months so I can also recall the miserable return journey when we were all damp haired, freezing and shivering waiting on the bus back.
Still to this day, anytime I happen to catch a whiff of bleach, I always get a flashback to the Lochee Baths!
Photo by DC Thomson.Tints by GG.
I did my Scottish Swimmers badge here.
ReplyDeleteShivvver.
Lochee baths rooled!
ReplyDeleteThe communal changing area was named 'The Dungeon'. Woe betide you if you had anything of value in your pockets as people used to get stuff stolen regularly. One chap once got his trousers nicked!
The squat little broken-nosed chap who ran the baths was named Norrie Tennant....from famous boxing stock.
Similar memories to your own, GG -- epic return journey on the bus from Powrie, freezing cold 'dungeon' changing, "shivery bites"??... and I also have vague memories of a swimming teacher there who was a big-name footballer of the time and a bit on the stern side if you played up to the fact. Anyone remember who he was?
ReplyDeleteHenry hall football player
DeleteI learned to swim there in the 60s, swam there with the Logie school swim team, the 37th Boys Brigade great memories, remember diving off the balcony, getting my watch stolen in the "Dungeon" and freezing my b@@ls off.Great days.
ReplyDeleteUsed to swim there all the time, someone pushed me off the diving board and I fell on the concrete and hurt my foot, years later in Canada had surgery to repair, ah Lochee....
ReplyDeleteSpent great times in the Lochee Baths. All the boys from Clement Park would go on a Saturday Morning and not leave until the afternoon like shrivelled up prunes. Norrie Tennant would dangle our clothes over the water in an attempt to get us to come out and George Aird would twist our arms up our backs and frog march us out! Great days, great memories.
ReplyDelete