Pools of teeth-chittering delight
June 2007
Changed days: In the age of global warming, Stonehaven’s rejuvenated open air pool has become a mecca for sun worshippers. photo: Andy Hall www.andyhallphotography.com
by Eric Simpson
The North-East is fortunate in having at Stonehaven one of the surviving open air seawater swimming pools, the earliest of which date back to the late 19th century. Here on the rocky east coast it was comparatively easy to enclose a rock pool, which could be filled and refreshed by the tides.
But the Stonehaven pool survives only because of the volunteers who have made it a viable enterprise. Without them, it is likely that Aberdeenshire Council would have pulled the plug – literally as well as metaphorically.
The construction of the Stonehaven pond, opened in 1934, came at a time when a rash of open-air seawater pools were built in the North-East, all within a few years of each other.The first was Macduff’s Tarlair pool, started in 1931; Buckie’s Strathlene pond followed in 1932, Invergordon’s in 1933, then in 1934 a mammoth one at Arbroath and a wee one at Portsoy. There was one late flourish when in 1959, the burgh of Rosehearty built a small pool within the town’s harbour.
The drive for seawater pools owed a great deal to the 1930s enthusiasm for outdoor sports. The popularity of hiking and the Strength through Joy movement in Hitler’s Germany were two manifestations of this craze. This was the age when sunbathing was gaining a cult following. For the bairns, the shallow end offered a safe place to splash about. While an open-air pond cost less to construct than an enclosed one, it was still expensive. Nevertheless, it could be a money-spinner, an attraction to bring summer visitors to the area. This was important in towns like Buckie and Macduff where the herring fishing industries were in sad decline. It is significant that these towns’ pools were built during the worldwide depression that followed the Wall Street crash of October 1929.Fund-raising for a pond at Macduff had already been under weigh, however, with the swimming club and local business people raising money through galas, dances and sales of work. By 1930 £360 pounds had been handed to the council to help towards building a pool at Tarlair which had a reputation, not only for its mineral well, but as a good place for dookin.
In February 1930 the government’s Unemployment Grants Committee (UGC) agreed to meet the wages for a scheme costing £4,000. By that summer the pool, though incomplete, was in use. Unfortunately, in August 1931 there was a change of government; despite the council’s entreaties, the UGC refused further help, so work was suspended.
To prepare for the 1932 season local schoolboys were enlisted to remove 15 tons of stones from the pond. Major work at Tarlair was not resumed until 1934 when the national government authorised more public expenditure.
In October 1935 Mr Miller, the burgh surveyor who designed the pool, informed the council that the income from the pond for that season, including the rent for the tearoom, came to £665.11.9.
In 1935 Macduff Town Council secured a loan of £7,000 to complete what was an ambitious project for a small burgh. To put the figure into perspective, the same was borrowed that year to build 20 three-apartment houses!
In the meantime, Buckie Town Council was developing a sports and holiday complex on the east of the burgh. In 1931 they had purchased the 136-acre seaside Strathlene estate and seemingly got a bargain. According to the Press & Journal (10 March 1931) the council bought the land and mansion house by 25 annual instalments of £236, free of interest. The house was converted into a hotel, with an extension for a tearoom for the public and a wee shop to sell ice cream, lemonade and other goodies.Two years later came an 18-hole golf course, a putting green, tennis courts and a 77 metrewooden chute. But most popular of all was the outdoor swimming pool opened to the public in 1932. For those who preferred the natural elements, there was always the sea and sand for the bairns to make their own sandcastle wonderlands. The visitors arrived by the busload from nearby inland towns.
Arbroath Town Council was even more ambitious, opening in 1934 a pool that cost £22,000. At this pond, the largest in the East of Scotland, seawater was pumped in then filtered, chlorinated and by being aerated, kept in constant circulation. On opening day, 4,350 bathers passed through the turnstiles while another 5,200 paid to spectate. Within the pool perimeter, there was a platform for sunbathing, dancing, gymnastic displays and ‘mannequin’ parades showing bathing costumes.
Where councils were the main movers, substantial sums were needed, and it was no easy task securing authority to construct a pool. Invergordon was fortunate as a private company had taken over the burgh’s electric power system and the cash paid for it met the £2,000-plus cost of its pond. Other councils had to borrow money, but there was objection from those townsfolk who had to pay rates.This happened at Stonehaven where there were sufficient objectors to necessitate a poll. With ratepayers voting in favour by 656 to 539, however, the scheme went ahead at a cost of just under £10,000. Their architect, R.R. Gall, had designed a handsome Art Deco pond measuring 50×18 metres. Opened in 1934, it made a substantial profit in its first season. Thus encouraged, the burgh council installed a filtration system and even more revolutionary, a heating system.
Banff Town Council also planned to build a pool. Indeed, when a plebiscite was held in 1934, the majority voted in favour, but that was as far as this scheme went. A similar poll at Fraserburgh in 1934 resulted in defeat. At Aberdeen, the council in 1938 rejected a £50,000 scheme for an open-air pool and solarium at the beach. Aberdeen went ahead instead with its splendid indoor Justice Mill Lane baths.
Inverness had been less fortunate. When in 1929 Inverness Town Council had applied to the London-based UGC for assistance to build an outdoor pool at Clachnaharry, their application was refused. Dunbar and Buckie were more successful in tapping government funds. The attractively-sited tidal pond at Portsoy, with considerable help from volunteers, was completed by 1936.
Strathlene seawater pool was built in 1932 by Buckie Town Council and I had a holiday job there as pool custodian for two seasons in the early 1950s. With just one antiquated pump, it required two tides to fill the pond to the brim.
While many people have pleasurable memories of their dookin days, Mrs Margaret Hunter from Alloa remembered her young sons emerging from the Tarlair pool ‘teeth chattering, skin turning blue and downright refusing to go back in to the icy cold’. For bairns emerging from a dook, a chitterin bite (a biscuit or sandwich) helped to keep the teeth from chattering, but the fact that bathers tended to urinate in cold water maybe did have a minuscule warming effect.
Crowds flocked to their local ponds for swimming competitions. Everywhere midnight galas, fireworks displays, boat races, treasure hunts, life-saving and high-diving displays were popular, as was water polo. Old stagers at Port Seton recalled a woman giving an underwater swimming demonstration while wired up with fairy lights. W.C. Bradborn, a Canadian champion log roller, was another star of the touring circuit. One of his tricks involved drinking a cup of tea while balancing on a log. The ineptitude displayed by bathers invited to emulate his feats added to the entertainment.
At Arbroath in July 1948, Dare-Devil Peggy, otherwise known as Peg-Leg Bernard, and his acrobatic diving troupe, were a major draw. Bernard was a one-legged diver, who leaped from the high board into a ring of fire on the water. Invergordon pool was used, on at least one occasion, for a baptism.
But fashions change, and when cheap foreign travel became available, the Scottish seaside began to lose its appeal. Since heated indoor pools were being built, few people were willing to pay to dook in a cold, open-air pond. Councils carped at the costs involved, and as those who controlled the moneybags had the last word, pool after pool closed its doors.Thanks to the work of local volunteers, a few survived – notably Gourock’s in the Clyde estuary and the Stonehaven pool. The folk of Wick took on the task of sustaining for local use their wee Trinkie pool. More recently they have brought back into use the West End baths, a simple tidal pond with a long history.
The Stonehaven pool survives thanks to the Friends of Stonehaven Open Air Pool, formed in 1995 to ward off threats of closure. The Friends persuaded Aberdeenshire Council to meet staff costs, maintain the plant and provide an annual budget. In return the Friends guaranteed to do the rest – fundraising, basic maintenance, painting, and assisting with marketing.
Unused, except by model boat clubs, and semi-derelict it may be, but Tarlair is a monument to 1930s style. Who knows, global warming may yet bring crowds back to the North-East and Tarlair may be restored to its former glory.
Eric Simpson, a Buckie loon and Aberdeen graduate, lectured in history at Moray House College of Education, Edinburgh, and still blethers awa to adult groups. He bides in Dalgety Bay in Fife.
This is an article from the June 2007 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, see our subscription details.