Postcards From My Hometown - 2, The Bathing Pool

I was born and spent the first 20 years of my life in Redcar. I have fond memories of spending time in the area known as the Coatham Enclosure with its indoor swimming baths, boating lake and amusement arcade which included a large fairground ride known locally as the "mad mouse". These were the remnants of a much larger range of facilities constructed in the late 1920's when a major building programme funded by the local authority provided work for men made jobless after the General Strike of 1926. There were no state funded benefits at that time and rather than have families seek relief from the Guardians of the Poor Law, the Council established construction jobs with wages funded through the rates.

The original complex included an outdoor swimming facility called the Bathing Pool. It is astonishing to think that during the 1930's, Redcar's residents and visitors could benefit from three swimming pools. As well as the indoor baths, demolished in 1978, there were two outdoor facilities - a large one for adults and confident swimmers and a smaller, rectangular pool for children and learners. A small charge was levied, 4d for adults and 2d for children, whilst towels and swimwear could be hired at a small cost. Both pools were eventually closed. An outdoor roller skating rink was built over the larger one whilst the smaller one was built over to provide a car park for the indoor pool. I have vague memories of the closed skating rink and of trying to see over the surrounding wall with friends. This too is long gone.

The postcard featured in this piece shows an image of the Bathing Pool including swimmers, spectators and a daring diver launching himself from the highboard. When I bought the card my first thoughts were that this was an image of the Boating Lake due to the impressive buildings of Newcomen Terrace that can be seen in the background. However, a little online research and help from my brother soon uncovered the story of the long lost Bathing Pool. The site is now occupied by a youth facility know as The Hub. Whilst researching for this post I came across a couple of short films of Redcar in the 1930's the first of which includes some footage of a beauty contest at the Bathing Pool. You can see them here.

The card is post marked 8th July 1943 and was posted during the Second World War.  It was sent by one Nora to a Miss Jean Horn in Guildford, Surrey. Nora has written a chatty message saying she is on a course which apparently was "terribly stiff and means working all the time, night and day". She asks to be remembered to some friends and is anxious to make it clear that the picture on the card is from before the war "so don't think it is lovely here". She notes her temporary address on the card which suggests that Nora was in Redcar was connected to the R.A.F. so she may have served in the armed forces.

As with the card in my previous post, this one was purchased from the wonderful Saltburn Framing Company, located in Saltburn Station. More postcards coming soon.

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Postcards From My Hometown - 1, The Beach, Redcar

When I travel I still like to send postcards. I know this is considered terribly old fashioned especially when Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and a host of other platforms offer the opportunity to immediately send a virtual postcard to scores of people. I also enjoy sharing news and pictures online but still think there's something special about receiving a hand written postcard addressed to me personally.

However sending postcards from abroad can sometimes be a challenge. A few years ago I bought some beautiful cards in Guatemala but then found that the country had suspended its postal service so I couldn't send them. I eventually posted them from Costa Rica where I had a short stopover on the way home. It felt a bit like cheating. On my first visit to the Philippines in 2016 I purchased some postcards in Vigan, a beautiful historic city and a World Heritage Site. I took them to the post office where I was greeted with a smile and the confusion as the staff explained that it was so long since anyone had sent postcards that they no longer had details of what to charge me. They very politely  told me that "everyone sends pictures home on their phone these days sir," before a nominal charge was decided and the cards handed over. 

I should explain that I don't send hundreds of cards but always try to find one for my elderly relatives, my grand daughters and one or two friends in different countries who I think will appreciate receiving them. I know my aunt has a collection of every card I have ever sent her and when my dad was alive he carefully steamed off the stamps so that he could add them to his collection. Speaking of collections I must admit that I have hundreds of postcards that I've bought at exhibitions, markets and even online. They cover a wide range of subjects - vintage advertising, Art Deco and art nouveau architecture, souvenirs from places I visited years ago and lots of those cards that art galleries sell to generate a little income. What do I do with them? They are useful research tools and sometimes come in useful for blogging but for the most part I keep them in boxes under my sofa and look at them perhaps once in a few years. Still,  I am loathe to be parted from them.

I recently bought some vintage cards from the Saltburn Frame Company, a great little gallery and framing shop inside Saltburn Station. All of them are historical views of my home town, Redcar. The first, at the top of this post is a beautiful image of fishing boats on the beach during low tide and of very stylish people strolling along the promenade or standing on the beach. The women wear long heavy skirts, the men are sporting boaters and even the boys wear caps. The woman with the white parasol standing on the beach and looking out to sea is especially elegant. Today the sea front is   quite run down but the image here shows that this was not always the case. The Royal Hotel, on the left hand side of the picture was once owned by the parents of actress June Laverick closed several years ago and has been converted into flats.

The rear of the card identifies this image as one of the famous Frith's series. Francis Frith was a pioneering photographer, born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire in 1822. He was a man of many talents. He became a founding member of the Liverpool Photography Society in 1853 (established just 14 years after the invention of the art), ran a major publishing business and was also the owner of a successful grocery store. Frith was prolific, producing not only a photographic record of Britain but also travelling extensively, practising his art in Egypt, Ethiopia, Lebanon and Syria. He died in 1898 and his photographic publishing company was taken over by his son and later by his grandson.  According to online data the picture at the top of this post, number 47993 was taken in 1901 so can't have been his own work. The postmark shows the card to have been sent at 5.30pm on July 20th but the year is not legible. The stamp bears an image of King George V whose reign ran from 1910 to 1936 but of course these stamps would have remained in circulation for some time after his death.

The card was sent to a woman called Hilda who lived not very far from Redcar in Linthorpe Road, Middlesbrough. The writing is difficult to read, even with the help of a magnifying glass, but the sender reports that it is a lovely day, very hot albeit a little cloudy and that they had been outside from 10 am until 12.45. Unfortunately his or her name is illegible but the message reminds me of the things my relatives wrote on cards sent from Torquay and Bournemouth whilst I was growing up.

Look out for more postcards from Redcar coming soon!

Redcar - how I remember it.

Laurel and Hardy keep watch from the Regent Cinema

Redcar is my home town. I was born there and spent the first 20 years of my life living, studying and working there. I have happy childhood memories of the town including visits to the paddling pool on the "stray"(the grassy area that runs adjacent to the coast), being taken to the boating lake with its rowing boats and ice cream vendors, and speaking of ice cream, there was also our annual visit to Pacitto's ice cream parlour - to which we will return and to which I have returned.

As I grew a little older I would play tennis with the other kids from my street in Locke Park or Zetland Park, frequent Tony's Records, a small shop adjacent to the bus station, packed with the latest dance music, and secretly continue to buy coconut ice and chocolate cherry cocktail sweets from Maynards sweet shop on the High Street. The High Street was very different then and boasted bakeries, a couple of wet fish shops, old fashioned butchers, a couple of "boutiques" - I can remember Apache opposite the old Swan Hotel but not the name of the other trendy little shop opposite the bus station - and of course Marks and Spencer, Woolworth and several other dependables.

I finally moved away from Teesside in 1984 and until 18 months ago rarely visited. Some family matters have meant that I have spent a lot more time there recently and of course, there have been many changes. Tony's, Maynards, Marks and Spencer, Woolworth, Apache and the other boutique, the Swan Hotel and several other shops have gone as have a number of pubs to be replaced for the most part by charity shops, pound shops, catalogue shops and at least one pawnbrokers. In recent weeks the old general post office has also closed with a counter service being squeezed into WH Smith to compensate.

During my childhood, Redcar was to some extent dependant on what we then called holiday makers and day trippers and what would now be referred to as tourism. Its a seaside town and people used to come from Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield and other northern cities and towns to spend a cheap and cheerful week by the seaside in a caravan. And when they'd had enough of the beach there were a couple of cinemas, a few places offering live music (the famed Redcar Jazz Club in the Coatham Hotel, also long gone- although I was too young ever to have been there), some rough and ready night spots (including the legendary Top Deck which I wasn't young enough to attend!), the aforementioned parks, an indoor swimming baths, a library, a Lifeboat Museum and inevitably a seafront filled with trashy seaside amusements. Much of this is also long gone.

I am certain that I remember things as being better than they really were but Redcar does seem only a shadow of what it once was. Of course, recession always hits the north-east very hard and many of the former major employers including British Steel and ICI no longer provide jobs for the thousands that once worked there. But when times are hard, its wise to make the most of what you have and Redcar still has a cinema (which many towns of this size no longer have), it has a great new leisure centre (albeit replacing a swimming baths closed and demolished in the late 1990's, leaving the site derelict, good parks, its Lifeboat Museum, and for goodness sake - the beach! You can get a good coffee in the library cafe (although I have to admit the new library seems very pedestrian and uninspiring - and it closes on Saturday afternoons) and Pacitto's is still there too.

The Regent Cinema

The new leisure centre

I said we would return to Pacitto's. Our annual visit was one of the highlights of the year. My mam would have a cup of coffee - very sophisticated then -  and I would have an ice cream gloriously named a cherry temptation, clean white vanilla ice cream with maraschino cherries on top and the tiniest bit of syrup. The ice cream was served in a silver coloured goblet style dish and we sat on whicker chairs at glass and chrome tables. Very Italian and a very big treat. I returned in 2013 for the first time in at least 30 years with my own daughter and grandchildren. You can still get a cherry temptation but today its served as a huge glass of synthetic tasting stuff full of gooey stuff. A bit disappointing. It wouldn't be hard to bring the old quality back in Pacitto's and it wouldn't be that hard to emphasise what the town still has to attract people. The Council might want to consider what nearby Saltburn has done to revitalise itself with quality eating places and encouraging small scale cultural activity to bring life back to the town. Anyone from the Council reading this?

Pacitto's - never mind the lemon top, bring back the cherry temptation!

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