Mrs Doris Johnson - on Reading - tells:
Memories of King’s Meadow open-air baths are still vivid nearly 70 years on for Doris Johnson at the age of 83.
Doris (nee Richards) remembers the baths clearly.
She went to Palmer central School in Reading but, prior to that, she and a friend used to swim nearly every day.
Mrs Johnson said, “I can’t actually remember when or how I learned to swim but with our constant visits and with the use of water-wings, I just began to swim.
She remembers walking from her home in Alfred Street during the summer holidays, arriving early in the morning and staying many hours.
!I don’t feel the cold so I was never conscious how cold it was - but I do know that if the water temperature dropped beneath a certain level, non-swimmers were not allowed in.
“We used to have to do land-drill, breaststroke style, and non-swimmers were suspended over the water from a pole and wire.”
“To encourage children to learn safety in the water, they were allowed in the pool free before 6pm and after that it was one old penny. It cost 2d (1p) on a Saturday, when it was mixed bathing. There were single cubicles and corner cubicles taking five to six people.”
“The pool was closed once a month for a good scrub out and - if I remember rightly - it was just built of concrete in those days. The river water used to flow in one end and out the other, and always looked green.”
“I used to dive from the three feet diving table into the green water - in and through the slime at the bottom. It never did me any harm.”
Mrs Johnson said she and her friends thoroughly enjoyed their days and pranks at King’s Meadow, and this was all before the days of the white tiled bath, with its crystal clear chlorinated water.
She added that when she took her lifesaving awards at Arthur Hill baths, it felt as if she was diving through a sheet of glass!
“Mrs Francis was our instructor at King’s Meadow, and I remember her dressed in a long tweedy skirt.”
Mrs Johnson became a very skillful swimmer, earning certificates and medals. She remembers one event particularly which was a combination of timed swims, surface diving for metal objects on the bottom and diving from the board, including the springboard.
Mrs Johnson hopes that King’s Meadow are now saved. “I know my grandchildren will be glad of them,” she said.
