Crosby Baths - 1963 to 1998

Crosby Baths

‘No running, no spitting, no heavy petting’

By Peter Harvey

The old Crosby Baths was a symbol of my childhood. Even today, remembering the shrill blast of the poolside attendant’s whistle above the din of screaming kids transports me to happy times in the 1970s and 1980s.

The bleach-filled air, the piercing snap of aluminium locker doors, floating corn plasters, scurrying cockroaches, hairballs, the frozen fear of the ‘top’ diving board…fast followed by a shame-filled retreat www.tick-media.co.uk

down the slippery wooden steps to the three-metre spring board where even girls ventured.

Summer or winter, it made no difference. Living nearby (I could see Crosby Baths from my bedroom window) I was drawn to the place like a moth to a light. I would go with friends, family, or often on my own, to swim till my fingertips wrinkled, my eyeballs stung or until I was ordered out for having the wrong coloured wristband. continued...

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Crosby Baths by Peter Harvey

The whistle, incidentally, was reserved for breaches of the ‘no running, no spitting and no heavy petting’ rules clearly publicised in red paint on a wooden board.

Unlike the streetwise lads who came in from Seaforth and Bootle on the L3 bus, with their cut down denims and Alpine pop, boys like me (i.e. a good Catholic boy from Ursuline and St Mary’s College) could only dream of being reprimanded for petting, heavy or otherwise.

After swimming I would chance the unreliable vending machines in the upstairs cafe. There was no more satisfying snack than a packet of Football Crazy (bacon flavoured maize balls), a cup of scalding, watery vegetable soup, capped off

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with a Cadbury’s Bar Six. Zero nutrition. Today’s children don’t know what they’re missing.

Great Britain’s golden girl from the 1960 Rome Olympics, Anita Lonsborough, marked the opening of the pool (Saturday November 9th 1963) with a ceremonial plunge for the media and civic dignitaries.

Sadly, almost from that day Crosby Baths was beset with misfortune yet it was loved by so many.

The souvenir programme reveals how every hour 10,000 gallons of sea water (and remember this was in the days when untreated sewage polluted the Mersey) were pumped down a 550-metre pipe alongside the storm water outfall on Crosby

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Crosby Baths by Peter Harvey

The water was stored overnight to settle, then filtered, chlorinated and warmed slightly before pouring into the 210,000-gallon pool.

Structurally the building was crippled with ‘concrete cancer’ from an early age. Its pre-cast blocks no match for the corrosive sea air.

The grand design optimistically featured a sun deck, terrace and solarium. Initial projections foresaw as many sunbathers as swimmers for July and August, each provided with a wood and canvas deck chair as part of their admission fee.

The outdoor children’s fountain was popular while it lasted - but it closed in the late 70s, as did the ‘fresh or salt water’ slipper baths for washing, and the sinister underwater viewing gallery. No surprise there.

• The 1963 souvenir booklet featured photographs by Norman Leatherbarrow and adverts for local businesses

Adverts from the 1963 souvenir programme

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Crosby Baths by Peter Harvey

• Demolition of Crosby Baths in October 1998 - just 35 years after its opening

Hopes of attracting national televised swimming competitions were thwarted by the irregular 33metre pool length. Competition pools were 25 or 50 metres.

Crosby Baths closed for good in the late 1990s - beset by cockroach infestations, electrical wiring faults and general neglect.

In 1998 silent strangers stood and watched as a high-reach demolition

crane toppled the old building’s roof and shell into the empty pool.

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Twisted rubble, shattered glass, faded sea green cladding, those locker doors and, no doubt, the ‘heavy petting’ warning sign today lie buried beneath the new Crosby Leisure Centre, along with memories of a generation.

• This article was first publiched in the Crosby Herald, 10th October 2013. Peter Harvey is a former editor of the Crosby Herald. peterharvey@tick-media.co.uk

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