Jacob’s Wells Baths

Jacob’s Wells Baths

‘Well, where I was in Hotwells (Bristol) it was a working-class area and I never knew anybody certainly not our house, that had a bathroom.

There was a great big galvanised bath brought out on a Friday, Saucepans of water would be poured in and first in, was my younger sister, two years younger. She would have a bath first and after, in the same water, would go my second sister, the one, two years older, and she had a bath, and made it soapier, and I was the third in, with the same water and that was about from age 7 to 13 or14. And I never enjoyed any of that.

Then I found out that Jacobs Wells Road swimming baths also had a bath house, where you could take a towel and soap and hire a bath in a cubicle.

Each cubicle had a number, so you never had any taps inside the cubicle, it was all controlled by a person with a white coat; so he would show you to the cubicle you were going to have your bath in. He’d shut the door and away, he went.
Then after so long, you’d hear people shouting out: ’drop more hot number 5 please!’ And there would be a gush, more water would come. Now and again if you stayed too long, the chap in a white coat would say: ‘are you nearly done?’
I would say:’ almost done.’ So, you came out and dried off and walked home. I could tolerate that. That was a form of luxury after being third in a galvanise.

I used to go every Friday.

But everyone was the same you see. I never knew anybody that had a bathroom. I used to meet one of my mates up the bathhouse now and again, so he was in the same problem as I was. You don’t enjoy sitting in a tin tub.
You do not enjoy being third in a bath apart from the temperature of the water. There was a lot of soapy stuff around. I started moaning more and more when I was 13 and as soon as I was 14 that was it.

Were Jacobs Wells baths segregated? Were there different times men and women went?

I would imagine they would have separate sections for women because women would live in houses with no baths like we did.
There were only men in the section I went into.

Just cubicles and each separated by a wooden partition and a door. There were no taps on the baths, and you just have to shout out for more water. The bath would fill from outside. There would be a nozzle stuck in the end of the bath, when you were going in you’d put your stopper in the bath he would run the bath. He would close the door and disappear. The water would come in and then after a bit you asked for more water, and it would gush in again.

Well, it was very modern and advanced for me.

Was it echoey?

Oh yeah it was echoey! Different voices coming around.

As I would say from a metal galvanised bath, the public bath was luxury and you never had to clean the bath you just got up dried off said ‘cheerio’ and you were off. It was luxury.

It was looked upon as the good old days, but poverty is rough. Poverty is rough. It stays with you, the thought of it. It was all primitive in the house and generally freezing but, you either survived or you went under. That was bath nights.

Terry