Nearly-night swimming

JUBILEE LEISURE CENTRE

Caird Street

London W10 4RR

020 8960 9629

Interesting to note: One of my fave UK lidos – Penzance - is also called Jubilee. YAAAWWNNN. 

Added bonus: Indoor sunbathing

Negative (for me): Men’s changing is better than women’s.

I’ll clarify that negative immediately before you start getting ideas: I went to this pool with my friend Adam, who took the task of assessing the men’s changing rooms very seriously. ‘I tried out the hairdryer on your behalf’ he said ‘and I think your readers will be pleased to know it works’. Adam reported that the men’s changing area was extremely nice, very well tiled, clean, and with plenty of ‘gunk’ in the showers. I think he meant shower gel. I hope he meant shower gel. Adam reckons that of all the local authority pools he’s visited, these changing rooms are the best; however, he recommends you (men) wait a few weeks before visiting, until they have the lockers sorted, as he had to carry his work suit round after swimming and it got wet. Fortunately it was dark when we walked back to the tube so no one could see his damp bits.

When I win the lottery ...

CALLY POOL

229 Caledonian Road

London N1 0NH

020 7278 1890

Added bonus: A proper greengrocer on Caledonian Rd, the fruit and veg not in stupid plastic bowls. Pomegranites 49p. What a full service I offer.

Negative: Someone said recently that I wasn’t having much luck on this blog lately. And so it continues.

I used the walk down from Caledonian Rd tube station to contemplate bacon sandwiches and freedom, as the road goes past Pentonville Prison, and the café opposite it – The Break Out, ha ha -  smelled deliciously fried baconly greasy. And maybe because I’d walked past the high-up tiny-paned grime-covered windows of the jail, my first thought as I saw Cally Pool was that it would be the perfect location for exterior shots for a TV drama set in an asylum seekers detention centre. The building equivalent of a body-double. 

In reception, the open entrance to the men’s changing room seems practically on the street, and you can see the learner pool immediately. A school party was coming in behind me, but I felt relaxed, they would be in that pool, not mine.  I went through to change, and my heart, that had sunk at the horrible blue corrugated box exterior, sank a bit more.

Memories of Wyndley

PUTNEY LEISURE CENTRE

Dryburgh Rd

Putney, London SW15 1BL

Phone 0208 785 0388

Added bonus: I parked free on the road outside. (You may have no idea what a bonus this is. It’s a big bonus.)

Negative: Someone said of this blog ‘it’s all getting a bit autobiographical, isn’t it?’ as if me including stuff about myself could possibly be a bad thing. I’m sussing out as I go along how much swimming has featured in my life - more than I thought, and sometimes obliquely. This is the only blog in the world that includes bits about me, which some people would say is a damn shame*. However, if you don’t like the bits about me, don’t read this blog.

*No actual people would say that. 

The shallow end of the pool was jumping, an aquarobics class in full swing, water sloshing and bouncing along to UH-OH YES! I’m the GREAT! Pre-te-hen-der-der-der-der-der-der-der-der …and the lifeguard leapt into action. I’m glad to say I’ve never seen one move so fast. She was off that high chair quicker than I could say ‘oh fuck, bad timing’ and managed to de-stick the CD  before any of the class went into some dreadful low-nrg hypnotic state and slipped under water requiring actual saving.

Taking the pulse

PECKHAM PULSE

10 Melon Road 
Peckham

London, SE15 5QN

Tel: 0844 893 3888

Added bonus: there isn’t one. Oh yea, I parked for free because the machine was broken. Probably still is, but I can’t offer a guarantee.

Negative: You could say that.

Welcome to the Peckham Pulse Healthy Living Centre! This isn’t just swimming! This is HEALTHY LIVING, people! The whole thing, you know, all the healthy living stuff. Time to GET WITH THE PROGRAMME.

Or, better, go and look at the library next door (pic above) which was award-winningly architected, then hop a bus and go up the road to Camberwell Baths instead. 

Go straight to Rosie's.

BRIXTON RECREATION CENTRE

(aka Brixton Rec)

27 Brixton Station Rd

London SW9 8QQ

020 7926 9779

Added bonus: Market Row

Points off for: the pool.

If you noticed that the photo above is not pool-related, well done, take the rest of the day off. If you thought it was pool related, where the hell are you swimming?  It’s a cup of coffee, of course, a flat white since you ask, more of which later.

You'll know by now that I don’t usually shy away from a bad joke, but I’m trying not to say ‘Brixton Wreck more like!’ partly because it’s so naff it makes my verrucas twinge* and partly because it’s not really true any more. Yes, faithful readers, I have history with this pool. I know, you’re patient, you’ve followed round all the pools I’ve been to before, and listened to me wiffling on about my swimming history, and I do thank you for that, I am grateful for your attentions. In brief, when Clapham Manor pool was open, it was often closed, and then in absolute desperation I’d come here, but only rarely because it was so shit - literally, there were always tales about turds in the water, though I never witnessed a floater myself.

Willes Pool

KENTISH TOWN SPORTS CENTRE

Grafton Road

London NW5 3DU

020 7974 7000

Turns out, I didn’t have such a raucous 20s after all. Doing this blog I’m coming to realize how many pools I swam in during those years, and I’m disappointed in my younger self. I used to live in Kentish Town, so I knew where this pool was without looking it up. I trolled down the street and stopped at the impressive redbrick gothic building, yep, that’s it, memory served me well – it says ‘Public Baths’ up there, in fancy gold, looks better than it did, smarter.  I tried the doors, newly painted in restoration French grey. Hmm. Locked. I poked my head around the corner and saw a sign to a much more modest entrance, a ramped stone walkway with inlaid lights.  Behind a modern reception desk a man with the cheery demeanour of a Chuckle Brother welcomes me back, tells me I’d need £400,000 if I wanted to go in the original way - it’s been sold for flats. I sigh like I did when I saw that what used to be Ken’ish Tahn’s lovely independent Owl Bookshop is now a Tesco. He pointed me to a leaflet celebrating the first year of the pool’s refurb, and assured me that it’s all much improved. I’ll be the judge of that,  I thought snarkily, and handed over a comparatively moderate £4.50 to swim.

Shadders

ST GEORGE’S POOL

221 The Highway

City of London E1W 3BP

020 7709 9714

Added bonus: The DLR. Cheap. (£3.60)

Negative points: check school lesson times. Also, the non-returnable locker thing (see below).

Shadwell. Say it a bit Welsh, in a homage to the John Sparkes character of the olden comedy days. If posh people lived here, they would probably call it Shadders. But they don’t, not a one. I used to, on the 17^th floor – great views - of one of two tower blocks that dominated the area then, with a man who eventually asked me to leave because I made the bathroom floor too wet when I got out of the bath. Now I’m older and wiser and have my own bathroom floor which gets wet from other people, I see how wrong it all was, and wish to humbly apologise via this blog.*