Haslingden baths

Haslingden baths – the end of an era.

Haslingden swimming baths opened in 1936 and sadly closed a few years ago in 2013 due to lack of funding and the building falling into disrepair.

For many, many years the baths were a central hub of the community of Haslingden, thousands and thousands of children learnt to swim there and everybody who you speak to has extremely happy memories of the place. If you are local to Haslingden, you will know that there has been an ongoing discussion on ways to keep the pool open.  I am one of the group of happy volunteers who spent many a happy Wednesday, filling. sawing, plastering, painting, scraping, crying, laughing, dancing, singing, mopping in and around the pool and changing rooms. Lunch was always provided by kind donations from local businesses or individuals, helping the cause in their own way.

We wore HAPPI ( Haslingden All People Pool Initiative) T-shirts and were a band of merry helpers.

Local schools and community groups joined in with sponsored walks, cake sales etc and due to the amazing support we had, we won the North West region of Britain Has Spirit,  getting £1000 to hold a street party as a celebration. We had it as a 80th birthday party and invited a few VIPs, one being my dear friend Annie who was there at the baths on the day it opened on her dad’s shoulders and there swimming on the final day. It’s people like that who really made this volunteering worthwhile.

The party had dancers, a cake, an auction of promises, games, balloons and we had a fabulous day, open to all the community and extremely well represented.

But sadly, after many months we stopped volunteering, as the future of the baths became uncertain,  due to many local council disagreements and withdrawal of certain fundings.   I’m not prepared to go into the reasons in my blog as that is not why I am writing it but the final decision was made a couple of weeks ago that the pool would not reopen and that the building and land would go up for sale.

As a volunteer, I was invited to pop in this morning to see if there were any memorabilia that I wanted to have. A few of us went in and the site brought tears to our eyes. What we saw, was terrible, caused by mindless bored teenagers causing absolute havoc, who obviously had nothing better to do with their time (perhaps had the pool been open, they could have gone swimming!!) I find it hard to believe that in this town that has been generally right behind the reopening of the baths that some small-minded people would do this.

Anyway, that has been and gone and if it made them feel good well let them have their moment of madness…

My main reason for blogging was just witnessing the sadness of seeing the empty pool and all the happy memories that are captured in the building from the past 82 years. We could almost hear the laughter and fun of happy swimmers from times gone past. The happiness that stretched over the decades, nothing can take that away from the town, everyone has memories. Mine are: taking part in the aqua aerobics for pregnant ladies with a concerned midwife watching over us,  sitting on the side of the baths with my 3 sons having endless lessons, nipping out of work at lunchtimes for a quick 30-minute swim and most fondly, swimming on a Christmas Eve, with carols playing, followed by warm mince pies.

Even though we don’t know what the future will hold regarding the building or the land although it is probably earmarked for housing or something similar,  I have forged some extremely good friendships which I would have never ever made had the baths not being under threat. We would have probably just swum up and down the lanes next to each other and never really chatted, just acknowledged each other with a nod of the head.

I took a couple of the HAPPI t-shirts today, to wear with pride on my upcoming trip to Vietnam, where I will be volunteering in a community, hopefully, to bring about a reaction and some stories to recount to the people I will be working alongside.

For that reason, I am grateful that some of our happy band of volunteers still continue to meet weekly at a local cafe run by Tor View Specialist Learning Community School. The School is in need of much-needed funds to develop their sports facilities.

http://torview.org/about-us/two-million-steps-sports-hall-fundraising

I would love to think that any monies left over from the pool could make its’ way to help this sporty worthy local cause.

It was commented today, that we have no regrets, we should all at some time in our lives try to do help to make a difference to something and someone. If we succeed it’s a bonus.