Nostalgia

Yesterday to the lido at Jesus Green, my first visit for maybe thirty years. Poor, considering that it was where I learned to swim more than fifty years ago, at which time I was paid 3d a time to cycle down there for a swim before school. Bribery maybe, but a useful adjunct to the modest pocket money of those times.

The place has changed very little over the years. Wooden changing sheds still along one side of the pool, gents. on the top left of the illustration, ladies top right. The smell of damp creosoted wood had not changed. The same sort of wire baskets to hold one's clothes, although not, I think, actually the same baskets. Some concession to the years in the form of penny in the slot lockers, useful perhaps for a long visit when the place is crowded - which it certainly used to be when the sun was out. The diving stands in the middle of the pool were gone, presumably on grounds of health and safety - and I do remember the odd case of people coming down wrong and doing dreadful things to their stomachs. Water cleaner than I remember and not as cold - perhaps because it has not been long since we were in the sea.

I managed four lengths, that is to say 400 yards, nearly all breast stroke, being rather put to shame by the other seniors there at that time in the morning (around 1100) who were clearly clocking up a lot more.

Run by an outfit called 'Better', who seem to run a lot of what used to be local council facilities, certainly in London and at least this one in Cambridge. Something called a charitable social enterprise, a newish variety of charity. Perhaps this is the way forward for this sort of thing, along with the National Trust and English Heritage. Talking of which last, being members, we found it convenient to pull into Audley End for a pit-stop on the way to Cambridge; a much pleasanter place for a picnic & comfort break than the alternative Birchanger Green. And they can even feed you if you forget to pack a picnic. See reference 2.

Rather a scruffy collection of house boats and such drawn up on both sides of the river.  Rather too many for comfort, looking benefit & substance abuse flavoured rather than cuddly. No doubt they attract voluminous correspondance in local media, print & otherwise,

The iron bridge for pedestrians and cyclists by the locks was still there, off the left of the picture, and was little changed apart from having changed from its former green to black. The adjacent weather station in its white slatted wooden box on legs was empty and derelict, which was a pity as the two rotating drums of paper, brass apparatus and needle pens which used to record temperature and pressure used to fascinate me as a child. A large and handsome house for the lock keeper, presumably now sold off cheap to somebody with friends in high places, after the way of such water authority housing in the London area.

Reference 1: http://www.better.org.uk/.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/audley-end.html.