Cartoon drawn by my Father of our walk back from Castle Eaton
We normally had weekly baths in a tin bath in front of the fire in the front room. The tin bath lived on the coal bunker in the back yard and hot water was obtained by boiling kettles on the gas-stove in the kitchen. The worst part was lugging the full bath back through the dog-leg passage to the back yard, where it was emptied down the drain and stored again on the coal bunker. This operation required two people to hold the two rather small handles rivetted to each end of the bath to manage the cosiderable weight of water. Great care was needed in taking the full bath out to the backyard because any slight stumble or hesitation would send the water sloshing all over the place.
As I got older I sometimes had a bath-time treat. This entailed taking some soap and a flannel rolled up in a towel over to the GWR Baths in Milton Road. Customers had to queue up in a passage to get to a desk, pay sixpence, and then wait their turn for a cubicle to become free. The facility was very large with a high steel and glass roof, so it was very light, too. The whole place was full of steam pipes and the smell of bath water. On a cold Winters' day, this was a real haven of luxurious warmth and comfort.
When a cubicle became free, a lady attendant escorted you to it and locked you in. She then operated the hot and cold water controls from the outside with a special key. Your part was to shout for more hot or more cold water until it was just to your liking. There was no time limit and you could call for more water at any time. The bath itself was enormous.
The GWR Baths complex also housed the Turkish Baths. The cost of a Turkish bath was two shillings and sixpence, five times the cost of an ordinary bath, so I never enjoyed the experience of having one. I wonder why it was so expensive?
The swimming baths became a favourite haunt of mine as I grew up. If funds permitted I would go there straight after school and stay for as long as possible. However, if I stayed too long, the chlorine in the water made my eyes bright red and painful, bringing the swimming to an end. After the swim it was possible to buy an OXO cube in a cup of hot water for a penny, add salt and/or pepper, and sit there sipping it while watching the other swimmers.
A good nearby spot for swimming at odd times was Plummeys' Pits (that may not be correctly spelled) at Rodbourne. Rowing boats were also for hire there and I learned to row their. This was a great delight to me and I rowed as often as I could afford it. Just after the war, old Spitfire drop tanks, converted into a sort of canoe, became available for hire. I tried one once but it was very heavy, unwieldy, unstable and dangerous. I think they were withdrawn when someone got drowned.
The far side of the pits, which were dug in the Jurassic Swindon Clay, was a good hunting ground for fossil Belemnites. All I had to do was row out to a certain spot on the far side where the water was shallow, climb over the side of the boat with bare feet, and walk about a bit in the squidgy black clay under the water. It was easy then to find lots of fossil Belemnites. Sometimes it was painful too, because the pointed end of a Belemnite can be very sharp.
On the really hot days in Summer when we could not afford the GWR Swimming Baths, some friends and I would cycle to the Thames at Castle Eaton or near Highworth and swim there. The usual plan was to begin by swimming up the river against the stream until we were tired out. This was hard work, so we didn't get far! The best bit was swimming back, this time with the current helping. At such times I felt like Superman because a single, relaxed and easy stroke took me many yards downstream.
The Thames at Castle Eaton was a glorious place to visit during a hot summer when the water was low. This created many islands in the river and we could play Pirates all day until we were worn out. As I grew older a friend and I would go there all day fishing. For this sort of expedition we wore old army greatcoats and wellingtons, and took along a Thermos flask and sandwiches. The nearest point of access from Swindon by bus was to be dropped off at the Castle Eaton turning on the main Swindon-Cricklade road. From there it was quite a long walk along the road and across some fields to the river.
On one of these trips we missed the last bus back home and decided to walk. It was very late by then and so dark along that narrow, winding road to the junction with the main road that we could hardly see our way. It occurred to me that this would be a good time to start talking about ghosts and things which leapt out at you on dark nights. My friend didn't like this at all. He got really frightened about it and so I desisted, not out of kindness but because he threatened to thump me if I kept on. He told Dad about this later and Dad drew the cartoon at the top of this page.
Eventually we reached the junction with the Swindon-Cricklade road and decided to stay there until the bus came by the next morning. We had a rubber dinghy (ex War Department and very cheap) on this occasion and so we inflated it and tried to sleep on that. It was so uncomfortable after a while that we decided to deflate it and walk on home. This was a big decision to take because it had taken us so long to inflate the thing in the first place.
By now we were even more tired out, hungry and thirsty, but we set off nevertheless. In those days there wasn't much traffic about and although we tried to thumb a lift from the occasional passing vehicle, nobody stopped. After tramping in this way with all our kit to the top of Blunsdon Hill we would have eaten anything. My friend climbed over a hedge into someones garden and came back with sticks of rhubarb for us to eat! It was awful and I felt really sorry for the poor chap who had grown them.
As we wearily made our way down Gorse Hill I noted that our steps were by now so weak and feeble that we were taking two steps to cross one paving stone. At this point two constables in a police car pulled up alongside us and rather gruffly asked what we were doing. I was so tired that I leaned on the police car while my friend told him the story, omitting the rhubarb session of course. I thought they would have pity on us and take us home but instead, the constable told me not to lean on their car, and off they went.
Next morning Mum asked why were we back so late, not knowing the actual time because I had crept in quietly. I simply said that we had missed the last bus and had no choice but to walk home. She obviously didn't know whether to believe me or not but that was the end of that misadventure.
Coate Water is a place I remember throughout the whole period of my life at Emlyn Square. From vague memories of being taken there on a bus by Mum to paddle in the concrete paddling pool, to hiring a punt and fishing all day with a friend when I was a teenager.
I remember being told when fairly young that a mentally-deranged, elderly spinster had decided to commit suicide by drowning at Coate Water. She could not swim and had simply gone there and calmy walked out into the water. Her body was found days later extensively nibbled by fish. This tale horrified me and on our next visit I stood on the bank and imagined what the poor lady had done and what she must have gone through.
Access to the water was banned for a long time, not because of the lady but because of an infectious disease which was, I think, Polio. This did not affect me much because we still had the GWR Baths to swim in.
Fishing was still permitted so that kept us occupied for a long time. Coate Water was over-fished and you were lucky to catch anything except Eels or the odd Roach or Bream, all of them small. We took these home with us to eat until the water pollution warnings began to appear.
As I grew up, a friend and I graduated to hiring a punt for the day, mostly in the Winter. My friend was much stronger than I and he could row the punt to the far side of the lake which was inaccessible from the bank. The fishing results here were much more promising but the weather conditions were dreadful sometimes.
We would start out as early as possible, take sandwiches and vacuum flasks, and stay out until dark, regardless of the weather. I well remember one Winter day that we hired a punt and prepared to set off across the lake. The sky was dark and overcast and the choppy waves, whipped up by the strong wind, were white-capped, making Coate Water more like the seaside. The man in charge of boat hiring said, "It's not a very good day for this. I should stay close in by the bank if I were you." We agreed that we would do this when we had got to the far side.
We set off into the teeth of what was very nearly a howling gale and the foaming waves were quite frightening. Our progress was very slow in spite of the extreme efforts of my strong friend. When I casually mentioned that we didn't seem to be making much headway, he lost his temper (stress, I suppose) and refused to do any more until I had had a go and allowed him a breather. Reluctantly I took over the oars and rowed with every ounce of my strength while my friend relaxed. It didn't last long. He suddenly jumped up and shoved me out the way saying, "We're going backwards!" It was only too true. In spite of all my efforts we were steadily being blown back to where we had started from. We did eventually get to the other side but it took a very long time and my friend went to sleep in the punt as soon as we got there. We never tackled such conditions again.
Another occasion springs to mind but this time the weather was delightful and relaxing. We were in the punt on the far side of the lake and had been there for some time relaxing after assembling our fishing gear and casting out. All we had to do now was lie back and watch our floats in case we had a "bite." All at once my friend, who was smoking a cigarette, shouted, "I've got a bite!" and jumped to his feet. He snatched up his rod and had just started to play in the fish when he quickly threw the rod down again and frantically leapt towards his haversack. This sudden movement nearly had us both in the water. My surprise turned to amazement when he wrenched out his vacuum flask, removed the stopper and began to gulp down scalding tea in spite of the pain. When he could at last speak he told me that he had swallowed his cigarette-end and wanted to make sure that it was properly out! I didn't dare to laugh or he would have hit me but he did see the funny side of it later on. We spent quite a long time after that discussing whether or not he had done himself any serious harm.
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Page updated 21 July 2008