Jacob’s Wells Baths

Jacob’s Wells Baths

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, Elmlea primary school would take us to Jacob’s Wells Baths for swimming lessons. This would have been around 1975.
It always felt very exciting to be on the coach, taking the long journey into the unknown, well along the Portway really… The kids would get hyper and run from seat to seat until our teacher had shouted at us to sit down several times.

My parents rarely bought sweets, so I used to really look forward to spending my 25p on a Crunchy Bar from the vending machine at the baths. We always felt cold and miserable after an hour of being shouted at in the pool, so the thought of a chocolate bar at the end really kept me going.

Swimming lessons seemed to comprise of barked orders and sharp blasts of whistle from the swimming instructor; a large, angry, balding man who strode up and down the pool in his nylon tracksuit. We would swim from one end to the other in a splashing gaggle, as the instructor shouted at us to swim faster, stop holding on to the pool side, to stop splashing and to stop complaining.

Eventually, we would be set free from the pool, to stand shivering under lukewarm water at the showers. We had worked out that if you wedged the shower button on with your back, the water would eventually almost become warm, but lingering in the shower would result in more shouting, so we would be herded along in a shivering mass of skinny limbs to the changing rooms and dry clothes.

I love swimming now, but my memories of swimming lessons were less than pleasant; an hour of shouting, followed by lukewarm showers and a chilly changing room, where inevitably, your socks would fall into a puddle.

I was the first to get dressed and I left the chilly changing rooms in search of the vending machine, but a glimpse of an unknown archway caught my curiosity, so I ventured into a maze of tiled corridors, where attendants in long grey nylon housecoats and white wellies bustled around carrying towels and mops.
A strange, muffled sound, like a hibernating bear snoring in a cave drew me further into this unexplored labyrinth.

I pushed through a curtain of thick, heavy see-through plastic strips into a large steamy room. Following the strange grunting sound. An attendant was turning a faucet by a large metal box, fed with pipes. He briskly marched off, to reveal a large, red-faced man’s head; sealed to the neck in the box!
Guttural grunts echoed around the tiles. The disembodied head gasped and sighed in the most disturbing manner, his eyes clamped shut in concentration, as rivulets of sweat ran down his jowls.

I felt a bit scared at this perspiring apparition and reversed out of the steamy room at top speed, retracing my steps quickly as an attendant called out “Hey! What are you doing here?”

Reaching the reception area, I found the class was already outside, climbing aboard the coach, so I fumbled through my pockets to find my 25p for the vending machine.
Our teacher dashed in: “Why aren’t you on the coach? Leave the machine and hurry up!”

So, I did what any self-respecting child would do, when faced with the loss of a much-anticipated chocolate bar, I pretended to be deaf and put my money in the vending machine and punched the code, waiting as the machine slowly ejected the Crunchie Bar into the tray with a clang. As I opened the hatch that seemed sprung to trap tiny hands, my teacher ranted behind me… but I got the Crunchie.

As we bounced up the road, my bare legs prickled by the velour seats, I went into reveries as I munched the chocolate… it tasted so good! But I felt a bit haunted and disturbed by that sweaty grunting face, locked in a box.

Mike